Sort of surprising to find the Stranglehold demo on Xbox Live last night. Needless to say, I downloaded it, and had a blast with it. The game is based loosely on the events after John Woo'smovie, Hard Boiled. The show, if you didn't remember, featured none other than the impressible Chow Yun Fat flying through the air and shooting people like there's no tomorrow. Well, this game is basically just that - and it's really fun.

The key feature of Stranglehold is "free-form shooting". It works a little like the combat in the later Prince of Persia series, but because guns do have a longer combat distance as compared to swords, the gameplay becomes really interesting, albeit a little unrealistic. But seriously, I'm not too concerned with realism here, since the shooting is just too much fun.

For example, if you run near a table, you'll automatically slide over it. During the sliding, you can shoot enemies nearby to do some kills. You can also run near a wall, jump up against and away from it, and then take aim to kill enemies above you. If you're near a flight of stairs leading down, you can jump onto the handle to slide down the stairs in, and then shoot whoever is in your way while you're sliding down. And then, there's my favorite - dive forward in mid-air like Superman, and then start shooting people.

All the shooting is possible when you're performing said stunts because time slows down when you do so, allowing you to take aim on any parts of your enemy's body, and start taking them out.

There's also a typical "stand-down" situtation, in which you'll find a couple of thugs surrounding you. Once this happens, time slows again. As they start shooting, you can see, in super slow-mo, the bullets coming at you. Dodge them, and return the favor. After you kill one, tweak the camera and you'll face another enemy. Repeat the process.

After playing the demo for a while, I unlocked the "precision aim" feature. This is, like, uber cool, man. You simply press the "up" button on the D-pad to engage the feature, and the screen will zoom in to an enemy, regardless of how far he is. You can then take aim on any part of his body, and fire away. What happens next is that a bullet will fly towards said part of enemy's body in slow motion again, and blood will flow in a violent sequence as you hit the target.

I particularly enjoy shooting at people's balls with this. It doesn't kill them instantly, I know, but it's sadistic fun.

So, as you can see, the entire shooting is modelled like a, well, John Woo movie, what withthe slow motions and all. The only issue I've is the average graphics. Considering that the game is coming out on the Xbox 360 and the PS3, surely it needs to do better than a Chow Yun Fat that looks like this:



Let's just hope that the final product is as good as the demo. I've already marked its release date: the shooting begins 27th August.

I recently picked up Transformers: The Game for the Xbox 360, and am having some fun with it. Sure, it isn't the most fantastic game out there. In fact, the controls are kind of tacky, the driving and flying sucks, and beating robots does become boring after a while. But it's still The Transformers, and since I've been collecting Transformers toys since the 80s, and have overcame the fugly robot designs from the movie, I think I can stomach a not-that-perfect, but otherwise still ok game.

At least its flying controls are so much easier to handle than the dreaded Just Cause.

I've since completed the Autobots Campaign, and am about 50% into the Decepticons one. I didn't get to play it last night as I had a durians (some fruit) feast at my colleague's father's stall. About 30 of us gathered, and spent over $300 (SGD) on the durians. It was crazy but fun, even though I was stinky and tired after that.

I'll continue with the game this evening. Hopefully I can complete the Decepticons campaign. I also intend to hunt down all the faction symbols (but not the energon cubes, no!) thereafter, so if anyone has good, clear pictures of the maps, please do let me know.

This just in last week - pictures for the Black-Suited Spider-Man from Medicom's Real Action Heroes.

I don't really dare to pose the figure too much, because I've heard horror stories about damaged costume on these toys. Apologies, therefore, if you're expecting more dynamic poses from this baby.

A typical full-body shot to start it all:



Close-up frontal shot. You can see the unique hexagon-****design on the costume's webbing:



Notice the hands are changeable. In the previous picture, I used Spidey's signature web-shooting (left) hand. In the following ones one, he's having his default non-action hands:





And this is with both additional hands on. Notice the right hand is more of a "climbing" hand:



A closer look on the web-shooting hand. It's a little blur, so I had to sharpen it a few times. Was too lazy to re-shoot. Note the excellent sculpting on the hand.



Last but not least, a closer look at the spider insignia on his chest. This also gives a better view of the costume, which is apparently made of a similar material to the one that Tobey was wearing in the movie.



Zoom into the spider insignia of his back. Evil.



And finally, a very close-up look to his head sculpt, thanks to the super macro mode on my new camera. Upon closer inspection, you'll see some imperfect paint applications, especially on the right eye. But this sort of thing is difficult to avoid, especially our eyes have no super macro like my camera.



Overall, this is a high quality action figure. It's more for display only though, since it (the costume, definitely) feels rather fragile when posed. Not for the faint-hearted as well, since the price is pretty steep.

My next target: either Bruce Lee or Ultra Seven. I think probably the latter. I also have a Wolverine in the post from Japan, because HobbyLink Japan are having sale for it. Only slightly more than SGD100.00 to get it shipped by EMS. Last I heard, HLJ has shipped that Wolvie.

New year, and a new great game for the DS. Hotel Dusk: Room 215 is quite possibly an early candidate for DS Game of the Year. Those who knows me will know that I'm a fan of point-and-click adventure games. If you look through my FAQ contributions, many of them are for games of this genre - the two Phoenix Wright ones, Agatha Christie's ATTWN, The Da Vinci Code, Trace Memory and the unfinished Touch Detective (doubt I'll finish that one - will request for a contribution removal, soon). That's like, 50% of all my FAQ contributions!

You see, I've always love a mystery. I've a wide collection of mystery novels, so it's only normal that I find mystery-solving games a blast. Of all these games that I've written FAQs for, I'd say that I enjoy Phoenix Wright the best, but our dear defense attorney has faced a strong competitior this time round.

Yes, Cing's 2nd project (after the brilliant but overly short Trace Memory) is that good. In fact, ever since picking it up last Monday (got it even before some of the US folks thanks to the great Gamescore and DHL), I've spent over 20 hours on it.

I played about four chapters into the game, realised that I'd never have the chance to complete a side quest, and decided to replay it from scratch. Some time into it, I decided to write a FAQ for it, and so I spent more time on backtracking earlier chapters, as well as proceed forward.

Thus far, I've written the walkthrough for chapters 1, 5, 6 and 7. I guess I'll try to add in chapter 2 by this evening before submitting. I've tried to present a very thorough walkthrough, what with ASCII drawings and all, so I hope it won't get rejected like my first Justice for All guide... for having too much space due to ASCII boxes!

In any case, Hotel Dusk is making me very tired, that's for sure. Whatever people say about its long-windedness and all, I don't really give a damn. I mean, it's an adventure game, it's mean to have long-winded conversations. If anyone is gonna fault the game for long dialogues, they should really go back to blasting aliens or something. Not that blasting aliens isn't fun, but it's just a little less fun to me, that's all.

Wish me luck in completing the FAQ.

I was bored the other day, and decided to buy whichever game that the game shopkeeper near my place recommended me first. Now, I don't buy from this place a lot, because its prices are not the best. Then again, it was Friday night, and I urgently needed something to blast over the weekend, so I relented.

Turned out he gave me an option in terms of platform. I chose the Xbox 360, because my recent run with [eM] -eNCHANT arM - (stupid title) ended with not earning the last 300 gamerscore despite beating the Ice Queen no less than five times + getting the good ending. I don't know what went wrong, but I concluded that my save was screwed. But just to be safe, better try another game to see whether I can still earn achievements, so so Splinter Cell: Double Agent went home with me.

Now, I've never played a Splinter Cell game before, but it up ended playing very much like Hitman: Blood Money, which I like. In fact, it's the only game that I've gotten 1,000 points for, and one that I've played for over a month finding out alternative routes to complete the various missions. Anyway, I spent some time on the weekends playing the game (the rest of the time, I was sleeping heavily after some dosage of anti-histamine, for flu). It's more technical than Hitman: Blood Money, that's for sure, what's with all the heavy, vomit-inducing platforming sections (swimming, for example), but the stealth parts of it are really good. I couldn't resist the temptation to finish off some enemies though, so I only managed my first 100% stealth rating level in Shanghai - that's like, the fifth mission into the game.

I hope to spend more time with the game this week, since it's tough to play when you've to be at work at 9am every morning. It kinda sucks when you've a lot of unfinished work to do as well.

Picked up my copy of Final Fantasy III for the DS over the weekend. There was a shipment c***-up from the local Nintendo distributor, resulting in very few copies arriving to our shores. However, since I was one of the very first few to preorder it from the gameshop, I got my copy nonetheless.

My experience so far can be summarized by one word - fun. It has been some time since I played a FF game (it was FFIV Advance, I think), and, since I'm not a fan of the current batch of FF games (those 3D animation things just don't appeal to me as much as an old-school, hardcore RPG). The graphics in the new FFIII, rendered in 3D, are of course beautiful to look at, But it's the immersive experience that makes these games addictive. The job system, despite being really shallow by today's standards, is still very fun to experiment with.

Due to the very addictive nature of the game, I've been spending extended toilet breaks during office hours while trying to level up my party. Thankfully, the boss isn't in today, which allowed me to sneak away unnoticed for some serious gaming sessions in quite comfortable cubicle. I even managed to clear my bowels at the same time.

With that said, time for another trip to the loo. Cheers.

Just a quick note to say that I've completed Marvel: Ultimate Alliance. I mentioned that I may not play it so much due to my current project of writing the Phonenix Wright FAQ, but the game proved to be too addictive (and a little too easy as I progressed) for me to ignore.

Favorite parts of the game: Button-pressing boss fights; Murderworld; Aasgard "Rescue the Gods" mission, Finding Daredevil and Black Panther action figures.

Forgettable parts of the game: Side quests at bases; Comic Missions (yes, I know they're fun, but they take TOO MUCH time - I'd prefer the previous Danger Room sessions in X-Men Legends).

Overall, I'd give this game a solid 9/10 for its sheer attempt to include as many Marvel characters as possible, and some effort in providing fresh gameplay ideas, eg. retro gaming missions (Pitfall, etc.) and Team Management/ Stats. Yes, I do remember complaining about it being dated, but as I progressed, I found many interesting elements that I thought are quite well executed, thus the re-evaluation.

Gotta go back and finish up the Phoenix Wright FAQ though - it has been a week since I beat the game, but I've just been too busy, and lazy.