Star Wars: The Clone Wars "The Rise of Boba Fett Ultimate Battle Pack"

I need to get the above mentioned battlepack as soon as I can. Period.

Wife's Birthday

Today is Wifey's birthday so I took the day off to spend time with her and our little princess. I have not been blogging recently due to my busy work schedule. Time spent after work is for re-energizing my self, as well as to keep my daughter company. Anyway, this week has been pretty good so far. I managed to pick up some action figures which I have been hunting for high and low from Robinsons @ Centrepoint this monday. They are:

Star Wars Clone Wars Kit Fisto
Star Wars Clone Wars Mace Windu
Star Wars Clone Wars Mandalorian Warriors Battlepack

Very excited to finally be able to obtain them. Will put up some pics once I get my camera up and running again.

Today, we had a family dinner at a Thai restaurant at Funan and boy was the food excellent! I strongly recommend those who like Thai food to give that outlet a try. It on level 4, near the escalator (Challenger side). I also managed to pick up Demon Souls, a PS3 game that I have been eyeing for some time. The version I snagged was the greatest hits version so it come by relatively cheap. Read many excellent reviews about the game so I am going to finally be able to see if those ratings are justified.

All in all, a very good start to the week. =)

Back to Gaming

By now, those who read my blog would have known that I am playing Final Fantasy 14. I have not really gotten much into the game other than doing quests and running around like a headless chicken. Will dwell more into the MMO in future. I also bought the new Medal of Honor (MOH) game for the PS3 and even though, in my opinion, it is not as good as the Call of Duty (COD) series for the campaign mode, the multiplayer mode more than makes up for it. Developed by the same team that did the "Battlefield" series, MOH online is a joy. Controls are tight and easy to manage. Maps are well-spaced and yet allows frantic action. I am having alot of fun killing the bad/good guys, depending on which faction you are assigned. I strongly urge FPS lovers to pick this up, even if it just for the online mode. To be honest, the campaign mode ain't that bad and there are a few classic moments in the game. One which I like in particular was the part where the Taliban fighters were over-running us, we were running out of ammo, and death seemed like the only way out. Then, all of a sudden, some apaches appeared out of nowhere and saved our sorry asses. That was classic! Pls try this game! I can't wait for COD: Black Ops to be released too as I am an FPS freak! But till then, MOH will be taking up my gaming time.

The Bug Hits!

My whole family is falling ill recently. Wifey is having her usual morning sickness (which will most likely last through the first trimester), and my little princess is having flu. It pains me to see her coughing and having a running nose but I guess this is all part of growing up. It seemed like only yesterday that Kaylee was born but looking at her now, I can see that time really flies. She will be turning two soon and next year, she will be starting play school. My second one will also be born next year, so I guess there will be more things to worry about in 2011! Being a parent is not easy and I can understand alot of the stress that parents go through nowadays, something which I didn't understood when I was still a kid. I am glad that my parents brought me up to be the man I am today and I will certainly do all I can to provide for my kids until the day they are old enough to take care of themselves.

24 Hours a Day is Not Enough

I know I have not been blogging as much as I would like, and I have yet to show you readers more of my awesome toy collection. I really feel that 24 hours a day is insufficient to do things which I have planned to get done. More likely, it could be due to my poor time management but other than work and family, I hardly have the time or energy to do other stuff. Even my toy collection is being neglected as I hardly pose my figures to provide some dynamism to the display.

And today, just when I wanted to post some pictures of a cool toy I purchased recently, I realized that the new CPU casing I bought does not have come with the slots for the various memory cards my camera utilizes. Ok, I admit I can still post the pictures by transferring them to my HD via the USB cable but I am too darn lazy to find the cable. Will post the pics when my mood to do so arises again.

I have been spending some time during last weekend trying out the new Final Fantasy 14 Online game and to be honest, I am not really that impressed with it. The graphics is really nice and the characters and area maps are really interesting, but the gameplay feels kinda sluggish. During battles, lag seems to be a problem as you only see your character reacting to the button you pressed about 3 seconds ago. While synthesizing/mining etc, there are many steps to go through before actually carrying out the process. It might be Square Enix's way of making the game unique but to me, it just feel painfully slow. Instructions are also not that clear at times and I had to walk around like a lost soul, frequently checking the online guides to get some clue as to what I had to do. These are just my early impressions with the game. Hopefully the experience improves as I dwell more into the world of Eorzea!

"Eorzea Here I Come!"

And so, the day has finally come to get involved with another MMORPG. Had lunch with Wifey at Funan Centre today and right after that, it was on to the game store to purchase the latest Final Fantasy adventure to hit town, FINAL FANTASY XIV Online! Spent about 3 hours downloading all the latest patches to ensure that my gaming experience will be an enjoyable one. However, there was one big problem. My graphics card was so ancient that it didn't even meet the minimum requirements (I thought I had that covered when I bought the game. Realized I mistook my GC as meeting the requirements). So I did a 5min research on the internet and decided to plonk down almost $400 on a Nvidia Geforce GTX 460 1GB card. Pretty retarded, but thats besides the point (btw the game only cost $70 >.<). And then I had another issue, my power supply was not that "power" afterall. Sooo, I have to head down to the store again tomorrow morning to get a new power supply and at the same time get the kind folks there to help me install everything. Anyway, I managed to run the game on my crappy card and I am still amazed at how good the game looks.

Check out some screenshots:

The packaging

Screenshots from the opening movie of the game

The character I created

Do note that my 256MB card was running these graphics! I really can't wait to see the difference when my new card is up and running.

Will post more in-game pics in due time!

Final Fantasy XIV Online

I have not been keeping up to date with video games ever since my little princess was born. Was just aimlessly surfing the net recently and realized that a new MMORPG is going to be released this week (30 Sep). Yup, as the topic heading shows, its FINAL FANTASY XIV! I believe the collector's edition is already out in the market but being the "cheapo" me, I will just go for th e regular version. Gotta say, I am pretty excited about this release as I love MMORPGs. Been a huge fan of Final Fantasy XI online as well as World of Warcraft. Even though there is a monthly fee involved, it is a little sum to pay compared to the endless fun the games provide (as long as you have the time to play it). I have not really done much research on this game but if it is somewhat similar to FF11, I'm sold! The only nitpick I had with FF11 was that you need to form a party before being able to take on most of the monsters in a certain area after level 10 onwards. The time spent to set up a proper party can be excrutiatingly painful at times. Hopefully, Square Enix has made improvements in this aspect. Looking at the in-game screenshots allows one to appreciate how beautiful the graphics are and judging from the games Square Enix churn out, they are not lacking in that department. Now, I need to decide if I should get this game when it is released on Thursday, or wait for further reviews by gamers before taking the plunge. Decisions, decisions!

I am unable to get proper screenshots but do visit the official website (http://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/) if you are keen to find out more about this brand new adventure!