assassin’s creed 2 and brotherhood

Assassin’s Creed 2 picked up where Assassin’s Creed left off. Desmond Miles is still trapped at Abstergo Industries in 2012. Lucy Stillman, who’s played by Kristen Bell might I add, then helped to break him out.

They escaped to an Assassin safe-house where Desmond met Rebecca, who designed Animus 2.0, and Shaun, who’s played by Danny Wallace who has a column in Shortlist. If you live in central London and use the tube often, you’ll know what Shortlist is.

Desmond uses Animus 2.0 to access the memories of a different ancestor this time, Ezio Auditore da Firenze, who lived in Italy. You get to play as Ezio from when he first learns that he is of the Assassin’s Creed until he becomes a true Assassin.

The developers have indeed greatly improved the shortcomings of the first game, which I’ve already reviewed on this blog.

People complained that the first game was repetitive, now Assassin’s Creed 2 has a more varied gameplay. The first game didn’t have a lot of variety in the fight moves, now the second game has even more weapons and moves. You can even counter an attack by grabbing your opponent’s weapon.

It was annoying that in Assassin’s Creed that Altaïr can’t swim. An assassin that couldn’t swim? Quite ridiculous. I’m not a very good swimmer myself, but I’m not an assassin am I? Well now in the second game, the main protagonist, Ezio Auditore, can swim. Hooray.

Assassin’s Creed 2 is a more open game compared to the first one. Plus, there are many more things that you can do. There are several Codex Pages written by Altaïr. Ezio brings these to his friend, Leonardo da Vinci, to decipher. Some of them are cool new weapons such as a double blade and a hidden gun. There’s even a mission where you need to use Leonardo’s flying craft to get to a certain place.

Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood is really good as well. The game gets even better. You’re still playing as Ezio, but he’s now a bit older. Villa Auditore in Monteriggioni is destroyed by Cesare, so the setting of Brotherhood is mostly in Rome.

Since Rome is a very large city, you get to ride horses throughout the whole map. In the first 2 games, this isn’t possible; you can only ride horses outside the city walls. The really cool thing about riding these horses is that you can jump to an enemy’s horse and assasinate him with your hidden blade.

The interesting aspect of Brotherhood is that you get to train some citizens to become Assassins. You first save them from guards who are attacking them. You then send them on missions or “contracts” as they are called in the game.

These contracts will increase their experience points and upgrade their level until they finally become Assassins. Once you have your trainees, you can call them anytime they’re available to help you in your fights or just to kill some guards. Lovely.

Leonardo da Vinci is in ACB as well. If you complete all of Leonardo's 4 missions, you'll unlock parachutes that you can use to glide from high towers. There's also a virtual training mode in the game.

Brotherhood is the first in the Assassin’s Creed franchise to have a multiplayer element in it. There is a multiplayer mode that you can play online. I don’t have Xbox Live Gold so I can’t play this feature. Hmm.. maybe I should get it for a few months? Heh.

Both AC2 and ACB have glyphs hidden by Subject 16, who was/is the last Assassin abducted by Abstergo before Desmond. After finding all the glyphs, it will unlock Subject 16’s “The Truth” message. I actually looked for all the glyphs and solved all the puzzles to get the hidden video.

Please don’t play the following clips if you don’t want to know any spoilers. Here’s the “Truth” video from AC2:

After a lot of time playing AC2 and ACB, I just couldn’t be bothered to look for all the glyphs in Brotherhood. So I just searched for “The Truth” for ACB in Youtube:

There are some talking until 00:40. Then there are some uninteresting scenes where Desmond is climbing and running to get somewhere. Just skip to 12:40 for “The Truth”.

You must be thinking “what the-”, aren’t you? Well, you’ll get a similar reaction to the ending of both games as well, especially AC2. I can’t wait for the next instalment. It will be a different ancestor but there has been no confirmed news yet on what location it will be.

I really enjoyed playing both these games. The graphics are beautiful as was the first one. You still get some glitches where Ezio goes through parts of a horse or a bit of the wall once in a while, but I’m willing to close an eye on that as the games have great storylines as well as gameplay.

Bring it on Assassin’s Creed 3!

games

New xbox360 games on different websites:

	Play.com	Amazon
Assassin's Creed II	39.99	35.98
Assassin's Creed II: Black Edition	108.99	-
Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 2	44.99	40.14
FIFA 10	37.99	29.98
Grand Theft Auto: Episodes From Liberty City	24.99	17.99
Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2	24.99	21.98
PES 2010: Pro Evolution Soccer	34.99	19.99
Tekken 6	29.99	29.99

Lots of good games! Like my friend Hyree mentioned, as students, we used to have lots of time to play games but not enough money to buy them. Now, we have the money but there's not enough time to play them! Haih.

There's an Assassin's Creed II White Edition as well from GAME, currently at £54.99.

There are also more potentially good games coming soon next year like Army Of Two: The 40th Day, Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Conviction and Max Payne 3.

If I'm rajin enough, I'll update the price of these games because they do fluctuate. For example, yesterday at Play.com, Pro Evo was £20+ and a few days before that FIFA 10 was £20+ too. I won’t be surprised that by the time you read this, some of the price has changed.

I’ll try to snap one (or more) of them if a very good deal comes across. *smiles*

21 Dec 09 - Updated price and added Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2 (don't know why I forgot to put that in before).

28 Dec 09 - Updated price. Don't think I'll buy Modern Warfare 2; I'll just borrow it from my friend Arin. Hehe.

29 Dec 09 - Bought Grand Theft Auto: Episodes From Liberty City for £17.99 from Amazon.

11 Jan 10 - Bought a new Tekken 6 for £20 from eBay. Yeay! Also, I've played the Army Of Two: The 40th Day demo. It's similar to the first game, but the screen is split right and left instead of top and bottom, which is NOT good for a third-person shooter game. Boo!

prince of persia

So… I’ve completed my first project. I actually completed the game last week or was that the week before? Well, it’s not important anyway. Before I go on, I need to warn you that this is quite a long post, so if you have no interest in video games whatsoever or if you actually hate them, then just stop reading. That's right, just stop, close this browser, turn off the computer, and go to bed. Now.

Okay, now that we've got rid of those people, let me tell you a brief history of Prince of Persia (PoP). The first PoP was developed by Brøderbund in 1989. It was a 2D game (of course la kan) where the Prince ran and jumped to avoid deadly traps, fought the bad guys with swords and solved puzzles. I think I did play it when I was small, on a DOS computer. That seems to be a long time ago now. In 1994, Brøderbund released PoP 2: The Shadow and the Flame. The Prince marries the daughter of the Sultan of Persia, hence becoming the Prince of Persia. Then in 1999, PoP 3D was released by Red Orb Entertainment. This was the first PoP game that incorporated 3D graphics.

Ubisoft then took over and developed a PoP trilogy (The Sands of Time, Warrior Within, The Two Thrones) much loved by many people. The story is different from the first trilogy. The Prince is actually the prince of Persia (duh!) and he still runs and jumps to avoid traps and fight the bad guys, but this time he’s more acrobatic and the games are all in 3D. The puzzles are really good as well. The main theme of the whole trilogy was about the sands of time, including the implications of altering/slowing/travelling through time. I enjoyed playing them (although I haven’t actually finished playing the third one).

Because I enjoyed playing the trilogy, I was really enthusiastic about the new PoP, which prompted me to buy the PoP Collector’s Edition. The black case is nice but the CD case is just the normal green plastic one, so it was a bit of a disappointment for me. My Gears of War 2 Limited Edition set is much much better, with a metal CD case *big smile*. Ok, back to PoP. Ubisoft released a new PoP game last year, which unlike the previous trilogies doesn’t even mention the words Prince and Persia in the game! The word of is mentioned plenty of time however.

The so-called ‘prince’ is a thief who, while looking for his donkey, gets lost in a sandstorm and meets up with Elika, a princess of a mysterious land. Together, they have to cleanse the land from the ‘corruption’ of the dark god Ahriman. I agree with Hyree that the game is quite easy compared to the Sands of Time trilogy. You’ll see marks on the wall where you’re supposed to jump and the screen becomes pale when you need to call Elika to help you jump. And you can’t even die in the game, which is a good thing I guess, because it will avoid you from being frustated if you just die all the time. The puzzles are simple and easy to solve. I wish they’d be more challenging so that I’ll get that satisfied feeling of completing a difficult puzzle. Also, I miss the running-up-the-wall-and-then-jumping-over-the-opponent-and-then-striking-with-a-sword move from the previous trilogy. But most of the jumping and Elika fight moves are rather cool as well.

Even though it’s ‘consumer friendly’ as mentioned by my good friend Hyree, it was rather enjoyable playing the game, mostly due to its wonderful graphics. It has a water-colour-ish style, but in a 3-dimensional way. And the view after the land is healed is beautiful. There are even Assassin View and Titanic View achievements on the Xbox360. You can also change the skins of the Prince and Elika. The other skins for the Prince are Altaïr from Assassin’s Creed, the Prince from Sands of Time and the prototype Prince, while Elika’s other skins are Farah from Sands of Time, Jade from Beyond Good and Evil and the prototype Elika. Talking about Assassin’s Creed, the trailer of Assassin’s Creed 2 is super cool! Can’t wait to play that later. Oh and don’t ask me about Beyond Good and Evil because I’ve never heard of that game before.

If you want to get Xbox360 achievement points easily, then this is the game to play. You can get at least 700 points by just finishing the game, but you’ll probably get 800+. There are only 4 achievements that I didn’t get (yet?), which are Light Seeds Accumulator, Light Seeds Protector and Light Seeds master, which involve collecting many light seeds, and the Combo Specialist, where I need to have performed all the combos in the game, which I’m not too bothered to do.

In February, a downloadable content (DLC) was released. For those of you who don’t know what a DLC is, it’s just something that the developers of the game make you pay for to play extra hours on an extension to the game. It’s called PoP Epilogue and it continues after the ending of the game. It costs 800 Microsoft points on the Xbox360 which is £6.80 and not something I’d pay to play. So I just youtubed it to know its story. Basically its ending is *SPOILER AHEAD* as bad as the original game, because the developers want to make a sequel to this game so that they can further cash in on our money and I will most probably fall victim to their evil scheme.

All in all, PoP is an enjoyable game and I recommend you to play it, especially if you’re new to gaming. So that’s my first project completed. My side project of sorting out Easter roadtrip photos is also done. I currently have another side project, which is playing Gears of War 2. Why is it a side project? Well, it’s because I only play it on Friday nights with Amir Soldier. It’s not as enjoyable when played alone. Now, my next main project will be…

Reading The Kite Runner!

my projects

Nope, I’m not gonna write about projects at work, or the ones at uni for that matter. It’s a little bit different. Since I have some spare time and I’ve also bought stuff but haven’t used them yet or rarely used them, I decided that I’m going to commit to certain projects in my life.

nope, not this type of project

What is a project? From the Merriam-Webster dictionary, a project is a specific plan or design, similar to a scheme. And what is a scheme? It’s a plan of program of action. Both of them have plan in them. So what is a plan? It’s just a method for achieving an end, or a detailed program. Okay, I think I should stop giving endless meanings of words now.

Basically, by having a project or a few projects, I’ll keep myself occupied and not get bored. So, if I suddenly don’t know what to do, I can just continue with one of my projects. You can also think of it as a to-do list, but that’s a bit boring isn’t it? I’ll have this and that to do, then after doing them, I’ll just tick some boxes indicating that they’re done. However, for a project, I’ll ideally put more effort into doing something, no matter what it is.

Okay, enough gibberish. So my first project will be… wait for it… wait for it… playing the Prince of Persia. You may disagree with me and laugh this project off, or belittle my enthusiasm for these projects of mine. If so…

Pedulik hapa aku.

prince of persia, with its wonderful water-colour-ish animation

Anyway, one of the reasons I thought about this project thing is that I’ve actually bought the game in November or December last year but had only started really playing it a couple of weeks ago. That’s a long time isn’t it. I guess I was preoccupied with other stuff.

Also, it’s something that I enjoy doing, so I think it’s rather a cool project to commit myself to. And I do a little bit of research as well on how to get certain achievements in the game so that I’ll certainly maximise the time spent on playing the game. If you’re thinking ‘Ak ela, semangat gila mamat nih,’ then please refer to the quotation above the Prince of Persia picture.

Another project that I’m currently doing is to sort out the photos from my Easter roadtrip. I went to Bath, Bristol, Tintagel Castle, Lands End, Eden Project and Stonehenge with some friends a month ago and I still haven’t sorted out all the photos from other people’s cameras. We went to a lot of places so you can imagine how many photos there are, hence many unnecessary photos will have to be deleted.

us at tintagel castle, cornwall

Other projects in the backlog, in no particular order, are as follows:

1. Read The Kite Runner (which I bought last summer)
2. Read The Heirs of the Prophet Muhammad (which was also bought last summer)
3. Play Star Wars: The Force Unleashed (which was bought last year)
4. Play Kungfu Panda (hmm.. I seem to have bought a lot of stuff last year)
5. Study some engineering stuff related to work
6. Study history (interesting ones of course)
7. Read and understand the tafsir
8. Watch every f1 race this season if possible
   
9. Cook stuff from the recipe books that I also bought last year
10. Go back home for Raya!
11. Go travelling somewhere
12. Movie or series marathon?
    
13. More exercises and workout maybe?
14. Learn a new skill and/or polish up existing ones
15. Volunteering

See, it’s not just fun and games. You need to develop your skills not only at work but also for yourself, your life. I won’t need to draw up Gantt charts for my projects or do proper and detailed planning, but I’ll have things to do that I hopefully will enjoy. Oh there’s a Batman: Arkham Asylum game coming out and I am so gonna play it, so that should be on my project list I guess. If you’re thinking ‘Geek gila mamat nih,’ again, please refer to the quotation somewhere in the middle of this post..!

sale?

There's no doubt that everyone has heard of that word before. While some people don't take notice of them, there are also those who worship sales anywhere. I'm more towards the ignoring sales group. One, I'm not a shopaholic, and two, I'm a bit cautious with my money (usually). I guess this is due to me not having a lot of money when I was small, and hence the act of saving became a habit to me.

I'm not saying I don't buy anything. Gila ke apa. However, I do think we should always live within our means. So if you're not rich, don't act like one. And if you are rich, then, urm, I guess you can act like one. Just don't forget to pay zakat. And maybe belanja unrich people like me once in a while. Just kidding of course. Well, maybe not.

Currently, there are sales everywhere. And it's not even Boxing Day yet. It's probably due to the credit crunch. The retails want to boost their sales up and hence are forced to cut the down the prices. Even the VAT has been decreased to 15% until the end of 2009. I suppose the 2.5% reduction isn't a huge drop but it's still significant. Every penny counts.

I guess the government reduced the VAT so that people and companies don't suffer so much. Maybe they think that the cut will encourage people to spend and hence 'stimulate' the economy. But it may bring a false sense of reality where people don't feel like the economy is down and merrily spend their money like nothing's wrong. Or maybe they are aware of the current economical situation but want to drown their sorrows by shopping. Oh if you're looking for shoes, go to Clarks at Oxford Street, near Oxford Circus (I tolong promote ni, Kat, hehe).

Many people seem to go shopping online nowadays, and who wouldn't. The discounts are sometimes ridiculous. I've already bought a Prince of Persia game plus some other goodies at a good price. Hehe.

I've been eyeing the Xbox 360 for a long time now and currently the best on offer is from Amazon. If you buy a 60GB one, you can get a free HDMI cable, a selected game for £10, plus an Xbox 360 Wireless Entertainment Pack which contains an Xbox 360 wireless controller and 2 games for only £20. So in total, it would be less than £200! Oh did I mention the free delivery? There's a very high possibility that I'll be buying one anytime soon and I'm gonna choose Star Wars: The Force Unleashed from the list of discounted games. Actually, I would prefer to buy Pro Evolution Soccer 2009 or Gears of War 2, but they're still a bit expensive. I'll just have to be patient.

Arin's Xbox 360 is already here in my flat, but my brothers keep playing with it, so maybe I should buy my own one. Karang rosak pulak Arin punya tu. Hehe, thanks Arin! Ah yes, my parents and 3 smallest brothers are here in the UK. So to those who want me to belanja them, I'm sorry but this month my gaji is for my family (and myself!), unless you're going to give me a birthday present of course. Hmm, just a few more weeks to buy one. And I've already hinted what I want. Haha perasan nya aku, dah la nak benda2 mahal je, ish ish ish.

Well, anyway, it's time for bed. But maybe I should go 'boost the economy' before I go to sleep...

assassin's creed

Assassin's Creed is a third-person stealth game by Ubisoft, released near the end of 2007. I didn't buy it then of course. Too expensive. I bought the game second-hand from eBay last month and have already finished it a few weeks ago.

altaïr the assassin

The setting at the start of the game is in a building belonging to Abstergo Industries in September 2012, where scientists Warren Vidic and Lucy Stillman are working on a project. By the way, Lucy was modelled after and voiced by Kristen Bell. You'll play Desmond Miles, whose ancestor was Altaïr ibn La-Ahad, a member of the Hashshashin, an Assassin Brotherhood, during the Third Crusade of the Holy Land.

altaïr in action

According to the game, the memories of one's ancestors are hidden inside one's DNA and that's why Desmond, also called Subject 17 to Abstergo, is being held there. The company, which is actually run by the Knights Templar, wants to extract information from Desmond involving his ancestor Altaïr. They can do this using a machine called the Animus, which enables the user to replay the memories of his/her ancestor(s) if (s)he was there him/herself.

So that is actually the premise of the game. You're Desmond who's being held in the machine called the Animus, replaying the memories of his ancestor, Altaïr. Altaïr's objective in the game is to assassinate nine historical figures in the year 1191. According to the game's developers, these assassination targets did die in 1191 but not necessarily murdered. In the game, some historical changes were justified by Warren saying that the historical records were altered by the Knights Templar to deceive anyone studying the past.

hmm.. where's the shopping centre?

Now Altaïr needs to kill these men because according to his leader, Al Mualim, the men are taking advantage of the crusade for their own benefits. Before assassinating them, he needs to gather information of their whereabouts and activities to plan the kill. To do this, you'll need to find informers who'll ask you to help them for information. You'll either have to kill some guards or collect flags within a period of time. Besides that, you'll also need to eavesdrop on some conversations, interrogate some preachers and pickpocket letters or maps. After you collect enough information, you're ready to perform the assassination.

You can also save citizens being harassed by soldiers. After saving them, there'll either be vigilantes in that area who will help you if you are being chased by soldiers or a group of scholars where you can blend yourself into to go past guards. You also need to map the cities that you go to by climbing up tall view points. You can then perform the leap of faith, which is jumping from a very high place and landing in a bunch of hay.

proving he's not afraid (of heights) by performing the leap of faith

Although it gets a bit repetitive, I still enjoyed the game. Its uniqueness is that you can climb up walls and towers and run on rooftops. The movements are quite smooth when you get used to it. If you've played Prince of Persia, then you'll be familiar with some of the moves in Assassin's Creed, since they're produced by the same company and also developed by the same people if I'm not mistaken. Oh and there'll be a new Prince of Persia game which is coming out soon and I'll be looking forward to that.

Okay back to Assassin's Creed. The graphics are beautiful. Of course, most games have really cool and more realistic graphics now that there are the Xbox 360 and PS3. You can really enjoy the view of the cities at the tall tower. Even Dini and Wan Aimran praised the graphics when they saw me play. What a bad host I am, playing video games when there are guests in the house!

take that you scum

The fight moves are okay, but there isn't much variety. You can use a hidden retractable blade to perform assassinations and also a sword or knife in fights. There are combo moves when fighting, which are cool, but sometimes Altaïr and/or his enemies go through walls or a nearby tree or rock when doing these combo moves. But I do like the counter attack moves. They're really neat.

There is something that I quite don't like about the game. Altaïr is a trained assassin, who can climb walls easily and clever at blending in the crowd to get unnoticed, but he can't swim. If he falls into a river or the sea, he'll just drown. Come on la, a well-trained assassin should know how to swim. I can't swim of course but I'm not an assassin am I? Heh.

All in all, it's a good game. The ending is a bit mysterious and I really hope that there'll be a sequence to the game to explain the mystery. And if there is one, I hope that there'll be more combo fight moves and Altaïr/Desmond has learned to swim.

grand theft auto iv

GTA IV is an action-adventure game which was released this year by Rockstar Games. It's a sandbox-style game, meaning that the missions can be completed in a number of different sequences. Of course, any guy out there surely would have either already played the game or want to play it or at least heard of it before, since it's a very male-centric game.

Anyway, I got to play GTA IV after Pear bought a new Xbox 360 which included 2 games: GTA IV and Bad Company. Thanks to Fairuz for his Xbox 360 which I used to play with before Pear's. Oh and thanks to Pear as well for buying the console. Ehe.

i need your car

In the game, Niko Bellic is an Eastern European guy who comes to Liberty City after being persuaded by his cousin Roman who claims he was living a very good life in America. Of course, when Niko gets there, he finds that his cousin was just talking big. Roman's apartment was small and his business wasn't that big either.

So initially, Niko helps Roman with the troubles he had with some contacts, and the game expands from there; Niko is introduced to other characters which he helps to earn money and from these characters, he meets other people and so on.

kaboom

I've finished the storyline missions and I must say that it's very good. Even Colin who doesn't play these games was attracted to the story. In some missions, you need to make a choice and there will be consequences. The ending will depend on what path you choose. I've already played both endings but I won't spoil it to those of you who haven't played it yet.

There are also side missions that you can do in the game. Some of them can help you play the main storyline missions. To complete 100% of the game, you need to finish most of these missions as well because the storyline is only 60% of the game. I'm only on 75% and there's plenty more things to do, such as meeting random people who have little missions of their own, performing stunt jumps, shooting pigeons and plenty more. Oh and there are also the Xbox 360 achievements that I can do. These challenges are spread out all over the islands in Liberty City, so I guess I'll be finishing the game with a laptop nearby showing me where these places are, because it'd take a very long time to try to find them all on my own.

time to put this weapon to good use

The Rockstar team has done a really good job in creating the game. I can't help but be mesmerised by its beautiful graphic, especially when flying over the city in a helicopter. The attention to detail both in the graphics as well as the behaviour of all the elements in the game have made the game truly astounding. Yes, the picture is a bit cartoony but I think they intended to make it that way.

When shooting, the cover system is quite good and the automatic lock on the enemy is cool as well. But you also need to try manual targeting if you want to do plenty of headshots. Muahahaha (gelak jahat). Niko's mobile phone is used to call people (duh!) to initiate some missions, to invite people to go out and so on. You can also restart failed missions by replying messages. This will save you the hassle to go to back to the mission starting point.

catch me if you can

There are a lot more things that can be written about the game, but it's getting long now. I suggest you go read the game reviews (which I suppose most of you would have already done by now). I really like the game but I'm not very happy with the movement of Niko when on foot, which I feel is not very smooth. Other than that, the game's brilliant. So, that's all folks. Now, to finish the game... or maybe not yet because I've already started another game, Assassin's Creed. Heh.

army of two

Like its name suggests, Army of Two is a game focusing on a team of two people who are private military contractors or mercenaries, Elliot Salem and Tyson Rios. They were in the US 75th Ranger Regiment before joining the Security and Strategy Corporation (SSC), a private military company. Army of Two is a third person shooter game, which for me is much much better than a first person shooter (less pening) and it's especially made to be played by two people. Well, you can play alone because your AI partner is quite ok, as in he won't die easily and he'll follow your commands, but it's a lot more fun playing with a real buddy.

Okay, let me talk about its graphics first. Awesome! It's as nice as Gears of War (and much better than Kane and Lynch). The water texture is beautiful. But of course, you can't just admire the well-designed graphics and drop your gamepad when playing the game, because then you'll get killed by the enemy. Now about the controls, they're a bit slow when aiming but quite okay overall (again, better than Kane and Lynch).

What makes this game very unique is its Aggro. What's Aggro? Basically, it means attention, as in if you're shooting the enemy, then their attention will focus on you, so your Aggro will be higher than your partner. If you have a bigger and more powerful weapon, then your Aggro will be higher as well. There's an Aggro-meter in the screen where you can see how much Aggro you have. Well, what's the fuss about this Aggro thingy? If a player's Aggro is very high, then all the attention will be on him, and his partner will then be 'invisible'. The 'invisible' partner can then sneak up behind the enemy, or snipe them from long range or do any other strategical manoeuvres to defeat them.

help, i need somebody, help, not just anybody, help

If you get shot, you can regenerate your health by staying away from the line of fire. But if you keep getting shot, your screen will turn red and it's very difficult to see your surroundings. Then, you'll 'die' temporarily and you won't be able to move around anymore and your partner needs to come help heal you. He can drag you to a safe place to heal you and while he's doing that, you can still shoot enemies so that your partner doesn't get shot while healing you. If you're dying and you don't have enough time to find cover to regenerate your health, you can feign your death so that the enemy won't shoot you anymore, but if you do it again, they won't be fooled twice and they'll definitely make sure you die.

There are many instances in the game that require two people to do. There's the step jump, where a player helps his partner get up a wall and once his partner is up, he is then pulled up. There's also the co-op snipe, where the 2 players snipe one or two targets at the same time. This move is cool if you want to take out two guards at once, or if you want to blow up a gas barrel or tank. When parachuting and driving, one player controls the parachute/hovercraft while the other shoots or mans the turret respectively. If you're controlling the parachute, you'll need to stabilize it so that your partner can aim and shoot properly. But sometimes it's still difficult to shoot even though the parachute is very very stable (and somebody learned it the hard way *cough* Marwan [bukan nama sebenar] *cough*).

back to back

The back to back manoeuvre is really cool. It's like that ending scene in Mr. & Mrs. Smith where they're surrounded and they just shoot all their enemies while they're back to back. Well, in the movie they didn't get killed, but in the game, you can get killed if they keep on shooting you. What? You haven't watched Mr. & Mrs. Smith? Then, too bad for you, you now know the ending. Heh.

Another unique thing about the game is its weapons system. You can't pick up weapons as you go along, you can only pick up ammunitions. The weapons need to be bought. There's a wide range of weapons to choose from and they can be upgraded once you buy them. And if you have a lot of money, you can even 'pimp' your gun, which means that your weapon will have a gold/silver coating. Cool. You can also waste your money by buying masks, which doesn't make any difference to your stats. Hyree and I have already pimped many of our weapons and we've also bought masks for our characters. Money wasters!

For me, the bad thing about the game is that most of the enemies are Muslim terrorists. There are even suicide bombers in a mission in Afghanistan. They come barging at you before exploding literally in your face. These terrorists really give Islam a bad name. So sad.

Anyway, we (Hyree, Ammir, Pear and me) have all finished the whole campaign each. Once you've finished, you automatically own all the primary weapons available. Hyree and I have already started playing the game again using the hardest level, Professional. We've finished the third mission and there's three more to go. Oh we've also finished playing Halo 3 last week, or was it the week before. It's a first person shooter game, so I wasn't pretty much interested to play, but main je. The game was quite okay though. Marwan's currently playing Army of Two with Ammir now. He still hasn't finished it yet, but he's nearly there. Hmm, I'd better plug my ears while he's finishing the game. Heh.

poynt wezt

Ammir and I bought Marvel: Ultimate Alliance about a couple of weeks ago. It's an action role-playing game (RPG). If you don't know what RPG is, don't worry. Xde masuk exam pun. If you don't know and still wanna know, there's always Answers.com. Marvel: Ultimate Alliance is a game where you control Marvel Comics superheroes to perform missions in order to defeat the evil Dr Doom's team of supervillains, the Masters of Evil.

The good news for us (me, Ammir, Hyree and Pear) is up to four players can play the game at the same time. It's played on one full screen, which means the TV screen isn't split into how many people are playing. But the bad news was we only had three controllers, so there was usually one observer.

mari kita belasah orang jahat ni beramai2

In the game, you can have your own team of superheroes, where you can increase your team's performance based on the points that you collect. After experimenting with different characters, we chose Wolverine, Human Torch, Deadpool and Captain America as our team members. It was time to pick the team name...

Ammir: “Chamberlain United dah ada. Point West la pulak.”
Hyree: “I tukar la jadi Y dalam Point.”
Ammir: “Gedik nya.”
Fadhli: “Alang2 nak gedik, tukar S jadik Z dalam West tu.”
Pear: (Hanya mampu pandang slack dan ketawa.)

So there it was, Poynt Wezt. Make sure you pronounce it properly: “Poynt Wezzzzzzzzzzt”.

poynt wezt (from left): wolverine, ghost rider, the human torch, deadpool. captain america and thor were busy fighting bad guys while this photo was taken.

As we progressed, we added Ghost Rider and Thor to our gedik squad. You have to make sure that your team has a good balance of different powers to ensure that the whole team don't die easily. I usually used Wolverine because he heals quickly and his melee attacks using his claws are cool, and the Human Torch because he could fly and has a controllable fire projectile. Pear liked Deadpool, Hyree used Captain America and Ghost Rider, while Ammir preferred Thor.

We had already finished the game last week. It's kind of open-ended, meaning certain choices that you make during the game have their own consequences. Pear has just bought a new blue controller, so boleh la main 4 orang skrg, try characters lain pulak, and main the 'hard' level.

On another note, we've finished playing Kane & Lynch: Dead Men, but the game's not worth an entry on its own. Game tu x best. Nak control x best, cerita x best, even the different endings weren't satisfactory. The only good thing about it was its sniper zoom. Memang sedap la guna sniper. But overall, Hyree couldn't wait to finish it so that he could sell it. Heh.

chamberlain united

pro evolution soccer 2008

Football is a great game. Watching and playing it is fun, especially if you have great company. And playing a football computer/video game is a lot of fun as well. I like both the Pro Evo and Fifa series of football games. Pro Evo has a very good gameplay, while Fifa has very good graphics. But if I had to choose between the two, Pro Evo would be the one for me.

The Master League in Pro Evo is excellent. We'll play a football team consisting of very sampah players and use them in the league and cup tournaments. Pear, Ammir and I created a team called Chamberlain United in the Master League. Last year, when Firdaus was here, he named it Chamberlain CF. You should be here enjoying Pro Evo 2008 with us, Fil!

The original players in our team were terrible; the likes of Giersen, Minanda, Dodo, Jaric, Ordaz, Castolo, Ruskin, Burchet, to name a few. So we had to get a couple of players with our limited budget to help our squad. I chose Park Ji Sung and Kezman. And Ji Sung has been the captain of Chamberlain United ever since. Yeah, go Park go!

Usually, 2 of us control our team. And when Ammir singgah rumah, the three of us all played. Of course, it's very frustrating when our terrible players can't pass where they're supposed to and frequently lost the ball to the opposition. So when the first transfer window opened, we bought Mexes, a big, strong defender, Coppola, a defensive midfielder, Rubén Olivera, an attacking midfielder and Exposito, a sideback. And we also loaned an experienced goalkeeper, Rüştü Reçber because Ivarov is damn bad. Since then, Olivera has been one of Ammir's favourite players. If the ball falls to Olivera and Ammir's controlling him, he would run past defenders and attempt to shoot, and most of the time it would go in. Go Olivera!

“i am very proud to be joining chamberlain united and in mr fadhli, they have a great manager”

At last, we won Division 2 and were promoted to Division 1 although there were many restarts due to some losses. Ehe. We bought new players to strengthen our squad for the new season: Kim Yong Dae, a keeper, Radoi, a central defender, Huddlestone, a midfielder and Cavenaghi, a striker. So now we had more good players to reduce our frustrations of terrible players losing the ball too easily and tiring quickly. Oh, and we also changed our jersey from white to black. From being innocent to being dark and mysterious. Heh.

We won many games, but there were also draws and losses of course and the occasional restarts. During the midseason transfer period, we bought Guardado, Rosino and Gavilán, all versatile midfielders. Now with a pretty good squad, we can challenge for the Division 1 League and Cup trophies. And in the next season, the Champions League Cup (or whatever it's called in Pro Evo 2008). Go Chamberlain United!

*This entry is dedicated to Firdaus, who I'm pretty much confident has his own Master League team right now. Any suggestions of good players to buy, UltraFil?*

gears of war

Ammir bought the game Gears of War online and it arrived on Tuesday. Pear and I were still in college when he told us the good news. It was already evening then and Pear was so excited that he went straight to Ammir's apartment instead of going home.

I was very hungry so I went home first. On the way, I met Hairy who was on his way to Ammir's. I was excited too actually, so I packed my dinner and brought it to Ammir's. When I arrived, Pear and Hairy were already playing the game, so I ate my dinner while watching them play.

After eating, Hairy let me play. I'm not used to playing third-person shooter games, so it made me dizzy for a while. And I kept getting killed as well. Hehe. The good thing about playing the 2-player co-op mode is that if you get killed, your partner can revive you by tapping you on the back. Weih bangun la, lembik betul mati2 ni! And, we can also use unique and cool flanking manoeuvres to defeat the enemy.

we gears are shootin' them hideous locusts

In the game, Player 1 is Marcus Fenix while Player 2 is Dominic Santiago. They are both soldiers or ‘gears’ of the Delta Squad who are fighting to save the human inhabitants of the planet Sera from a relentless subterranean enemy known as the Locust Horde.

The plot is simple, but the gameplay is fantastic. And playing it on Ammir's HDTV makes it the more satisfying not to mention beautiful. Another cool thing about the game is it doesn't have a health bar. Instead, there's this Crimson Omen, a cog shaped icon which grows brighter to indicate increased damage. If the skull come out, then you're dead. If you want to play, I recommend using the chainsaw bayonet. It's damn ‘nice’ finishing your enemy with the chainsaw. Oh the irony.

Well, after 3 nights plus 1 afternoon, we've finished the game in Hardcore level. So that's that eyh. Nah, now we can play the Insane level. More enemies, easier to die. Are you insane enough to try?

paradise won

Yeah! We've won the Burnout Driving License!

In case you're wondering, the license upgrades are as follows:
Class E License -> Class D License -> Class C License -> Class B License -> Class A License -> Burnout Driving License.

Basically, we've won the game, but still haven't completed all the events. We've won 60% so far. To get the Burnout Elite License, we need to finish all of them. Banyak tu.

road rage

It's been a week now and we're really enjoying the game. I personally think it's terrific. It's better than Burnout 3 in a way. There's a lot of freedom in choosing which routes you want to go to. That's good in Road Rage, but in a Race, it's a bit of a disadvantage. It's hard to look at the roads and the little map at the bottom corner at the same time. That's not much of a problem though if you have your mates watching. They can be your navigators while you're driving.

There's also the Super Jumps, Smashes and Billboards to be crashed into. And Showdown... fuih..

"Macam hantu kat jalan." - Hairy

Well, it's time to play Burnout until we burn out...

cheesecake 1.0 beta

theme: precious peach

my preciousssss

Sorry for the lame theme. Haha. So I've finally made a cheesecake yesterday. I wanted to make a pineapple cheesecake, but Hanafi said he didn't like pineapple, so I went for peach instead.

I had two recipes to choose from. One from Zeehan, which I had obtained quite a long time ago, and the other from the book Nigella Express. I decided to mainly use Zeehan's recipe, but I also had a look at the other one. So it was a little bit of mix and match. Konon terer la nk ikut resepi suka2 hati. Hehe.

The verdict:

• Rasa cheese kurang
• Rasa almond extract lagi kuat daripada cheese
  
• Rasa peach lagi kuat daripada cheese

So somehow the almond extract 'overpowered' the cheese, even though I only used 1 teaspoonful. I'll try using less next time. So what flavour should I make next? Hmm..

paradise and takedown

Pear bought Burnout Paradise (Burnout 5) yesterday, because we (Pear, Hairy, me and some occasional help from Ammir) have already completed most of Burnout Takedown (Burnout 3). Well, Hairy and Pear were the ones who completed most of the events, to be honest.

It turns out that Burnout 5 is a 1-player game, so we can't play Takedown against each other. Boohoo. But the graphic is great. Lawa gila. It's a bit different from Burnout 3, but eventually we did enjoy it.

Just yesterday, we upgraded from Class E to D to C to B in the game. That's a lot of events completed, in just 1 day. Dah la kerja banyak sebenarnya ni. Haih.

And Afied is currently in London with her friends. They came by my house last night. Faizal was also here. And they didn't play Burnout like Kesum and Anum, but they watched a movie instead, Flushed Away, a computer animated British film.

"Dah datang London, kena la tengok movie yang based kat London." - Faizal.

tired eyes after a long day sightseeing in london

And today, we had a friendly football game at Regent's Park. IC vs Westminster. During the game, I felt a mild strain in my right thigh. Damn, should've done my stretching longer. It still feels lain macam now, but should be ok by tomorrow.

(And FINALLY I have my jersey back.)

Oh wait, it must heal by tomorrow, because I want to go to the Linkin Park concert with a healthy leg. Macam laa nk lompat2 masa konsert. Heh.