Snake Eaterrrrrr!

I give my life Not for honor, but for you (snake eater) In my time there'll be no one else Crime, it's the way i fly to you (snake eater) I'm still in a dream, snake eater

lyrics to MGS3 title song, Snake Eater

Another lovely game I have managed to play and finish is the very cool Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, or MGS3 for short.

I've not tried the Metal Gear series before... I have my reservations. My gaming TV is a tiny 14" CRT with only 1 sound speaker. Yes I finished MGS3 in a mono sound environment with a tiny TV! Thinking back, I am astonished I managed to pull it off.

MGS3 reprises the series' hero, a stealth agent named Snake. Much of the games focus is on sneaking and springing the element of surprise. You can go around like a doofus and try to do away with your enemies with brute force, but there's no fun in that. Close Quarters Combat (CQC) is the main arsenal in this game. With a revolver or knife, you can do so many things to put the hurt on your opponent. Knock him out, choke him, use him as a meat shield, interrogate him...


Another major arsenal is the tranquilizer gun. A lot of times, this is the preferrable weapon. If an enemy is brought down using tranquilizers, they are knocked out quietly and do not raise alerts to their comrades. You can also use this special gun to hunt for food. Animals captured in this way can be stored in cages, which means they will still be alive and kicking when you devour them. If not, the "food" can rot, and if eaten later, will lose its efficacy and cause you a tummy upset.

Another big part of the game is staying healthy. You got to eat right, else you get tired and can't aim your gun properly. You got to treat serious wounds, else you cannot recover to maximum strength. Realism can get stretchy here... I mean, there is one point in the game, that Snake sustains several broken bones and cuts, but is still able to perform stitches and surgery on himself. That's the escapism of games right? Don't be so cynical, Jack. By the way, Snake's real name is Jack! All the cool characters are always named Jack.... yes, yes they are.


Camoflauge can be obtained by defeating enemies, or picking them up whilst in the mission field. Heck, not every camoflauge is actually meant to be worn as clothes. You can even use cardboard boxes to give your enemies to slip! This was really hillarious, and I couldn't help but laugh out loud when trying this out.



A lot of times, enemy bosses can be dealt with in 2 ways: Drain their life with attacks that wound them, or drain their stamina by shooting tranquilizers at them. If you take the time to drain their stamina, you will usually be rewarded with some amazing camoflauge items. Some make you totally invisible, some restore stamina, some make you soundless...

Oh yeah, the other cute feature of this game is that during the cut scenes, you actually are able to take control of the camera view to a certain extent. So there's this one scene with a female agent, Eva, and she's by a campfire, and she's crawling towards Snake, and she's...

Go play the game and find out yourself.

Some dislikes.... Ocelot. Oh man, after the second time watching him twirl his guns, I wanted to smack his head. It just looks too flashy and showy to be stomached.

I am the Ocelot, king of pistols, watch me twirl and twirl and twirl and twirl and twirl and twirl them!



The other major sticking point with me is that, the First Person View (FPV) requires you to remain stationary. You can imagine how much tougher this makes precision shooting during boss fights. Is this part of the challenge mechanism? All I know was this was such a major pain during the final fight with Snake's mentor, The Boss. Not only is her speed more than double of Snake, her CQC skills are higher too. If you do manage to knock her off her feet, you want to capitalise on her down time and pump some lead or tranquilisers into her. A lot of the time, you may not be able to see her due to your viewing angle. Plus you can't take your sweet time... the fight with The Boss is five minutes tops. Else Soviet MIGs will bomb you to kingdom come.

How's that feel Jack? Pain lets you know you're alive baby....

Of course, do take into account my frustration is probably highly due to the small TV and mono sound that I am playing the game with.

Other than the above, I'll say I had a great time with this game.


Verdict:

Gameplay: *****
Music: ****
Graphics: *****

Odin Sphere

Another significant portion of my life is my Playstation (PS) 2. So it's only right that I blog about some games I've finished playing on my trusty unit.


I still remember the generosity of my friend Kah Jun who lent me his PS1 whilst we were back in secondary school to play Final Fantasy VII and VIII. I am forever in your debt my friend! That got me really hooked. The one fine day, I decided to get a PS2 unit for myself.


So in no particular order, here is my 2¢ on Odin Sphere, a beautifully crafted Action RPG from Atlus. I should mention I have a soft spot for fantasy genre RPGs.

It's been a long time since I touched an RPG with a side scrolling platform feel. I thought it may feel dated and obsolete. Odin Sphere overcomes this with some of the most gorgeous 2D artwork I've ever seen. Every environment is lovingly detailed, sometimes I just walk through the maps slowly to take a look at it all.

You take control of several heroes in the game, all of which give you a gameplay of the same storyline from different points of view. There will be times you co-operate and also battle against the other heroes. Another cool feature is the game has a in-game video timeline tool which allows you to play back all the videos you've seen in the game. So Hero B Event 1 may occur just after Hero A's Event 2. And after you've finished playing all heroes, you can watch the events occur in proper time sequence.

Another big part of this game is alchemy. You'll be finding lots of ingredients around the Odin Sphere world. Some popup from the ground (no kidding!), some can be ground, and if you mix the correct combination of ingredients, you can create new ones. This include useful potions, and food. In fact, there are kitchens and cafes in the game you can visit.

You can find little recipe scrolls throughout the game, and if you bring the chef the ingredients, they can make lovely food for you. Food is great to restore your health and gain exeperience. That's right, eating steak tartare and roasted lamb can give you experience points.

I love the ending battles of the games too. It has a grand finality feeling to it. Although a lot of it felt really tragic, in the end... a lot of the complex RPG storylines are like that. It's not all doom and gloom though... there are some happy moments too.

The music can get a little cutesy at times, especially during meal times. The voice acting is quite decent though.

Everyone should give Odin Sphere a try. I enjoyed it immensely and believe that if you're willing to give it a chance, you will be pleasantly surprised and richly rewarded.

Verdict:

Gameplay: ****
Music: *****
Graphics: *****

This is kind a cool!

If you haven't seen Blinkx before, go have a look see. It loads up about a 2 second animated clip into one of many tiny "tv" screens.

Quite cool don't you think?

Chuan Kie, Gotong Jaya

It was a fact I didn't want to admit. It's so much easier to blog about food than anything else.

So here's another entry from me about food. Went out for a family outing today to Genting. First stop was Lim Goh Tong memorial.


Still amazes me when I think what a huge empire Lim manage to build on our Malaysian mountain side area. First World Hotel is a record holder with > 10,000 rooms.


Above the memorial is a pavillion. Wouldn't this make a nice place for a late night get together?


Next was lunch at Gotong Jaya in Chuan Kie restaurant. There are lots of Chinese eating shops in Gotong Jaya's main street. They all look alike. They all serve roughly the same stuff too. Chuan Kie's distinguishing feature is that inside the restaurant, its walls are plastered full of celebrity photos taken with Chuan Kie staff.


Here's Mr Andy Lau Tak Wah. This picture must be really old, the colour has faded.


Here's Sally Yeh and George Lam. There are a lot more... maybe you can go look for Chuan Kie and have some fun identifying who you can recognise.


Food arrived, and is usual Chinese fare. The dish on the bottom left is "ka fah yok", but it tasted like pieces of fried lard, nothing more. Not for the health conscious. The taste was quite normal too. We had another patin fish dish, but it wasn't too fresh either. And the patin was RM90/kg. Word of advice, always ask for price and freshness before ordering!

Tenji Buffet

Made my way to the spanking new Solaris Mont Kiara. A new business area development comprising of office and shop lots, created with paved roads, pretty landscaping... Done in the vein of PJ's Jaya One. I guess the old trend of having lots of shop lots packed together, with inadequate parking is fading away. Taipan USJ comes to mind as one of those old trends.

I was at Solaris today to sample the Tenji buffet for lunch with a colleague. Comparisons with Jogoya at Starhill are inevitable.


Tenji's built up area is huge and can acommodate well over 100 tables with some private rooms too. There is an indoor air conditioned area and seating outdoors as well.


There are large chef stations throughout the interior, each one doing up a different food or drink. There are plenty of food and drink you can pick up off the counters. There are also food options that require on the spot cooking, so you drop in a little metal marker with your table number printed on it in baskets that correspond to that food choice you want. Once its prepared, someone sends the food to your table.


Undoubtedly, the japanese stuff drew the largest crowds. Do take note that lunch prices are cheaper than dinner, and well... I guess food quality is in proportion to the price. My colleague feels the dinner food is much nicer than today's lunch.


Be careful to read the labels carefully... some are not edible ho ho ho...


I did enjoy this grilled fish that my colleague took for us to share. It is small enough to fit nicely on a skewer and in the belly cavity, there was some egg. Very tasty, the sweet egg was great with the grilled fish meat.


Oysters were fresh too. Dinner oysters are supposedly twice this size.


There are the usual roast lamb, chinese stir fried dishes, sashimi, grilled seafood, tempura etc. The tempura is an order you have to use the metal marker. We made an order for octopus tempura, but it arrived quite cold and was not crispy. Sashimi was quite okay some more interesting choices of scallop, silverfish, abolone, and several types of jelly fish. Dessert are the usual cakes and pastries, with Haagen Dazs ice cream (as opposed to Jogoya's Movenpick).

On the whole, Jogoya's food is more enjoyable I think. But Tenji's restaurant is definitely more comfortable. It is also easier to get to. Tenji's afternoon buffet priced at about RM77++ per person. But I had dinner at Jogoya, maybe it's not a fair comparison... I don't know.

After lunch we peeked at Schokolart chocolate bar's menu. The friendly staff explained that this weekend there would be a pole dancing event in the evenings! Also provided was a free flow of chocolate cocktails. RM75 per head.

Solaris has a lot more to offer than Tenji and Schokolart, and I'll need to explore more of it another day to find other gems and treasures.