Duality

if (can’t play Magic Online) {
   sleep;
}
else {
   play Magic Online;
}

So, my new computer’s here (using it right now, in fact; PowerMac G5 DP 2.0 Ghz), but something strange happened a few hours before it arrived.

My house has this hallway with a cut-out that leads upward to a skylight. For as long as I could reach the ceiling, I’ve been running down the hallway and jumping to see how high I could reach. Friday afternoon, I was walking down the hallway and decide to make a conservative jump. In the air, I lightly tapped the edge of the wall that goes up to the skylight. Once I landed though, I noticed that my right shoulder was feeling weird. It didn’t have the strength or stability that it had before I made the jump.

Perfect timing. In a few hours, the computer would arrive and my right shoulder was messed up.

Thankfully, I still had enough strength in it to get the tower on my desk. But what happened to my shoulder? It wasn’t until the next day that I noticed my right collarbone was slightly out of place. How did that result from my conservative jump? Well, I guess it doesn’t really matter. I’m taking this incident as a not-so-subtle hint that I should spend more time being active and less time sitting in front of the computer.

Help guide the future of Duality by answering the following questions. Sorry, no iPod drawing.

Questions

1. What browser do you predominantly use? (specify browser, version, and platform)
2. Do you have a broadband connection?
3. Do you have JavaScript enabled?
4. Would you be willing to enable cookies (assuming you have them disabled like me) for alternate designs?
5. Would you prefer a design that is optimized for 800×600 or 1024×768?
6. What is your favorite flavor of ice cream?

The last ques… I mean the second-to-last question is the most important.

I’m going to keep this quick because it’s already past midnight (had to hack the timestamp to prevent the NATCAR post from being pushed off). Graduation was long and hot. I got sunburned =(. The College of Engineering at Berkeley is so large. We were all dying before the PhDs were finished walking.

All in all, it was cool—not as cool as NATCAR, but cool. Lots of funny names (Jay “Hey, let’s go paintballing” Lin) and on-stage celebrations. My parents, Lloyd, Alexis, and Bigi were there. Bigi wasn’t wearing his orange shirt.

(I know a lot of you are going to be disappointed, but I’m not going to post any pictures of me with other people)

Photos

• Backstage. Moo, where’s my cattle prod?
• Lots of people: 1, 2. Notice how far out the graduate section extends.
• Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google
• My awesome cap design. White paper on top of cardboard for a clean, raised look. (don’t recognize it?)

It rocked. NATCAR 2005 was probably the best day of my undergraduate career. It was competitive, yet there was a comradery among the teams that crossed school allegiances. We cheered on our teams, their teams, the fast cars, and the slow cars. In the end, a team from Berkeley won the competition, but it was hard to leave that place feeling like anything but a winner.

Final Results

1. 34.X seconds: Bryan, Jerry, James (Berkeley)
2. 35.X seconds: Quan, Charlie (Berkeley)
3. 38.1 seconds: Kenny, Philip (Davis)
4. 39.2 seconds: Dexter, Li, Jonathan (< that's me; Berkeley)

(full race results… not updated yet, but will eventually be there)

- – - – -

(Apologies for the grainy-ness of the photos. Something about the lighting didn’t agree with my camera.)

Photos

• Our car: the drifter (same as above). Notice the tape on the outer part of the back wheels.
• All the cars lined up: 1, 2, 3.
• Dual-motor car (rear wheel steering; front wheels don’t even touch the ground): on display, on the track (1, 2).
• Quan and Charlie on the track and checking results. Their car had a remote; in Quan’s (white shirt) left hand in the first photo.
• It’s a table!
• Two test tracks for groups up next.
• The track. And the crowd (Bigi’s in the orange).
• Back in Berkeley, saying goodbye to the lab: 1, 2.

Picts and thoughts from NATCAR 2005 and graduation tomorrow. Promise.

And my Powerbook battery died. Now I have two desktops. And you know, I ordered a third.

Castlevania: Lament of Innocence is a 3D action game like Devil May Cry. Unlike the latter, this game is boring.

You again?
The combat system is full-featured. You can pull off stylish combos involving launchers and aerial maneuvers. You can side step, side step then attack, and double side step. In classic Castlevania tradition, you also have subweapons at your disposal (cross, holy water, dagger, axe, crystal). Each subweapon can be combined with orbs to change their effect.

Sounds great. The problem is none of that is necessary. Most of the enemies in the game can be dispatched with the basic 4-hit combo or a few subweapon attacks. After the first few encounters, combat becomes more of a chore. It never feels like you’re in danger.

Wasn’t I just here?
The level design doesn’t really help the situation. Every room looks the same and every corridor looks the same. Sure, each major area of the game has different textures, but it still feels like the same square room and rectangular corridor. Even worse are the numerous empty rooms and corridors.

Other reviews give Lament of Innocence high marks. Sure, the control scheme is good and you can do fancy combos. But none of that matters: the game isn’t fun to play. It’s an action game that lacks action.

To sum it up…
Castlevania: Lament of Innocence combines unchallenging gameplay and bland graphics into an entirely forgettable experience. For a game that came out two years after Devil May Cry, shouldn’t it be better?

(2 stars out of 5)

For all you Davis people…

Summary
Tomorrow, noon till 4 PM, ARC.

Details
NATCAR is an annual competition held in Davis. Teams from several universities (including Berkeley and Davis) race their autonomous vehicles to see whose will have the fastest lap time. This year, the competition site will be Davis’ Activities and Recreation Center (ARC). The competition will start at noon and end around 4 PM.

(a month ago, I posted pictures of a few of the Berkeley cars at Cal Day; our car is faster now, btw =))

Stop by and see how nerdy we are! =)

About a week ago, I saw an article on Gamespot talking about Wizards of the Coast’s appearance at E3. They were talking about a new update for Magic the Gathering Online coming early next year. Being the curious fool that I am, I decided to look into this online world of which I’d forgotten long ago.

For those of you who don’t know, I’ve been playing Magic since…*thinks*…5th grade? Maybe 4th…Anyway, a really long time. However, after high school, and the occasional weekend to come back and play with Quad and Bigi, I haven’t played in quite a while. So when I was reminded that there was an online version, and that there was a free version I could play, I was ecstatic. I even got my friend Emmy to play with me.

However, as the days went on, being stuck with the same five 8th Edition decks was getting to be quite tedious. So I decided to join full time. I realized that for the 20 or 30 dollars a month I might spend playing this game, the amount of enjoyment that would come out of it would be enormous. So, last Friday, I signed up full time for Magic the Gathering Online. It cost’s $9.99 to create an account, but they then give you $9.99 credit in the card store, so essentially, it’s free to sign up. Then you can go about buying cards and creating decks. I personally bought a Mirrodin Theme Deck called Wicked Big (Green), a Darksteel Theme Deck called Mind Swarm (Black), and a few Darksteel Booster packs.

Emmy also signed up the same day as I did and we’ve been playing eachother quite alot. Unfortunately, my decks still need refinement and so her Blue/White Bushido and Counters deck seems to like kicking my ass. However, I still have some tricks up my sleeve and once my new deck is complete (Green/Black), her little soldiers will be running scared. (Oh, and in case you’re wondering, the picture is of me getting slaughtered by some unknown person)

Like most online games, Magic seem to be very addictive. Not surprisingly, it seems to drag in anyone who’s ever played Magic before. Emmy is trying to get another one of her Magic playing friends to join, and I am trying to get my roommate to join as well. But the one person who practically jumped on this idea the moment I spoke of it, was Quad. And although he’ll need to buy a new version of VPC, he’ll be joining us soon enough.

So now it’s your turn. I know there are those of you out there who have played Magic before. You may have thought you kicked the habit, but it’s always there. Tempting you. Haunting you. Waking you from your sleep, calling to you (Tap me! Tap me!). You might as well give in, and enjoy yourself. And if you do decide to join, please let me know. MtGO has clans and we can all play together.

I think Quad put it best: “It’s like sniffing crack in front of a junkie.” Enjoy ;)

A recent article at Gamespot talks about union voice actors calling for a strike until game publishers offer residuals. Since this is what I want to do with my life, it obviously affects me and what the industry will be by the time I get to join. It’s an interesting article and I would recommend that you read it if you’ve ever cared about the voices in your games. I’ll let everyone know if there are any changes.

A recent article at Techtree has the specs of the new Nintendo Revolution, and let me say that it’s pretty impressive. Four 2.5 GHz PowerPC G5-class processors, a dual-core RN520 with 16MB of frame buffer DRAM graphics processor by ATI, and 512 MB of memory. More information can be found at the article, but all in all, it sounds promising. Now if Nintendo could just learn how to advertise.

If anyone has any songs that sound like, or (if God doesn’t hate me) actually is, the song from the Girls Gone Wild commercials, I need it. Even if you think it only slightly resembles that song, I would love to hear it. If you haven’t heard the Girls Gone Wild commercial music, it’s sort of Jamaican/Calypso party music. Please either leave a comment with a way I can contact you, or IM me at OtakuWakari. Thanks SOOO much!

Just a little more info for the upcoming Mario Party 7. I had mentioned before about the 8 player simultaneous playing, but in my head was thinking about something like a WarioWare, where two people crowd on one controller or something like that. However, recent information (from none other than our very own Quad) has stated that the new MP7 will use the almost non-existent broadband adapter (with 2 Gamecubes and 2 TVs) ala Mario Kart Double Dash. Seems like a definite possibility and I for one can’t wait to try it out at next years Big Birthday Bash.

A new article today at Macworld says that TDK has just developed a prototype Blu-Ray disc capable of holding 100GB of data. With Sony’s new PS3 being the only new console to back Blu-Ray, it seems that they made the right choice. Toshiba’s HD-DVD discs have so far topped out at only 45 GB, which is still larger than my hard drive. *sigh*

I feel like it may appear that I’ve stopped writing E3 posts, but I haven’t. The beginning of the week held all the big announcements, and now its just little things here and there, most of them not worth reporting to you. When big things do happen, I’ll let you know, but most of them have passed by now. However, I’ve written this post to allow you all to comment on what games you want more info on, and I will be glad to provide it. Other than that, there’s not much E3 left. ;)

After watching the Nintendo Press Conference, it appears that Mario Party 7 will have 8 players simultaneously. Sweeeeet…

…wow

I’m posting this before midnight so that the rest of today’s articles stay on the main page. However, this is to inform you that tomorrow I will be taking a small break from E3. “But E3 starts tomorrow”, you say. I know, but so does Star Wars Episode 3 – Revenge of the Sith. So in honor of the final Star Wars movie, I will be having a movie marathon. Here is my day plan for tomorrow:

Episode 4 – 125 minutes
Episode 5 – 129 minutes
Episode 6 – 135 minutes
Episode 1 – 133 minutes
Episode 2 – 143 minutes
Total – 665 minutes
11 hours, 5 minutes

Breaks – 1 hour (15 minutes between each film)

Total – 12 hours, 5 minutes

Start watching at 8:40 AM
Leave home 8:45 PM
Be at theatre at 9:00 PM
Episode 3 starts 12:01 AM

Trailers – 20 minutes
Episode 3 – 2 hours, 20 minutes
Total – 2 hours, 40 minutes

Grand Total – 14 hours, 45 minutes

So, perhaps during those breaks, or during some of the more boring parts of episodes one and two, I may check in on E3, but I can’t promise much. Expect me to be back in full force on Thursday, though (maybe even with an Episode Three review!) So rejoice world, the final installment is at hand.

It was announced today (along with one of the funniest trailers I’ve ever scene) that a new Metal Gear Solid game is in the works for the Playstation 3. I for one am quite excited about this and so are many a fan who thought that MGS3 was going to be the end of a dynasty. Check out the trailer, you won’t regret it.

And to nobody’s surprise, Nintendo is making another Mario Party game. Not that I’m complaining really. And (see image), could this be 8 players? No official word yet, but interesting none the less.