ESWC 2010: The Clock is Ticking

3 days left. After 2 years of absence, DotA is finally back on arguably one of the biggest international lan tournament, Electronic Sport World Cup, which officially starts this Thursday, 1st July. A total of 16 teams will participate in the tournament, coming from winning their respective qualifier or simply obtaining invites from the ESWC. It's really sad that we can't see one of the best team (if not THE best) in the world, LGD.SGTY as they lost the qualifier against EHOME, while the likes of Kingsurf and Starsboba were also unable to go due to sponsor issue/delay in application. I guess we can only wait for the likes of SMM and Loveen's World Cup later this year if we want to see more Asian powerhouse participating.

A brief history: The last time Dota was featured in ESWC in San Jose, USA in 2008, 8 teams participated, 2 of which were Asian teams, Malaysia's Kingsurf and Singapore's Zenith. Both team manage to reach the final after easing through European and American powerhouse like MYM, SK, EG and TEG, which ultimately won by Zenith. I still remember the final game where Beastmaster's Gem virtually wipe out Kingsurf's map control, with Yamateh's Weaver getting chased by Necro's pulse until out of the base. It was a final to forget though as both team played defensively. Prior to the tournament, more Asian powerhouse like XcN and EHOME were denied their visa to go to the tournament for various reason, which disappoint many fans. Well in the end, the only 2 Asian representative did met in the final.

Anyway, the group stage have recently been released:

sauce: gosugamers

I like the seeding system used this time, because the distribution of teams were rather balanced. AEON/MYM; DTS/Nirvana.int; LOST/OK and EHOME/Nirvana.my as the favorites to top each group. For sure, I'm loving the fact that MYM and 2008 Champion AEONsport (aka Zenith) grouped together, as this simply reignites the bad blood between the Maelk and Hyhy.

Really can't wait for 1st July to come : D



links:

• ESWC official site
• Gosugamers general information

Thoughts: White Knight Chronicles

This is going to be a short one for first impression

White Knight Chronicles​ (白騎士物語 -古の鼓動-, Shirokishi Monogatari: Inishie no Kodō,l"White Knight Story: Ancient Heartbeat") is a fantasy role-playing video game developed by Level-5 and Japan Studio and published by Sony Computer Entertainment for the PlayStation 3 which was released in Japan on December 25, 2008, and was released in North America on February 2, 2010. It is Level-5's first project for the system. As of August 8, 2009, it has sold 350,000 copies in Japan. At TGS 2009, a sequel entitled White Knight Chronicles 2 was announced.

White Knight Chronicles is presented in third-person perspective. The player can freely choose which character to control. Like most other RPGs, the characters gain experience points and level up, becoming stronger over the course of the game. Level-5 conceives White Knight Chronicles as having 100 hours of gameplay, a length Akihiro Hino considers to be a full length RPG, going against the pressure to make White Knight Chronicles a launch title and cutting the story short.

The story of White Knight Chronicles begins in the kingdom of Balandor, where a princess' coming-of-age banquet is raided by an evil organization called Magi. A boy called Leonard grabs the princess' hand and leads her to safety in the castle cellars, where he finds a strange suit of armor that transforms him into the White Knight – an ancient warrior with the strength to defeat Magi's forces. This marks the beginning of a life-changing fantasy experience, fighting against the fiercest enemies.

The motive behind the kidnapping is due to the princess' ability to unlock any of the five knights (which she is unaware of at first). The leader of Magi is a general called Dregias. Nobody knows what Dregias looks like, because his body and face are hidden under his dark armor. What is known is the fact that he is capable of transforming into the winged Black Knight, Ebonwings.

Title: White Knight Chronicles
Platform: PS3
Genre: rpg
Developer: Level-5

This game was recommended to me by Rid because of the online feature, which then made it among the games that I first bought when I purchase my ps3 back then in March, along with FFXIII, PS3's Vesperia and Star Ocean 4 Int. But a lot of things happened and it took me quite some time before I finally decides to get started with the game, so in the end it was not until last weekend that I finally able to try the game. Playing for about 5 hours (just reaching the Desert), I finally get a grip of the gameplay, a bit of the story and some if not all of the features offered in the game.


Gameplay: too much hassle to explain, so a video would be much better. Briefly, the game features third person real time battle (similar to, for example Magna Carta). You can attack enemies by basic or advanced attack/slash which varied with weapons, or create your own combo by combining single attacks from the same type of weapons. Up to 3 characters can participate in battle, and we can freely switch characters whenever we want.

Each pros in this game seems to have their own cons.

• You can create your own characters for this game in very detail, but it looks to me that s/he is barely important in the main story. I personally never use my created characters once I got 3 party members (Leonard, Yulie and Eldore) and bin the characters I created to the reserve.

• Overall the battle system was nice with all the combos offered, but the fact that the ATP gauge (or whatever it is called) took awhile to charge really slows the battle down. And, everytime we level up, we get skill points to learn new skills. This means you need to re-customize your command tray if you want to fit in your new skills. Too much hassle, I guess.
  

• Incorruptus is cool. It was sorta like your main hero transformed into some gundam to beat the crap out of the huge enemies. Ok, I exaggerate. The bad thing is that they cost a lot of Action Chip (AC) to use, and at this early stage of the game, AC takes time to replenish.

• A lot of weapons and customisations for you to try. Sword, 2-handed sword, spear, bow, axe, magic, you are free to choose your path. Weapons can also be customised/upgraded, but it looks to me that the upgarde bonus is not that huge.

• The story was okay, but to be honest it was not really my cup of tea. It was too cliche of your oh-so ordinary-boy-gaining-superpower-and-saves-a-princess style adventures you find in fairytales.

• The online feature, Georama was nice, unfortunately I really don't have much time to venture into the realm myself. They're mostly to do quests which are not related to the main story, but grant some very nice rewards.

That's all I could say about the game, I guess. Overall I do think that White Knight Chronicle is a pretty nice game to play, offering decent gameplay and good online feature. That being said, I probably won't touch this game for a few weeks in the future, at least not until I'm done with my uni assignments and finishing Valkyria Chronicles :3 Maybe I'll replay the game from the start.

WC10: Bowing out with pride

The World Cup 1020 South Aftica has finally entered the knockout stage.

The World Cup 1020 South Aftica has finally entered the knockout stage. There's no doubt that a lot of shit is happening in this world cup. The lack of goals in the earlier group games except in certain games; then big teams underperformed with some surprise "giant killings; and the Vuvuzelas to ruin the beautiful game, although the new toned down model kinda eases the ear pain.

Surprising (not) that both 2006 finalists Italy and France went out as early as the group stages. France repeated their failure in 2002, crushing out of the group stage after just reaching the final 4 years before. After all the fuss about Henry's handball that cheat them to this World Cup, you would not be surprised that the tournament turned out this way for them. Anelka bust up and sent home, team refusing to train, then even losing against South Africa? Karma, what goes around comes around. As for Italy, although they have some good talents, in truth they were never that good as a whole, with all the old legs in their team. Their last game against Slovenia was really good though.

The big teams underperformed. England, with so much expectation placed on their shoulder, only managed to scrap 1 win and 2 draw, in fact they never show convincing performance in all 3 games, although their play improved a bit against...well, Slovenia. Spain meanwhile lost against Switzerland in their first game, bounced back and won the remaining 2 games. Tbh they could easily won the first game if they didn't waste too much time trying to play beautiful and passing the ball too much. Then, Germany also unexpectedly lost to Serbia, but they had a man sent off (Klose, a harsh first yellow), but underperformed is not the right word for them. It's more of a bad luck in that match. That being said, other big teams like Argentina and Holland didn't disappoint by winning all their group games, more or less convincingly.

As Australia's supporter, obviously I am disappointed that were heading home early, but I took pride with their performance in this world cup. The first game was something to forget to the least, getting raped 0-4 against the Germans, but the team bounced back and battled hard in their next two games. But in the end unlike WC2006, the 4 points that we earn (1 draw vs Ghana and 1 win against Serbia) is not enough to get us through to the second round no thanks to the large goal difference from the first game.

Plus, we had a tough luck in this World Cup. Tim Cahill was harshly sent off in the game against Germany for a tackle that wasn't as bad as the two dangerous tackles made by Holland players in their first two games which went unpunished/only got a yellow card. Thanks to that, we're missing Cahill in the 2nd game against Ghana, in which we draw 1-1. Again, another of our key player, Harry Kewell was sent off because of handball in the penalty area. It was indeed a penalty, but IMO the ball went to his shoulder/upper arm and you can see he clearly try to use his body to block the ball from going into the next, but the ball was too fast and swing away to his right upper arm. Another man missed in the next game. But the third game against Serbia, which I didn't expect a win given the strong defense of the opponent; turned out to be a good game in the 2nd half, with the Aussie coming down from a goal down to win the game 2-1. Great game.


Anyway, I would say that the World Cup has becoming a bit more interesting after playday 1, with more goals being scored, small teams making a surprise package (Slovakia went into the 2nd round in their first ever World Cup lmao), while the vuvuzelas were less annoying than they were in the opening week.
Now, time to enjoy the rest of the world cup. I don't have anyone in particular that I would want to support wholeheartedly (as I did with Australia), I'm just looking forward to "good games".

till next time

Tales of Vesperia ~The First Strike~

Finally! I was waiting for the movie for nearly 9 month before the Blu-Ray and subs were released :D

Tales of Vesperia: The First Strike (テイルズ オブ ヴェスペリア 〜The First Strike〜) is a 2009 Japanese animated film directed by Kenta Kamei and written by Reiko Yoshida. It is the prequel to the game Tales of Vesperia and the first animated feature film in the Tales series. It was released in Japan on October 3, 2009. While other Tales games have been adopted into other media, this is the first Tales game made into a film. The source game's theme song, "Ring a Bell" (鐘を鳴らして, Kane o Narashite) by Bonnie Pink, was reused as the movie's theme song.

Tales of Vesperia: The First Strike takes place a few years after the end of the Great War before the events in Tales of Vesperia. The previous Emperor had just died and his position remains vacant with no heir appointed before his death, however the world seemingly remains in a state of peace. Utilizing the power of a powerful substance known as aer the people of the planet Terca Lumireis are in an age of discovery and prosperity. The crystallized form of aer which is known as Apatheia, is considered to be a very powerful energy source as it is essential to human life. In order to protect towns from attacks by monsters large amounts of Apatheia are being produced to create barriers around towns.

One day in a deep forest near the town of Shizontania, Yuri Lowell and Flynn Scifo, two knights who have just joined the Niren Corps, together with two of their senior knights and fellow Corps members, Hisca and Chastel, are sent on a mission to investigate an abnormal gushing of aer in the area

• trivia: Just want to note that the info above (sauce Wikipedia) is not quite accurate, as while concentrated Aer does indeed form Apathea, this entity never existed or used in the movie, not until the video game where Apathea was formed through crystallization from Entelexeia (all these are terms from the game which does not make sense for non-player, but in short, the article actually refers to Blastia, and not Apathea).

As summed above, Tales of Vesperia ~The First Strike~ tells the events happening a few years back before the game took place which eventually leads to Yuri resigning from the Knights and live at the Lower Quarter as we saw at the beginning of Tales of Vesperia, the game.

The movie starts off with the basic of Vesperia – the aer, blastia, though they leave things like Core, Aer Krene etc until midway through and never dwelve into game-specific terms like Apathea and Entelexeia. Together with Flynn, Yuri joined Knight of the Imperial and were stationed in a rural town called Shizontania. The town currently faced trouble in that the aer concentration around the area increased drastically due to experimental Blastia located in an ancient ruin located near the town, causing negative side effects to plants and monsters aggression. And so they went to investigate the cause of the aer abnormality, with some surprise awaiting them... In the end, we never really know what’s the blastia in those ruins and never given the chance to visit those place in the game, at least in the 360 version.

The movie was about 2 hours long, and all I can say is that the movie is totally awesome. Really good animation, it has pretty mnuch the same design as the anime cinematic in the game, but with somewhat polished environment and side effects. The spells used early in the movie when they terminate all those horde of monsters were awsm, kinda like the infamous Indignition lol.

New characters were introduced in the movie, and one of the highlight would be the ponytail twin Hisuka and Chastel (the bigger one LOL). Funny that the only way to distinguish both of them is by their bust size. There's also the a few other knights in the town and peoples from the guilds that we never saw in the game. Meanwhile, some major game's character plays little to no role in this movie. Estelle appeared for about 2 minutes talking to Flynn; Raven with his usual guild work and disguise; Alexei was worse than the "good-attitude" commandant we saw early in the game; Rita only appeared to give some advice and Blastia that helps with the ruin investigation. NO Judith. NO Karol. NO Duke. And NO Droite and Gauche :( Well, not that they matters.

Original music compositions were used for the movie. None of the bgms from the game were used, except a few that I remember like the early bgm and of course, the ending song which was the game’s original theme. I just realize that the lyric of Japanese translated ED song is totally different than the English song (Ring a Bell by Bonnie Pink) used in the game. Overall I do prefer the English version though.

On a side note, I see Yuri still maintains his sword-flipping skill that he always done after each combo in battle. Didn’t realize at first that was fighting without any blastia, no wonder we were not shown any Artes usage by both him and Flynn in the whole movie (except those final battle). With the amount of monsters and bosses in this movie, I would not be surprised if someday there will be a short game based on this movie/story. Oh and Repede chibi made me LOL. He just can’t stop chewing something in his mouth :3

Overall, I am very satisfied with the movie, it explains a number of stuff that makes the game a bit more clearer, especially regarding Yuri and Flynn's past; a bit of Repede's past; the sources of Yuri's Bodhi Blastia (what a sad story) and why he come to resent the Knights of the Imperial. Comedy and humor, sadness and touching moments all mixed well. Really good movie overall, a good watch for people who like adventure/fantasy anime, and totally a must watch for Tales of Vesperia fans.

Niren: “The larger one’s going with me”

Yuri: “You said the larger one, but they’re the same height, right?” LOLOLOLOL

p/s: there’s so many animated scene of the game cutscene in the ED. Implying there would be Vesperia TV series??? AWSM!

World Cup Double

Finally, after 4 years. Today is the day. The 2010 FIFA World Cup officially started tonight, one that every football fans have been waiting for. The biggest stage of world footballl for players and fans equally. Although it was a busy week for me, I'd definitely spare a bit of time trying to catch as many matches as I could even though many of them will be played in the moning, which means I'll probably be having trouble going to my lab on the next day.

As for team I would support in this World Cup, I'd be rooting for Mala- err I mean Australia Of course it is hard for them to repeat their feat in 2006 by reaching the knockout round, as Germany (obviously), Ghana and Serbia are not easy opponents. But hopefully they could pass the group stage and pull off some Giant Killings (*cough*).

Talk about the big guns, we often see the likes of Brazil, Spain, Argentina and England being tipped as the champion. Well it really is hard to tell because there are many things happened before the tournament begin while some teams underperformed in friendly matches. A tough call between the giant teams, and who knows there might be unforeseen champion like Italy did in 2006.

Nevertheless, good luck to all participating nations.

p/s: the theme song by Shakira sucks

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That's one World Cup. So what's with the "Double" World Cup? There's another World Cup being held just as FIFA World Cup went underway - the Electronic Sports World Cup, ESWC.

info - ESWC Paris official site

The E-Sport version of World Cup, featuring gamers across various games - CS, Warcraft, Fifa, Quake, and of course, DotA. I am definitely looking forward to this tournament, arguably the most prestigeous LAN tournament (although Malaysia's annual SMM Tournament are much more happening and offer much more prize money) featuring players from all over the world. 16 teams will be taking part in the tournament, and among the list, I am looking forward to the games between the giants, especially EHOME, LGD.YS (aka AEON/Zenith) and our own Malaysian representative, MUFC (so sad that Kingsurf can't go because of sponsor issue).

Too bad that SMM 2009 Champion, LGD.Sgty will not be able to attend the tournament as they lost China qualifier to EHOME. I really think that they deserve a spot in the tournament ahead of many other invited/Qualifier champions like both Tribal. I mean, the Germans easily got 2 invites for LAN and OK without having the need to go through all the qualifier, but LGD, arguably one of the best team in the world at the moment, have to content with 2nd place in the qualifier. I know that country with qualifier will get no invites, but it just feels unfair that a team of their quality were not able to participate in such tournament. Rules are rules, eh..

Anyway, ESWC Paris Grand Final, 1 July. Looking forward to that date!

Katanagatari 03 'Sentou Tsurugi' Audio CD

Title: Katanagatari 03 'Sentou Tsurugi' Audio CD
Artist: Aki Hata
Release date: June 2010

tracklist:

01 Senhon Senjo no Jinkyuuka
02 [刀語キャスト] あとがたり 「千刀・鎩」篇 完全版
03 [湯屋敦子] 第零話 「虚刀・鑢／第三章」

Download [mp3]: [mirrorcreator]

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If you ask me, I would say that this song (Senhon Senjo no Jinkyuuka), aka Katanagatari ep3 ED theme song was pretty weird. How should I describe it... feels like the song is out of sync, or doesn't have specific rythm. But I still like the song, regardless.

Katanagatari 02 'Zantou Namakura' Audio CD

Title: Katanagatari 02 'Zantou Namakura' Audio CD
Artist: Shoujobyo
Release date: May 2010

tracklist:

01 Refulgence
02 [刀語キャスト] あとがたり 「斬刀・鈍」篇 完全版
03 [宮本充] 第零話 「虚刀・鑢／第二章」

Download [mp3]: [mirrorcreator]

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Katanagatari episode 2 ED theme song, Refulgence by Shoujobyo. Love the song, for me it was as good as the episode 1's ED theme (Yousei Teikoku's Tasogare no Getsuka).

RD's Replay of the Month - June

Events: WCG Asian Championship
Maps/version: Dota-allstars 6.67c, version 1.24e
GameMode: -cm
Length: 67:40 Minutes

replay download: [gosugamers/replay.net]

rating: *********

This match was played yesterday, and in an instant it got massive attention from the dota community. Why? It's all about LGD's star carry, ZSMJ.

• Playing as Medusa, he got 720 creep kills in total (minus neutrals). He basically singlehandedly almost outfarm the ENTIRE scourge team. Insane ricing. Linken Manta Butterfly in 35 min, no problem.
  
• TWO Divine Rapier bought by him to outcarry the farmed Sven and Drow on scourge. THough he didn't have both rapier in his inventory as he died and dropped his first rapier, buyout and bought another rapier. Show just how much gold he had from the massive farm. Such a bold desicion to buy Rapiers, against team like EHOME.
  

Kinda remind us to his Phantom lancer back then in SMM 2009 Loser bracket game against Kingsurf. Losing Sacred Relic in 16th minute, yet he still manage to farm another relic within the next 8 minute. This man's farming ability is ridiculous.

That being said, the sentinel played brilliantly, especially 2009's Doom who almost always Doom the right Hero in team clash. And one might wonder why BM took the Rapier instead of Drow. Overall, although there are much farming in this replay, it was quite intense and the movement and planning coming from both teams were almost flawless. That's to be expected from the top two Chinese team (or possibly the world).

looking forward to ESWC!

Fatigueness

warning: random rants

The last 2 weeks were rather depressing for me because of multiple reasons. First, my LR cloning transformation for my RNAi experiment wasn't working well, getting no colonies in my first attempt while the 2nd attempt resulting in unconvincing plasmid being transformed into the E.Coli. I am doing my FIFTH attempt at the moment, and hopefully I get the right construct this time (my fourth attempt had some positive results). Man, cloning really sucks when you didn't get the right thing (ーー;)
The second cause is the bus. Yes, the Adelaide Metro bus here is a pain in the butt when it comes to non Go-zone or weekend/public holiday. Last Saturday I had to go to the lab in order to prepare some stuff for plasmid mini-prep, but it took me 2 hours alone just to get bus to the campus, and 3 hours to get bus back home, seriously wtf? I swear I won't go to the campus on public holiday/weekend anymore, at least not by public transport -_-

Oh well, at least things aren't as bad as I thought it would turned out. Need to finish this cloning ASAP before I can proceed with the actual hairy root Medicago transformation. Then there's also Honours essay, seminar and thesis that I need to complete before the end of the year ＿|￣|○

Last Rebellion ED Single - Saigo no Michishirube [Shimotsuki Haruka]

Title: Saigo no Michishirube /Last Guidance
Artist: Shimotsuki Haruka
Street Release: Feb 2010

Tracklist:

01 Saigo no Michishirube
02 Kii te ha Ikenai Uta
03 Saigo no Michishirube off vocal
04 Kii te ha Ikenai Uta off vocal

download [mirrorcreator]
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Feel like sharing this. When I finished Last Rebellion, I heard a very familiar intro from the ending song, and then this song from Shimotsuki Haruka rolls. Wow, to be honest although I long have this single in my possession, I have no idea that it actually belong to Last Rebellion game (iI was boldly written in the folder title as "Last Rebellion ED single" but I didn't really pay attention to that) . Download it on a whim months ago, and I have to say that this single is one that spark my interest in Shimotsuki Haruka and her dojin musics, I really love the ending song Saigo no Michishirube in this single. Well, if you're familiar with the likes of Kukui (eg Rozen Maiden and Shinkyouku Polyphonica) and some of Sound Horizon's songs (eg Atelier Iris), then you would probably know the kind of songs you would expect from her.

p/s: also recommended is her album Griotte no Nemurihime.