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I had unwisely played the Gamers Heart Japan tribute last night in the hope that it would lull me to sleep. Two hours later, I found myself wide awake typing notes on my iPhone with the video replaying in the background. One of the quotes that really stuck was that of Tim Schafer’s.      “Wow, all of my favorite games are Japanese. Why is that?” Wondering if this was true for me as well, I quickly rattled off to myself what I consider to be my favorite games. The following games immediately came to mind: Final Fantasy Street Fighter Resident Evil Metal Gear Solid Megaman Mario Surprisingly, all the games I thought of were Japanese made. Only with a little more though was I able to come up with Starcraft, Warcraft, Diablo, Portal and Tetris. Perhaps I already had bias towards these games when I encountered Tim Schafer’s statement. Tim appeared well into the video tribute, and five of my six top-of-mind games were already mentioned by other industry personalities prior to him. So maybe there was some brainwashing involved. I personally would also attribute it to nostalgia bias. Anything you loved as a kid carries a lot of emotional weight, so an otherwise objectively mediocre game because supercalifragilisticexpialidociously amazing. As it so happened, Western developers only became competitive against Japanese developers in the last decade or so. So Japan, without a doubt, had a monopoly on my attention as a child. So there’s that to factor in as well. So I guess, what I’m really trying to determine is whether or not I like Japanese game more than Western games. I guess not. But whether or not the Golden Age of Japanese game development has come a past, the child in me will always love Japanese games the best. Thanks Japan.

I had unwisely played the Gamers Heart Japan tribute last night in the hope that it would lull me to sleep. Two hours later, I found myself wide awake typing notes on my iPhone with the video replaying in the background.

One of the quotes that really stuck was that of Tim Schafer’s.

     “Wow, all of my favorite games are Japanese. Why is that?”

Wondering if this was true for me as well, I quickly rattled off to myself what I consider to be my favorite games. The following games immediately came to mind:

  • Final Fantasy
  • Street Fighter
  • Resident Evil
  • Metal Gear Solid
  • Megaman
  • Mario

Surprisingly, all the games I thought of were Japanese made. Only with a little more though was I able to come up with Starcraft, Warcraft, Diablo, Portal and Tetris.

Perhaps I already had bias towards these games when I encountered Tim Schafer’s statement. Tim appeared well into the video tribute, and five of my six top-of-mind games were already mentioned by other industry personalities prior to him. So maybe there was some brainwashing involved.

I personally would also attribute it to nostalgia bias. Anything you loved as a kid carries a lot of emotional weight, so an otherwise objectively mediocre game because supercalifragilisticexpialidociously amazing. As it so happened, Western developers only became competitive against Japanese developers in the last decade or so. So Japan, without a doubt, had a monopoly on my attention as a child. So there’s that to factor in as well.

So I guess, what I’m really trying to determine is whether or not I like Japanese game more than Western games. I guess not.

But whether or not the Golden Age of Japanese game development has come a past, the child in me will always love Japanese games the best. Thanks Japan.

My new babies. As you can see from the wallpaper, I decided to go with God of War 3 first. Graphically, am not blown away - Uncharted 2 beat it to the punch - but man the stuff they do in this game cinematically is completely new and completely amazing. The expert use of DOF and blur effects - and other things that my untrained eye surely missed - really makes certain scenes look like miniature sets. I literally wanted to reach out and touch certain things in the game. The visuals are by no means realistic, but the camera work is some of the best I’ve seen.

My new babies.

As you can see from the wallpaper, I decided to go with God of War 3 first. Graphically, am not blown away - Uncharted 2 beat it to the punch - but man the stuff they do in this game cinematically is completely new and completely amazing. The expert use of DOF and blur effects - and other things that my untrained eye surely missed - really makes certain scenes look like miniature sets. I literally wanted to reach out and touch certain things in the game. The visuals are by no means realistic, but the camera work is some of the best I’ve seen.

I’ve never heard of Kings of Convenience before yesterday. Regardless, we watched them at concert last night, with front row center seats I might add. I’m definitely a fan.

Mrs. Cold was an early favorite. Check out the live performance here. http://drp.ly/Ds12T

Just as a side note, the S90 was a really smart purchase. Amazing low light photography. Will post more pictures in Facebook most likely.

As per mom's request, a peek at my pad.

Reminded me of my dog Ace. Miss you boy. Oh yeah, and an amazingly shot ad too.

"I wanted to run away that day. But you can’t run away from your own feet."

- “Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs”

Alright, enough of the Singapore stuff for now. After all, there’s nothing I love talking about more than video games. Not the games themselves per se, but really the lifestyle that comes with it - the lifestyle I live. Let’s be clear, I don’t play video games, I love video games. That is not a statement of opinion, but of fact. The picture above is proof of this. While the average person would boast of his or her shelf of books, I have my shelf of video games. To be honest, as thin as DVD or Blu-ray cases are compared to books, my collection of games is way thicker than my collection of books. (Well, it also helps that I’m not much of a reader.) The games shown above are the latest additions to my collection, the product of my last trip to Singapore. (Hmm, I could have used this as a good segue to move away from the things I’ll miss from Singapore, but forgive me if I’m too lazy to do any edits.) Of the four games, Demon’s Souls will have to be my favorite purchase. Something tells me that’s it’s going to be much more of a collector’s item in the future than the other three. Sucks that I had to settle for Modern Warfare 2 on the PS3. Don’t have a rig to play the PC version, so this’ll have to do. Hopefully the shelf will be joined by FFXIII, God of War 3 and Heavy Rain real soon. Will keep you posted.

Alright, enough of the Singapore stuff for now. After all, there’s nothing I love talking about more than video games. Not the games themselves per se, but really the lifestyle that comes with it - the lifestyle I live.

Let’s be clear, I don’t play video games, I love video games. That is not a statement of opinion, but of fact. The picture above is proof of this.

While the average person would boast of his or her shelf of books, I have my shelf of video games. To be honest, as thin as DVD or Blu-ray cases are compared to books, my collection of games is way thicker than my collection of books. (Well, it also helps that I’m not much of a reader.)

The games shown above are the latest additions to my collection, the product of my last trip to Singapore. (Hmm, I could have used this as a good segue to move away from the things I’ll miss from Singapore, but forgive me if I’m too lazy to do any edits.)

Of the four games, Demon’s Souls will have to be my favorite purchase. Something tells me that’s it’s going to be much more of a collector’s item in the future than the other three. Sucks that I had to settle for Modern Warfare 2 on the PS3. Don’t have a rig to play the PC version, so this’ll have to do.

Hopefully the shelf will be joined by FFXIII, God of War 3 and Heavy Rain real soon. Will keep you posted.

Alright, another thing I’ll miss from Singapore is The Cookie Museum. I should clarify that statement by saying I don’t miss the restaurant itself, but rather what I feel it represents about Singapore. You see, Cookie Museum is what is sounds like - a posh, high-end place to eat and buy cookies in. The restaurant, or perhaps more correctly, the cafe itself is littered with gold tables, and gold chairs of Victorian inspiration if I remember my history correctly. Of course the cookies are no less extraordinary. Made from ingredients the likes of rose petals and lavender, it makes cookies made with macadamia sound cheap and pedestrian. (They have cookies with macadamia and various other nuts of course.) Needless to say these are pretty unique cookies, and with a price tag of 40 SGD a can, which you can easily finish in one sitting if you really wanted to, they’d better be. It’s really neat how a lot of “flavors” (do cookies come in flavors or kinds?) are limited editions too, and by this I don’t mean seasonal. The cafe constantly experiments with different combinations of ingredients and spices, and are not afraid to make it available to the public. The cans in the picture are actually some of the limited edition cookies that may or may not make it permanently to the menu. They have some creative names for their flavors too, an example of which is Fat and Famous. Reminds me of Ben & Jerry’s actually. Oh, and forgot to mention, these cookies are such a hot tourist attraction that at your request, they’ll line the inside of your can with bubble wrap so that the cookies won’t crumble and fall apart during transit. Let that sink in for a bit. Cookies put in bubble wrap. Crazy. While I truly enjoy the nutty cookies, as well as the ones that have seasonal fruit in them, I find myself wondering whether I’d rather find myself stranded in an island with a bag of Soft Batch or a can of Fat & Famous. Honestly, I’d go for the Soft Batch. Going back to my point. I think The Cookie Museum represents one thing more than anything else - luxury. Flowers don’t necessarily make the best cookie ingredient, and personally I’d much rather have dark chocolate in my cookies any day, but who would pass off the opportunity to eat cookies with flowers in them?

Alright, another thing I’ll miss from Singapore is The Cookie Museum.

I should clarify that statement by saying I don’t miss the restaurant itself, but rather what I feel it represents about Singapore.

You see, Cookie Museum is what is sounds like - a posh, high-end place to eat and buy cookies in. The restaurant, or perhaps more correctly, the cafe itself is littered with gold tables, and gold chairs of Victorian inspiration if I remember my history correctly. Of course the cookies are no less extraordinary. Made from ingredients the likes of rose petals and lavender, it makes cookies made with macadamia sound cheap and pedestrian. (They have cookies with macadamia and various other nuts of course.) Needless to say these are pretty unique cookies, and with a price tag of 40 SGD a can, which you can easily finish in one sitting if you really wanted to, they’d better be.

It’s really neat how a lot of “flavors” (do cookies come in flavors or kinds?) are limited editions too, and by this I don’t mean seasonal. The cafe constantly experiments with different combinations of ingredients and spices, and are not afraid to make it available to the public. The cans in the picture are actually some of the limited edition cookies that may or may not make it permanently to the menu. They have some creative names for their flavors too, an example of which is Fat and Famous. Reminds me of Ben & Jerry’s actually.

Oh, and forgot to mention, these cookies are such a hot tourist attraction that at your request, they’ll line the inside of your can with bubble wrap so that the cookies won’t crumble and fall apart during transit. Let that sink in for a bit. Cookies put in bubble wrap. Crazy.

While I truly enjoy the nutty cookies, as well as the ones that have seasonal fruit in them, I find myself wondering whether I’d rather find myself stranded in an island with a bag of Soft Batch or a can of Fat & Famous. Honestly, I’d go for the Soft Batch.

Going back to my point. I think The Cookie Museum represents one thing more than anything else - luxury. Flowers don’t necessarily make the best cookie ingredient, and personally I’d much rather have dark chocolate in my cookies any day, but who would pass off the opportunity to eat cookies with flowers in them?

Awwww.

So here’s CG and her kittens. CG is named after College Green the student housing village for NUS students near the Bukit Timah campus. The three kittens are named after various buildings in the school. The names of these buildings escape me, but needless to say these are pretty odd names for cats.

Anyway, it’s pretty special to see these cats in Singapore since strays are heavily regulated in the city, much like everything else. So it was really cool to see them in my last visit. So cool I thought that I took so many pictures of them. These are just a select few from a collection that must be around 40 images big.

Oh, and did I say… aaaaawwwwwwwwwww…

Next thing I miss about Singapore: The awe-inspiring urban landscape. People have this misconception that Singapore is made entirely of concrete. It’s not. In fact it looks like a university the likes of Ateneo from back home. I compare it to a school since its planning is so purposeful and precise. But going back to the subject at hand. Look at this amazing panorama. I was passing by the Esplanade to get some cookies from Cookie Museum (more on that later) so I thought I’d take a pic or two of the beautiful skyline. Too bad it was a little overcast during that day. I stopped taking pics because it already started to rain. Dudes, it it only me or does that building under construction to the center-left of the photo remind you of Macros. Damn, so cool.

Next thing I miss about Singapore: The awe-inspiring urban landscape.

People have this misconception that Singapore is made entirely of concrete. It’s not. In fact it looks like a university the likes of Ateneo from back home. I compare it to a school since its planning is so purposeful and precise.

But going back to the subject at hand. Look at this amazing panorama. I was passing by the Esplanade to get some cookies from Cookie Museum (more on that later) so I thought I’d take a pic or two of the beautiful skyline. Too bad it was a little overcast during that day. I stopped taking pics because it already started to rain.

Dudes, it it only me or does that building under construction to the center-left of the photo remind you of Macros. Damn, so cool.