My 3 Recommended 3-D Films

Let’s face it, 3-D is not doing well at the moment, the hype has died down and not as much people are going to 3-D cinemas as compared to few years ago when 3-D saw resurgence due to James Cameron’s Avatar. One might be simply that 3-D is not really being more immersive compared to normal 2-D. The other one will be film publishers just simply slap a 3-D conversion to just about any movie they can make, making some of the 3-D films fake-ish and unimpressive.

But, there are movies that really take advantages of the 3-D technologies really well. With proper editing and effort, 3-D films can be great. Here are the 5 movies I think people should go for a 3-D version.

Avatar

The film that started the whole 3-D resurgence. James Cameron's Avatar is true visual masterpiece, his implementation of 3-D in Avatar is probably one of the best in the film-making world. The world of Pandora in the movie is extremely immersive and highly detailed, the colour tone of blue and green is gorgeous. When the camera pan out and revealed the huge world of Pandora, you can be taken aback and enjoy the lovely setting, and I haven't mention the final sequence when the fight take place up upon the mountains.

Tron: Legacy

The movie, actually it's not great, with a so-so plot and some weird one-liners, but the 3-D of Tron: Legacy is pretty well done. The 3-D in Tron is the same used in Avatar, which explains the nice effect, and general colour of the movie is black, which make other colours like Blue & Orange very distinctive and showed 3-D in great effect. The 3-D is clear and impressive when during the fight scenes, when Sam is riding the Tron motorcycles in the arena or during "Disk Wars" or the final escape flight sequences.

Transformers: Dark of the Moon

Why I choose this one?
Transformations, robots got blown up, metal pieces falling of robots! AND A LOT OF EXPLOSIONS!!!!!!

PlayStation 4: My Perspective

It's been around 2 weeks since the announcement of PS4, the latest entry into the PlayStation series and the successor to the current PS3. Generally, the reception ranged from great to mixed, but I'm not here not talking about what other people think, I'm here to say what I think about PS4.

I love my PS3, I really love playing it. But despite how much I love playing it, I accept that it's time for a new one, due to the rapid advancement of technology these days. I was also amazed how much the staying power the PS3 has over the last few years, considering the computer tech has eclipsed the PS3. The most example of that is when you placed the PC version of Crysis and Battlefield 3 with the PS3 versions side by side. Hence, PS4 is needed.

From the announcement, I was pleased about the details they revealed so far. The PS4 engineering architecture is very very close to PC. This change in architecture is probably due to complaints by game developers that PS3 is difficult to develop games, as evident in certain PS3 games, which struggled to catch up with other game consoles and gaming PC. It features an 8-core AMD Jaguar processor unit, APU developed by AMD and Sony, an unspecified GPU unit and 8GB GDDR5 memory. It was impressive, even by today's standard, this will make sure games will be easier to work on and most of all, better longevity than other generations' of consoles.

Then, there's the controller, I have mixed reaction towards it. At first, it is exciting to see that they redesigned the R2-L2 buttons from the PS3, which is a bit clunky to use. But then, they slightly redesigned the DualShock form factor, which is very comfortable for me to use because of my smaller hands. So, I need to test it before I can judge the new controller.

Sony also announced the latest PlayStation Eye camera, which will have better resolution and better integration with the PlayStation Move. I'm won't go much into details about this, because I already have doubt with the current PlayStation Move, I need more details about it to convince me.

The highlight of the announcement was probably the social features, which might be catered towards social gamers and to the more connected and more social network-centric society today. This is obvious when they showed the "SHARE" button on the DualShock 4 controller, which allows gamers to share their screenshots, gameplay videos and other gaming content through social networks like Facebook or Twitter. I believe I might use some of the time considering I have been sharing my PC screenshots quite a bit.

Lastly, it's the game. Sony announced a number of games from the conference, such as Killzone: Shadow Fall, DriveClub, inFamous: Second Son, and Knack. Games from other developers like Bungie's Destiny, Ubisoft's Watch Dogs, Blizzard's Diablo III and others. But the only game we've seen with longer gameplay sequences and show the early potential of PS4 is Killzone: Shadow Fall by Guerrilla Games. The game ran on true 1080p full HD with bigger sense of scale and details than it's PS3 counter-parts. It is not a really significant leap, but considering the game is up and running just a few months in, it's quite impressive.

I can't wait for the PS4 to come, even though we haven't seen the design of the console itself and the pricing of the console. But considering PS3 still has a lot of games still left to play, I don't need to worry much and probably wait a year before I buy one.

Lastly, a PlayStation montage!

My Top 5 PS2 Moments

Earlier in January 2013, Sony announced that they will stop production of the their huge hit, the Sony PlayStation 2 after an incredible run of 13 years of production and the sale of 155 million units sold worldwide.

I got my PS2 around the year 2003-2004, I have a lot of fond memories with the PS2. With so many games to play, from shooter to RPG to sandbox games to racing, it's very difficult to point out which are my best moments playing PS2 games. But I have made my decisions, and these are my Top 5 (in no particular order)

Michael Jackson's Billie Jean in GTA: Vice City

One of PS2's biggest classics,  GTA Vice City is the first GTA I ever fell in love with. Free roaming, violence, the Miami Vice style presentation in the 1980s. And add up to the 1980s-ish presentation, they added some really good and old-school 1980s hits, like the first time you enter a car or a scooter in Vice City when the game started, Michael Jackson's No.1 hit, Billie Jean started playing in the game, that game is on! I'm in love with the game from that moment.

Underground Racing

During the PS2 era, Electronic Arts decided to do a big change with their long lasting Need For Speed series (probably due to the popularity of Vin Diesel's The Fast and the Furious). In the end, they come out with (in order), Need For Speed Underground, Underground 2, Most Wanted and Carbon, with all 4 centered around illegal street racing and tuning. All 4 of them are a huge hit to the Need For Speed franchise. But in all four, Most Wanted is definitely my favourite. I remember driving my Carrera GT down the highway  evading cops just to crank up bounty points and try to get to the "5 Grand" Razor who stole my BMW M3. And then escape after winning back the car and end the game, pure epicness

The Day the name Crasher was Born

This type of racing got me my gaming name known today...

Before there was Crasher, there was just Jia En in the gaming world, or Crash (because I like Crash Bandicoot in his games), but one game came to me one day, it is called Burnout 3: Takedown! Ever since I played that game, the name was born! There was a mode called Road Rage, which me & my bro, Atles a.k.a. played every single time we meet up for game time. It involves the gamer to engage demolition derby in the middle of the city street to see who can crash more into each other to get hits and points. I crashed so much that my bro started to rename my nickname to Crasher, that's how I got my name. And don't get me started to mention another crazy Crash mode, where you initiate accident to earn points! Ant to this day, Burnout 3: Takedown is still the craziest and wackiest racing game I've ever played!

Black!

When EA claimed the Battlefield series is the first to feature realistic destructive environment, I said 'Bitch, Please!", your older game, Black, developed by the makers of Burnout, is the first to do so. Well, the game doesn't stack up to current generation of shooter due to lack of processing power of the PS2, but it did give a glimpse into the future. With virtually unlimited amount of ammunition, you can just press the shoot button and don't let go, and it works and it was fun to shoot enemies off building with explosives!

Odd Physics!

Another moment worth remembering is the odd world of Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction. It looks pale and boring compared to the world of Grand Theft Auto, not as crowded, not as remarkable, but one thing that let me grab this game and wouldn't let go of it, and it was the physics of the game. The physics of the game is so wrong, heavy objects are floating and easily flyable and jeeps that can be turned over just by using melee attack in this nuclear war themed free roaming game. The other stuffs that also caught my attention is the huge amount of airstrikes and arsenals you can use in the game to blow sh!t up!



To sum things up, I really miss my PS2. So sadly, she died a few years back and never came back to life. But one day, I might get one again just to play the huge library of games it offered!

R.I.P. PS2

2000-2013