Return of the blog!

I'm back after a long time again! It's been a while since I wrote on my blog.



Today I want to talk about the newest offering in the Final Fantasy saga: Final Fantasy XIII. The main story revolves around a woman named Lightning who's a soldier in the city of Cocoon. The city is ruled by deities called Fal'Cies that roll out their rule through the government of the Sanctum. As the story unfolds, we find out that the Sanctum and its leaders aren't exactly for the people's wellbeing as they wage war against the lower world of Pulse with no regard as to who gets caught in the crossfire. Another character named Snow is the leader of a rebel faction called NORA. Other characters eventually join in the story that intertwines each of them in a way that only the storytellers of the Final Fantasy series can do. No spoilers here, you just have to play the game yourself.

They put back the old turn-based battle system with a new twist. You only get to control one character at a time in a party of 2 or 3. But the real meat of the system is that you can change the role/function of your lead character and the other characters in your party on the fly. This system is called the Paradigm Shift. Each character can be leveled up to specific roles such as Commando (physical attacker), Ravager (mage), Medic (cleric), Saboteur (casts status ailments), Synergist (casts status bonuses for party) and Sentinel (provokes and takes damage for the party). This leveling up is done via the Crystarium, a system similar to the Sphere grid in FFX. Weapons can be broken down or upgraded as needed. There is a lot of depht especially in the battle system where you can gain 2 or more ATB (Active Time Battle) gauges.

One thing that disapoints especially die hard fans of the series is the linearity of exploration. I have only been 16 hours into the game as I write this and I really don't mind. The story is pretty engrosing that moving seemingly "on rails" doesn't hurt the experience. This is out on both the XBox 360 and PS3 but from what I've heard the PS3 looks better while the XBox 360 version is spread across three DVDs as compared to Sony's single bluray disc (I smell fanboyism!)

All in all, FF XIII is an outstanding game and a real showpiece that only SquareEnix can deliver. This is a must buy!


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All-In-One Gamebox iPhone Review

There are a plethora of apps available on Apple's AppStore and a few of them are worth your dollar. Games are aplenty and this time I'm going to discuss a $.99 gem - the All-In-One Gamebox. This started out as a twelve game collection of quick fixes to while away your boredom. Now it's currently at 15 games, getting an additional game every update. I won't mention all, just the ones worth noting to let you know what you'll be getting when you purchase this.

The top games for me are Ancient War and Bowman Defense. Ancient War takes away the 'defense' in the tower defense formula. The AW philosophy is 'the best defense is a good offense'. Keep spawning different tribesmen with a steady stream of food to knock over the rival tribe's totem. Oh and did I mention that they're trying to do the same?

Another hot game in the batch, and my personal favorite, is Bowman Defense. You start out as a lone archer defending your castle from raiders of all sorts. You then earn money to upgrade your acquired weapons, from fire arrows to poison arrows and explosive arrows. You can also earn enough to recruit additional bowmen to add to your volley of arrows. After 30 levels (30 days in the game) it ends though, with a note from the developers to watch out for a 2nd episode. I can't wait.

Other games include a Road Fighter clone, Operation iWolf, and a few games from the Action Heroes collection. My verdict, the All-In-One Gamebox gives you a lot for $.99. And as of now, the update is giving us the 16th game in the collection.

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The Christmas Rush Begins!

It is indeed officially the start of the Christmas rush. Swarms of people fill the mall areas and the roads going to them. Everyone's driving like their life depended on getting to their destination -fast. This is only the beginning boys and girls. If you don't like being around a lot of people, you'd better start looking for a far away uninhabited place to migrate for the holidays. This is going to get hairy.


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HSBC Is Bad To Clients

I went out to purchase somethig the other day with the use of my HSBC credit card. When I got to the counter to check out, I was told that my card had an error. That's odd. So I call up the HSBC hotline and inquire on the matter. After being transferred thrice, I was getting really annoyed. Finaly i speak with someone who tells me that my card has been blocked because they could not reach me via phone or something. I was going, "You do receive payments on time don't you? So what's the idea about blocking me from using my card?" And this guy named William from HSBC was so rude, he was trying to end our conversation and telling me not to use my card until Monday since reactivation would take the next business day. He made no attempts to appease me as a client but instead was rude to say that "our conversation was over." So I belted back, "You're probably in a hurry to start your weekend that's why you want to end this call." Again with no effort whatsoever to appease me he says, "I can end this conversation anytime I want." With that, I gave him an earfull of the phone banging down on the receiver. What an id**t! Like all of the others from HSBC that I've been interacting wih for the entire time that I owned this useless card. They are all rude and without respect for their clients. If anyone from HSBC is reading this, SHAME ON ALL OF YOU! That's the reason why you'll never be good at anyhing. And for everyone else thinking of getting a credit card, stay away from HSBC! The "H" stands for "hell", "B" stands for "bad".


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Cup Noodles!

I wouldn't know when the last time was, but all I can say is: this is yummy! And it's only 340 calories. Good enough for a medium sized snack to tide me over until dinner.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone