So recently I’ve gotten back into playing my Xbox 360 a little bit after picking up Tales of Vesperia, Burnout Paradise, and The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker during Gamestop’s buy 2 get 1 free promotion last week. Hopefully that’s the last of the games I’m picking up for a while because I’ve been piling them up over the past year or so. I’m going to have to bring the Wii back up to my office to finish those games. Anyway, I’m finding that both the Xbox 360 games are quite good (haven’t gotten to Wind Waker yet).
As for the PC, I’ve been getting back into playing Starcraft and Age of Empires III and putting Left 4 Dead (a bit angry that Valve is releasing Left 4 Dead 2 so soon) and Team Fortress 2 aside. I’ve forgotten how fun RTS games are and am now very excited for Starcraft II. So far we’re mostly playing against the computer and getting better very quickly. I’m probably going to be trying out the Xfire broadcasting feature, so you might see me doing that online in the near future.
I forgot I capped this clip, but it’s from the Magic vs. Cavs series. I’m really looking for the Magic to pull out game 2 tonight.
After many years since the last Street Fighter game, the highly anticipated Street Fighter IV has been released. Since I missed the entire Playstation 2 / Dreamcast / Xbox generation and I recently got back into console gaming with the Xbox 360, I’ve somewhat been looking forward to this game. However given that I haven’t actually played the game yet and have only watched some videos on YouTube, I’m leaning toward waiting a couple months until I can find a good deal for $30 or under at the very least. I’m a fan of the art style, but for some reason I’m a bit soured on the voice acting and that the game looks somewhat uninteresting as a whole.
Compared to the more recent Street Fighter style games like Marvel vs. Capcom and Guilty Gear that I’ve tried out through various arcade emulators, I’m getting the feeling that that actual gameplay has taken a step back. I’m aware that they’re skewing the gameplay to appeal to casual fans and beginners, but it looks almost too basic. I think I would be more excited if Capcom released Marvel vs. Capcom 2 on XBLA or found a way to get the licensing straight so Tatsunoko vs. Capcom can be released in the US.
My other gripe about the game is that the new characters they added are a bit bland looking and are uninteresting in general. They’re really quite boring compared to back when Super Street Fighter II added T. Hawk, Cammy, Fei Long, Dee Jay, and Akuma. Something tells me that by the time Street Fighter V rolls along, the new guys will not make the cut. Maybe I’ll change my mind once I get to try out the game through a demo, but I think I’ll hold off for now (and finish up all of these other games I have). Or maybe I’m just getting too old now.
Most of you probably know that I’ve been the photographer for the Princeton Chinese Language School in Princeton, NJ for the last two and a half years, but recently (for my birthday) I decided to upgrade my camera for the first time. My current photos were actually being taken with my brother’s Canon Powershot A610, but I’ve owned my Canon Powershot A85 since 2005 (and his A70 since 2003). I was originally targeting the popular Canon Digital Rebel XSi, but considering the price range for just the body and the kit lens, I felt it just wasn’t the time to make a huge jump upward to a DSLR. Actually one of the main weaknesses of the Powershot A series for me was that the zoom was not any more than 4x optical zoom and I couldn’t get a close-up enough photo a lot of the time. This is where my new camera comes in, the Canon Powershot SX10 IS.
I hadn’t even known about the S line of Powershot cameras before my dad showed me the model at the Best Buy just before Christmas. Apparently the S line (and now SX) is Canon’s line of “super-zoom” bridge cameras which debuted in 2004 with the S1 IS containing a 10x zoom, but to my surprise the current model (SX10) sports an even larger zoom at 20x. The purpose is supposed to be to sit between the normal point and shoot cameras and the DSLR cameras as sort of an all-in-one solution. Besides the insane zoom lens (which equals 28mm to 560mm on the standard 35mm lens scale), it retains all the neat features of the A-line like the flip-out screen and ability to take AA batteries, but also incorporates typical DSLR features like the flash hot shoe, full manual control (f-stop and aperture control), and a digital viewfinder.
Since I haven’t actually gotten a chance to do an event for the Chinese school yet, I only have a couple indoor shots so far. I’ll see if I can get a few outdoor shots tomorrow to stick on here to give a little better representation of what it can do. Anyway the first shot above is a 0x zoom shot from my desk to the whiteboard while the second is a 20x zoom shot focusing on one of the magnets I put on there. The third shot is my Xbox 360 I took from across the family room (about 10 feet away) at 20x zoom. So far I’m pretty impressed about the entire product. The price was really reasonable at $324 from Amazon.com and far less than what I was expecting considering all the features they pack in there. Especially since stacking the price of the XSi with a telephoto lens would run me about $850 (and would weigh more and take up lots of space), I’m happy. Of course I know that the image quality is technically never going to reach the potential of a DSLR, but I’ll leave that as my next step up down the line since I haven’t yet learned how to master the point and shoot’s features. For my purposes, the SX10 is practically everything I need for a beginning photographer without needing to overspend for features I won’t be able to appreciate until years down the line.
It’s the day after Christmas and everything is starting to go back to normal for the most part. I immediately noticed that the Christmas music stopped abruptly and it went straight back to their regular programming. Anyway, apparently I’m getting old because I don’t seem to get nearly as over-excited over getting gifts as when I was in grade-school. I think I’m becoming more interested in getting some nice clothing or 红包 (red envelopes) and it’s now more about spending time with friends, relatives, and family rather than the quantity or price of the gifts received. Take a look at this video of how I couldn’t remotely be this excited anymore (and turn the volume down).
It also made a difference that I knew almost exactly what my gifts were weeks beforehand since with clothes you really need to try them on to make sure they look decent and are a good fit. My brother got a pair of copies of Grand Theft Auto IV for Xbox 360 so we can play online through Xbox Live and my parents got us a box of See’s Chocolates. Given that most people have no idea what to get me or that what I want or need is in the $1000+ range (DSLR camera / 52″ HDTV for my office), actually knowing what I’m getting and picking it out would get rid of having to go back to the store and exchange everything for something of comperable value. I really could go on about the inefficiencies of gift giving and why the concept of waiting for Christmas day to open gifts as a whole leads to lost potential enjoyment, but I’ll spare everyone the boredom. Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays (and belated Festivus and Happy Kwanzaa) everyone!
People may or may not know that the Xbox 360 is getting a major system update on November 19, so I’ll shed some insight about the whole thing. I was recently accepted into the New Xbox Experience Preview Program and will be able to try out all the new features before they open it to the world this coming Wednesday. Some of the new features include Avatars, Netflix video streaming, an install-to-hard-drive feature, and of course a revamped layout. I have to say, I’m pretty impressed with this substantial upgrade that will probably change the console forever (not that you’ll be able to go back to the old “blades” system though).
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