BacLog has officially moved to http://www.fishbac.com, hosting on my own web hosting alongside with my girlfriend’s blog. A very big thanks for everyone that have visited and read my blog, I seriously wish that you can find something meaningful going through my little blog, hope to see you there!

Anticipation, is expectation and hope. All the while, in one way or another, we will anticipate. For this very moment, I truly anticipated the moment where we will be together again, and no longer be seperated by the ever cruel villain, distance. Maybe we wouldn’t know exactly when, but I’m sure it will happened, sooner or later. Anticipation, is what that keep me awake, without anticipation, I would have already far ahead lost my once conscientious mind.

Anticipation, is something that kept everybody focused. Recently, we’ve known that Manchester United’s imminent interest in capturing Owen Hargreave’s signature to join the Red Devils before the transfer deadline. Every United fans anticipated the move, the players anticipated the move, even though Hargreave himself would love to seal the deal. Anticipation, might have keep us fresh and focus for the past few weeks, but with the transfer window closing later today, everything will come to an end. United had already admitted its defeat in signing the England International from Bayern Munich, who are determined to keep the frustrated and want-away midfielder. Anticipation, leads to frustration and disappointment.

So much about anticipation, I would like to share a bit of my anticipation towards the coming games that scheduled to be released in the 4th Quarter of the year. While the surprise element will sometimes resulted in unprecedented effects, anticipation for a game titles, is always something the fans look upon, and one of the most important element to drive sales of one’s console. With the summer break coming to an end, the gaming industry had ever seems to die down quietly but not for long, as we will always have the holiday season looming ahead, and I would gladly like to share my TOP-10 most wanted and anticipated title which I would be playing during my lonely Yule.

1. Just about every Wii title! (Wii) – Oct 2006
2. Final Fantasy III (NDS) – Nov 2006
3. Gears of War (XBOX360) – Nov 2006
4. Pro Evolution Soccer 2007 (XBOX360) – 4th QTR, 2006
5. Gran Turismo 4 Mobile (PSP) – 4th QTR, 2006
6. Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Ring of Fates (NDS) – 4th QTR, 2006
7. Lego Star Wars 2: The Original Trilogy (XBOX360) – Sept 2006
8. Need for Speed: Carbon (PC) – Nov 2006
9. Diddy Kong Racing (NDS) – Dec 2006
10. Power Stone Portable (PSP) – Oct 2006

Indeed, I would have missed a few big name production in one way or another, but these are simply the games I truly anticipated, I would also had included some PS3 titles, but I wasn’t sure I will eventually get one, furthermore it had never been one title that really captured my attention, other than Heavenly Sword. The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass for the Nintendo DS would have top my wishing list together with Unreal Tournament 2007 for the PC, but with both game delayed beyond 2006, I would have kept those two away from Yule, just yet.

Some of these title would came out not as good, some will ended up topping the various game of the year award given by sources of one another. I really anticipating that these title will eventually be successful, just as so that I hope my anticipation towards everything else, doesn’t end with disappointment. Something, I could only now, anticipate, hope, and expect.

Past two days, I’ve been working for GameAxis at the World Cyber Games 2006 Malaysia Championship, held at Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre (KLCC) on the 25th to 27th of August, 2006. Having involved in the past WCGs since 2001, from participant to tournament marshal and now working for the media sponsors, it’s indeed a great pleasure to again, get involved in the prime e-Sports event in the country.

A new venue, a new perspective and new winners, the WCG 2006 Malaysia Championship had concluded itself as a new chapter of e-Sports in Malaysia, which will uberly crucial to the future development of the local e-Sports scene.

Despite some unforeseen glitches and flaws in the organization of the event during the first day of the tournament, the event did run smoothly and deemed successful in its contribution to the local e-Sports community. While holding the event at KLCC doesn’t help in drawing more crowd as compared to the previous events held in MidValley Exhibition Centre (MVEC), the support from the local e-Sports community is nothing less than massive with a healthy number of local gamers participating in 6 respectives games namely Counter Strike 1.6, Warcraft 3: Frozen Throne, Starcraft: Brood War, FIFA 06, Need for Speed: Most Wanted, and DOTA AllStars.

Aside from Warcraft 3, in which PaulYan was expectedly crowned champion without much difficulty, we’ve witnessed new faces winning the other 5 different game categories. This was a good sign as for the healthy development of our local e-Sports scene, new bloods are crucially wanted. More results and winners list of the whole event can be obtained here.

I’ll try my best to update the blog frequently but I won’t have much time until 11th September, which supposed to be the due date for my literature review submission of my master dissertation. While I’ll be again involved in an annual local gaming event, GameAxis’ CelGames and the kick-off week of the event will fall on 4th Sept. to 10th Sept., located at LowYat Plaza, Kuala Lumpur. Wish me luck and hope to see you again soon. And for my lovely girl who current wandering around in mainland China, “I miss you so much!“. ^O^

If you’d asked me to tell you one site that I visit multiple times on daily basis for the past 5 years or so, it’d goona be http://www.Google.com. By no mean Google will ever doubted to remain as the most popular and widely used search engine on the WWW today and tomorrow, to the extend of the word google has turned into some form of metaphor it which it now defines web search. However, you might wanted to think twice the next time you try use the word g-o-o-g-l-e.

Reported on UK Newspaper The Independent, Google Inc. has issued a series of legal letters to media organizations, warning them against using the word “google” as a verb. The U.S. public corporation believed the use of “google” as a verb involved legal complication regarding the company’s trademark violation.

In June, Google won a place in the Oxford English Dictionary, while “to google”, with a lower case “g”, was included last month in Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, America’s leading reference book.

The online service WordSpy, meanwhile, defines “google” as: “To search for information on the Web, particularly by using the Google search engine; to search the Web for information related to a new or potential girlfriend or boyfriend.” This is also what pops up first if you type “googling” into Google.

So, to google, or not to google? It doesn’t really matter much to me, Google will still be my very first resource when it came to web searching. Lets google!

First we start off with the big news, the Airline plot in Britain. It shouldn’t be something new to you by now, but just in case you wanted to know more about the development of the plot, visit here. What I’m more concern is the UK authorities have banned passengers from taking any eletronic items and liquids on board!

Other than the mentioned laptops, iPods, cell phones, it means that all of you proud PSP and NDSL owners out there who’s going to or from UK will not be able to enjoy your lengthy flight playing New Super Mario Bros., or Tekken Dark Resurrection (if you own a PSP! xD). It might not be the best of news, but its indeed the neccessary precaution to be taken critically in countering possible terrorist plot.

More about worldwide terrorism, but moving towards the much anticipated film, World Trade Center, which had just premiered in the US on the 9th August. Starring Academy Award winner Nicolas Cage, the Oliver Stone’s film had so far gathered great response from the public as a tribute to those who died and survived from the September 11 event 5 years ago. The film will be shown on local cinema only until the 12th of October, so for you guys who long awaited for the film, here’s a little trailer of the WTC film for you.

To the game industry, Rockstar, the maker of the ever-controversial best-selling Grand Theft Auto series, had announced that they will be releasing their new title, Bully, in October, a game based on the theme of school violence and bullies. With the authorities going aggressive in recent efforts to ban violent video games, Bully is likely to get an AO (adult only) rating and Rockstar will likely to fall again into the controversial saga of video games violence, with the Florida based Miami-Dade County School board already called for retailers not to sell the games to minors and required school district to warn parents about potential harm to play such video game. Video game violence has been a critically debated issue recent years, which I personally disagree to the fact that video games like Grand Theft Auto contributed to violence much more than movies and films. Anyway, I wasn’t a big fan of GTA series, but I do anticipating Bully, it might ended up being the next best-seller since GTA:San Andreas, lets us have a little sneakpeak of the game with the official trailer of, Bully.

More next-gen console information coming up, and another Wii-related rumor. According IGN Wii, Nintendo will be launching the “revolution”-ary Wii in between the 2nd of November and 12th of November. If this piece of information is anything but true, Nintendo will be competing head-to-head up against their mighty rival, Sony with the PlayStation 3 scheduled for a November 11th release in Japan, and November 17th release in USA, UK and Australia simultaneously. The report also stated that the Nintendo Wii will be retailed with a USD$229 price tag and will be coming in black and white color. It will be a massive console war with both the next-gen console being released on the same week, something in the magnitute that we’ve never yet witnessed in the industry for some time.

More rumors from the Nintendo camp coming this week, and this is something that really interest me alot. According to NintendoGossip, the website that reports anything from rumors to speculation about Nintendo, Nintendo is currently in development of a motion-sensing cartridge for the the Nintendo DS and Nintendo DS Lite. The cartridge will include with a built-in gyro-sensor and will be inserted to the GBA slot of your beloved DS/NDSL. One of the first game that will utilize the gyro-sensor will be Activision’s Tony Hawk DownHill Jam, an exclusive title for the Nintendo Wii and DS. The report suggested that it will allowed you to connect your NDSL in conjuction with games such as Excite Truck and Tony Hawk DownHill Jam for the Nintendo Wii, with having your NDSL as part of the controller. Interesting stuff, for a sneakpeak on how the control mechanism of Tony Hawk DownHill Jam will be like on the Nintendo Wii, here’s a little demo from the executive producer of the game explaning about it, released earlier this week by the developer, Activision.

Switching camp towards Sony, talking about the PlayStation 3, everything that came out recently is something bad and its not ending. According to the reputable Japanese gaming magazine Famitsu, developer FROM Software has halted their production of Dark RPG and Black Blade for the PS3. In the lead up to the launch day which is exactly 3 months away, we’ve already heard a lengthy list of cancelled title on the Blu-ray capable “personal computer” (as Sony called it) due to complexity in game development. With many developers already stated they won’t be developing any PS3 games until they’ve seen a response of the public towards the highly priced console, it has further push the PS3 under the dark cloud of serious doubts. Nintendo Wii is currently on top of my shopping list this Yule, but I’m waiting to see the situation of PS3 and probably I’ll just be enjoying my Wii and XBOX360 for the next couple of years, without Sony next-gen presense in my living room.

Here’s a little toy released by Nintendo-Japan recently, a robo-Mario and Toad controlled by a classical NES controler. Personally I’m pretty much to get one of these. The walking figure can walk, run and turn left and right and will be a great toy decorative in your living room while being a perfect present for your enthusiastic games/Mario loving friends. The walking-figure come with the price of USD$16.90 for each and USD$30.00 for both, currently available online at Brando Workshop, drop by and have a look! Here’s a little demostration on how the walking figure works.

A faithful Kotaku reader Marty might had gone wild with his misfortune of the NDSL cracking issue. In case you never knew, the NDSL cracking issue has been gathering much attention in the USA recently. The cracks appeared to affect only the USA release of NDSL and Nintendo has so far offered free-of-charge repair for any cracked NDSL. However, most cracking normally happened on the connection panel on top of the NDSL that connect both side of the screen, but never affecting normal gameplay and mainly minor crack at the connection point. Marty has went mighty unfortunate to suffer from a major crack and this is the first report of cracking NDSL in this magnitute. I wouldn’t need to describe more, just look at the picture below.

Forget about your misconception, Marty mentioned he is a cautious owner and take good care of his NDSL without a single scratch and dead pixel. I’m lucky to have paid the premium price for a Japanese NDSL, in which there’s little to no report so far concerning cracking issue on the Japanese machine.

Moving on to football. Nothing really big this week except for the naming of the new England national team captain. Steve McLaren, the new England national team coach has just named John Terry, the Chelsea skipper as the new England captain to succeed David Beckham, who stepped down as captain hours towards England’s elimination from the quarter-final at Germany 2006.

Time for some transfer news, West Bromwich Albion‘s goalkeeper Tomasz Kuszczak has finally completed his move from WBA to Man Utd. The Polish International keeper will be Edwin van der Sar‘s understudy for the coming season, allowing Ben Foster to continue his season-long loan to Watford. Foster will likely to be first choice in Watford, along with Tim Howard at Everton, Man Utd will now have two keepers playing as first choice for two EPL clubs, together with the arrival of Tomasz Kuszczak, the future is promising even with the imminent retirement of Edwin van der Sar at the end of coming season.

Other big name transfer will be Zlatan Ibrahimovich of Juventus has followed the newly appointed French International team captain, Patrick Vieira to Inter Milan for £16.7m. Spanish International central midfiedler Marcus Senna was still awaiting Man Utd‘s response towards completing his move to Manchester from Villarreal of Spain, while Ashley Cole exit from Arsenal seems to have stalled with Chelsea holding up a £16m bid while the Gunners demanded for £25m. Another Gunners‘ Spanish International forward Jose Antonio Reyes looked likely to join Real Madrid with the Spanish giant considering a bid in the next few days. The speculation of two important first-teamers leaving lead to the frustration of Arsenal‘s skipper Thierry Henry who criticized Arsenal‘s decision in selling their most important assets to their major rival locally and continentally.

There goes my weekly report, to wrap up the lengthy entry, just a reminder for you all football fans out there. We do have the FA Community Shield between Chelsea and Liverpool coming up this Sunday (13th August, 2006) at 9:50pm to officially kick-start the new football season in England. Stay tune and enjoy a great weekend!

Doing a routine check, I’ve surprisingly found out the copy of the proposal I saved on my harddisc is a very early revision of the final document. Luckily enough, I’ve had an extra copy of the final document printed out the other day, and I started working on reproducing the soft-copy of my proposal with that little hard-printed copy.

Typing was never a problem to me. Since I’m young I’ve used to typing in monstrous speed. I’d never learn to type with a typewriter, I learned my typing, after I had my first personal computer. To no surprise, its Mario that teaches me my incredible typing pace!

Maybe many of you guys had came across playing this games if you are old enough. Mario Teaches Typing is actually an educational games developed by Interplay back in 1991. I’m lucky enough to have the game when I got my first personal computer, a then powerful Intel 80486/33Mhz based desktop computer. There isn’t much interesting games for the PC during those days, and most of the time I spent my time on Mario Teaches Typing. As the name suggest, Mario Teaches Typing is a game developed to teach typing skills for children, with the likes of Mario, Luigi and Princess Toadstool accompanying throughout your learning course.

The game teaches you typing skills by giving you a few typing activities on different difficulty level. After a player completed the training programme on a specific level of difficulty, you are even awarded a certificate of completion, which you could print out on your then, dot-matrix printer! Somehow its quite impossible for me to obtain a copy of those certificates to share with you guys as I can’t find the copy of the game now. I’m sure I have some copies lying around under my bed of my house back in my hometown, hopefully I could find one on my next trip back to Ipoh! ^O^

As a passionate gamer and never a dedicated learner, I’m glad that there’s Mario to help me learn my amazing typing skill. Now, who said playing video games serve no purpose?

此外, 以三國為背景的遊戲, 在風格上也層出不窮. 除了如”三國志“般的典型策略型遊戲,還有即時戰略型的”星際三國“, “傲世三國“, 格鬥型的”武將爭霸“, 動作型的”三國無雙“, “三國戰記“, 大富翁式的”富甲天下“, 戰棋式的”三國立志傳“, 甚至科幻型的”幻想三國志“, 不計其數的角色扮演遊戲, 當然還有近年來風靡市場的大型多人線上遊戲如”吞食天地Online“,”三國群英傳Online“, “三國策Online“等等. 許多三國遊戲也被翻譯成外語版, 發售到海外各地. 最近更有一家加拿大遊戲開發商正研發一套被命名為”The Chronicles of Three Kingoms“, 以三國為題材的大型即時戰略遊戲. 看來就連老外也對三國遊戲有興趣了.

在眾多的三國遊戲當中, 讓我印象最深刻的非遊戲精靈推出的”反三國志“莫屬. 2004年推出的”反三國志“是一套改編民國文人周大荒在1930年撰寫的小說”反三國演義“而成的角色扮演遊戲. “反三國志“只是眾多三國遊戲當中一款寂寂無聞的遊戲, 也許大多人都未聽過有此遊戲. 但”反三國志“卻是哪少數能讓我廢寢忘餐的遊戲.

“反三國志“講述的是在三國亂世中一段不為人知的浪漫愛情故事. 在遊戲中, 玩家扮演了三國第一謀臣,諸葛亮的角色, 圍繞著遊戲的卻是一段四角因緣糾葛, 諸葛亮, 黃月英, 小喬, 周瑜之間的愛恨糾擇, 剪不斷理還亂的纏綿感情. 一次錯過的因緣, 一個無法挽回的錯誤, 造就了遊戲角色中的悔恨交織, 牽引著三國之間的暗潮洶湧.

在我遊歷遊戲界20年以來, 玩過了數之不盡的遊戲, 也蠻喜歡角色扮演遊戲的, 但說回能使我有耐心完成整個遊戲的, 卻屈指可數, “反三國志“就是其中之一, 遊戲故事情節能使我感動致深的更是絕無僅有了.

曾幾何時, 我可是用了三天三夜的不眠不休來完成此遊戲, 也反覆的重玩了兩次(因遊戲分為三段不同的結局), 倘若你有機會碰上這款遊戲, 不妨一試, 你可能也會找到哪僅有的驚喜. 在這七夕之夜, 祝福天下有情人終成眷屬, 也祝大家早日覓得心上人! ^O^

回想起光榮的三國志系列, “三國志VI“應該是我接觸的第一款以三國時代為背景的電腦遊戲. 就從那刻開始, 我便對三國歷史情有獨鍾了. 直到今天, 所有以三國時代為背景的遊戲都能讓我怦然心动. 一向對歷史了無興趣的我, 卻從此愛上了三國歷史, 真是百思不得其解.

自古流傳, 少不讀水滸, 老不讀三國. 不讀水滸, 戒之在好勇爭勝. 不讀三國, 戒之在謀略害人. 也可能就是因為這三國人物當中的用計使詐, 處心積慮, 勾心鬥角, 深深的吸引了我.

話說回三國, 周瑜周公瑾可說是我最喜愛的人物了. 想起周瑜, 就想起他的英姿勃發, 才學洋溢, 處處的鋒芒畢露, 還有他哪號稱國色天香, 聰慧過人的妻子. 他性情之開朗，氣度之寬宏，待人之和氣謙虛, 當與我頗為相似. 只怪羅貫中為儘顯諸葛亮智慧的偉大, 在演義中描述周公瑾為胸襟淺狹, 急躁易怒之士, 使眾人在對正史的淺薄認知之際, 對周瑜起了誤解.

周瑜亡前的仰天長嘆, 孔明三氣周瑜, 都只是羅貫中筆下的虛造情節. 與其在這笑談風生, 倒不如與周大都督在”三國志XI“一同蹄造歷史. 在我遊歷遊戲界這20年裡, 沒多少個遊戲能使我廢寢忘餐, 光榮的”三國志”系列遊戲通常都是哪少數的其中之一. ^O^

* Ruud van Nistelrooy had joined Real Madrid from Man Utd for a reported £11.5m while Michael Carrick joined Man Utd from Tottenham Hotspurs for a staggering £18m. This might be the news that I care of these days, I like Michael Carrick, but I’m more worried with Sir Alex reluctant to sign for a replacement for Ruud van Nistelrooy. We’ll see soon, hopefully during I post my next blog entry, we will have better news.

Anyway, for the ever amazing Dutch striker, 219 games for Man Utd, 150 goals. Impressive. You did well. Wish you luck in the Bernabeu. Paying tribute to the great marksman, hereby presenting you a short clips of van Nistelrooy.

Today I came across across an article regarding Ronaldinho, originally posted on The Sun in the UK.

Sex, PS2 blamed for Brazil star’s WC failure

When Brazil entered the 2006 World Cup as the favorite to take the championship, many pointed toward two-time FIFA player of the year Ronaldinho as the reason the team was the top seed. When Brazil was knocked out by France in the quarterfinals, fingers again pointed toward the star–who was held scoreless and did not play nearly up to his billing–this time to blame. British tabloid The Sun says that Ronaldinho’s poor showing was due to some off-field lovefests and plenty of PlayStation 2. In an interview with his girlfriend, French model Alexandra Paressant, the femme says that the soccer star would break team rules and sneak into her hotel room to “make love all night” and unwind by playing 2006 FIFA World Cup on the PlayStation 2. The Star implies that it wasn’t the marathon sex sessions that left him worn out for competition. “Instead, [Paressant] says, his habit of playing PlayStation after their romps may have knocked his form.”

So, what do you think? Do Ronaldinho really loves his virtual counterpart more? I guess he might maybe want to try out different tactics against his real life opponent. After all, video games nowadays are getting more real and realistic. Have a look at a reportedly leaked video of a new Star Wars game currently under development for next-generation consoles. I would really like to play a light sabre duel with that Nintendo Wii remote.