Kero,kero,kero,kero,kero....

Final Fantasy XIII HD Trailer

2009-10-01T15:24:29Z

Watch and drool...
...heck forget the gameplay, Square-Enix just give us the blu-ray of all the cut scenes can already. Saves your development time also. :p

Ultima Online: It's got Ninjas.......

2009-09-26T15:56:02Z

Was chatting with some friends today, came across the topic of ninjas (and pirates.) It reminded of a Ultima Online series of commercials I saw regarding some years ago introducing Ninja as a new playable character class. it was good for a few laughs.

So I came back, did some searching on youtube, and indeed it was there. (Youtube has everything...almost. :p) Well, sharing it with people who have never seen it before. Enjoy. ;)

First Impression

Rivalry

Working

Final Straws

End of the Line

Mis-adventures with Tri-booting Windows 7, Windows XP and Kubuntu

2009-08-14T10:37:21Z

Just spent 1 entire day of my holiday reinstalling my OS. :| My old OS HDD sounds like it's gonna die soon, so got a new HDD. Since Windows 7 is out, I thought of installing Windows 7, Windows XP as backup, and transferring my old Kubuntu WUBI install into a dedicated partition. (Instead of running off inside my old XP as a virtual OS). Think it's easy? Hardly.

Part 1: Windows 7 + Windows XP
I decided to Install Windows 7 first then Windows XP as
1. Windows 7 is meant to be main OS, XP as backup only. If no longer needed, I can remove the XP partition.
2. 1 of my friends has Vista installed on an existing PC and is trying to dual-boot XP, so I figured I can try it out as well to see if there is any potential issues.
3. Yes, I heard it is easier and more trivial if you installed XP 1st then install Windows 7/Vista, but hey, where is the challenge in that? :p

Attempt 1:
I used my old XP installation to partition my new HDD for Windows 7 and XP partitions. I then rebooted from Win 7 DVD and tried to install Win 7 on the pre-formatted partitions. No go. Win 7 won't install unless I delete the existing partitions and recreate it from scratch.

Attempt 2:
I removed all partitions and let Win7 DVD create a 200GB partition (via Advanced > New..) . Win 7 created the System Reserved partition (100MB) and and the OS partition. (Note that at this time there is no unallocated 1MB partition in front of the System Reserved Partition.) I then started Win XP CD, created a new partition 200GB partition using WinXP CD (text based menu) and started the installation there. Upon rebooting, I get the following message.
"Error Loading Operating System"
Using the Win 7 DVD startup repair tool does NOT resolve this issue. When I booted up using my backup OS on another drive, I noticed 1MB unallocated space in front of every partition on my new drive.

Attempt 3:
After reading the guide here, I restarted and assigned a drive letter to "System Reserved". Does not help. Same error and mysterious unallocated 1MB space appears before each partition after Win XP CD partitioning and formatting.

Attempt 4:
Stuck at the previous issue for several hours, I decided to try another approach. I deleted all partitions on my new drive. I started Win 7 DVD, and this time let WIn 7 OS partition take my whole 1TB drive. (emulate pre-install conditon) After WIn7 installation is done, I booted in Win 7, went to Disk Management and re-partitioned the drive to free up 800GB of unallocated space. I then rebooted and started my WinXP installation CD. Upon entering WIn XP CD text-based partitioning menu, I noticed a WInXP CD detected a 1MB unallocated space before my "System Reserved" partition which wasn't there in previous tries. I let XP take the remaining 800GB space and started XP installation. Upon rebooting, instead of "Error Loading Operating System", I get...
_
...(a blinking cursor.)
Sensing some hope, I put in my Win 7 Installation CD and ran startup repair tool. Upon reboot, my system was able to boot into Win 7 OS again.(But no dual boot menu).
From then on I just installed EasyBCD, created a WinXP entry, and rebooted. This time the dual boot menu came up, I selected XP option and the XP install continued from there.Success!

Attempt 5:
I varied Attempt 4 by pre-creating the XP partition beforehand in WIn 7 Disk management Tool (as I couldn't resize the XP partition to the size I want after Attempt 4), loading Win XP CD, reformatted that partition (as I heard XP NTFS not truly compatible with Win7 NTFS), and installed XP into that partition. Re-run startup-repair tool, and the repeated the rest of the steps. This method also works. Seems like as long as the unallocated 1MB partition was created by Win 7 DIsk management tool, the startup repair tool works. However, If you use the Win 7 DVD (Advanced > New..) partitioning method, the unallocated 1MB space will not be created at the front of disk and Win 7 startup repair tool will fail.

So. The correct steps should be:
1. Install Windows 7 on entire partition
2. Assign a drive letter to System Reserved Partition. (Just in case)
3. Re-partition the HDD to the size you want in Windows 7. (And creating the unallocated 1MB space at the front of the partition.)
4. Run WinXP CD, reformat the selected partition and install XP on it.
5. Reboot, run Win 7 startup repair tool to restore Windows 7 OS.
6. Install EasyBCD, add entry for WinXP.
7. Reboot and complete WinXP installation.
8. Success!
Guides:

PRONetworks (they censored part of my post. :\)
Sevenforums
APC
Lifehacker

Part 2: Enter Kubuntu

So Windows 7 and Windows XP is done. Kubuntu is next.
I previously wanted to try out Kubuntu from within Windows, so I used WUBI to install it into Windows (as a program) and ran if off there. I want to keep Kubuntu, but I do not want to go through the hassle of reinstalling linux drivers, re-configuring programs, etc. So I see if I can do a migration from WUBI to a dedicated install. Lo and behold, there is a program just for that!
LVPM.
LVPM is a tool to let you transfer your ubuntu WUBI install into a dedicated partition. (Or so they say)

Attempt 1:
Created partition in Windows XP for Kubuntu OS. Still in NTFS, but LVPM will handle it.
Went back to old OS, started Kubuntu, and installed LVPM. Ran LVPM, selected my new created partition (had to use KDE partition manager to get the correct name 1st), and ran the wizard.
Everything seemed to have ran smoothly, so I rebooted back to my new drive.

Success?

Well, sort of, but not really.

Attempt 2:
My Linux install was successfully transferred, BUT....
a. My Windows 7 Boot Manager has been overwritten by Linux GRUB Boot Manager
b. The generated Linux GRUB doesn't work. :\

Luckily the generated Windows entry still can work, so I spent the next few hours reading up on Linux GRUB, and editing the loader to point to the correct hard disk and partition through a terminal.
Command: sudo gedit /boot/grub/menu.lst
I shall spare the gory details, but after editing Kubuntu is able to boot thourgh Linux GRUB

Attempt 2b:
I prefer the Windows Boot Manager, so I tried the EasyBCD NEOGRUB method mentioned in APC

And guess what? It doesn't work. :\

Apparently NEOGRUB bootloader cannot read ext3 partition, no this method is no go despite several attempts to revive it.

I created a (Non-NeoGRUB) Linux entry in the Bootloader using EasyBCD. But it couldn't seem to work. After a while I realised that is because the Linux GRUB needs to be installed into the Linux partition rather than the MBR. (Which LVPM "conveniently" did without asking.) So I had to install the Linux GRUB into my Linux partition instead through the following steps.

1. Boot from Kubuntu LiveCD.
2. Open a terminal.
3. Type "sudo grub"
4. Type "find /boot/grub/stage1" Take note of the output. e.g (hd0,2)
1st number is the Hard disk number, 2nd number is the partition number.
This will be used in the next 2 steps.
5. Type "root [output]" e.g "root (hd0,2)"
6. Type "setup [output]" e.g. "setup (hd0,2)"
This will install GRUB into the linux partition.
7. Type "quit" and reboot PC.

Now that Linux GRUB has been installed into its own partition. Reboot into Windows and create a (non-NEOGRUB) Linux entry using EasyBCD, (if you have not done so earlier.)

Next, restore the Windows 7 bootloader using EasyBCD.
1. Choose "Manage Bootloader"
2. Select "Reintsall the Vista Bootloader"
3. Click "Write MBR"
Visual Guide here

After which, when you boot up, you should see a new option in Windows bootloader which starts up the Linux GRUB. From there you can load Kubuntu.

And that is it! Enjoy playing around with multiple OSes. ;)

Dead Fantasy IV and V

2009-08-03T16:47:20Z

Dead Fantasy IV and V is out!

Dead Fantasy IV

Man vs Nature.Rather...Ninja Clones vs Guardian Forces!
P.S. No animals were hurt in the making of this video...well, except mythical ones.

Dead Fantasy V

Tifa nooooooooooooo....
P.S. Lots of calefare ninjas were killed in the making of this video. :p

Apparently this series has a plot and storyline.
...Maybe. I think.

...I don't know I just watch it for the catfights. :p

More Dead Fantasy...

2009-07-19T16:26:33Z

Yay part 3 is out. Tifa vs Hitomi. Heard part 4 and 5 on the way.

Video Games | Monty Oum | Dead Fantasy III HD

XBox 360 | Playstation 3 | Nintendo Wii

Anime shops in Taipei

2009-07-07T16:10:47Z

Here is a list of anime shops I found while I was in Taipei. When I was doing similar research before I went, I find that such information is only found scattered in forum posts, news articles, blog posts and such. So I'm consolidating my share of such information for future visitors to Taipei as well.

Area: Ximending (西門町)
Subway: Ximen (西門) station

Animate
3-4F, NO. 7, Sec 2, Wuchang Road, Taipei, Taiwan, R.O.C
Tel: (02)2389-3420 Fax: (02)2389-3421
This is the Taipei branch of the Japanese anime shop chain Animate.(http://www.animate-shop.jp/). So the layout is very similar to its Japanese Counterpart. 3rd and 4th whole floor sells anime related goods.

Moe Moe Center
台灣.台北市中華路一段114巷17號2樓
Tel：(02) 2311-9488 Fax：(02)2314-7105
http://www.moe2.com.tw
This shop is is tucked away in an alley between starbucks and a pink building. (See pic on website.) It's highlight is that it also has a maid cafe on its 3rd Floor. Both shop and cafe close at 9.00pm, 1 hour earlier than the rest of the shops though, take note of that.

KT Anime Shop (KT動漫精品)
108台北市萬華區武昌街２段１０號２樓
Tel, Fax: (02)2389-2849
http://kt-comic.com.tw
This shop is also tucked away in a small alley in Ximending. Smaller than the other shops, it also sells quite a lot of T-shirts, carrier bags and other anime-related merchandise. Not cheap though.

Area: Shilin Night Market (士林夜市)
Subway: Jiantan (劍潭) station
(Take note it is NOT at Shilin (士林) station! Made that mistake myself.) (-_-;)

一刻館漫畫書坊—士林總店
111台北市士林區大北路18號
This shop sure brings back memories. It is hidden away in small alley (see the pattern here?) in between 大東街 & 文林街, right at the end of Shilin Night Market. I last visited this shop in 1998, so it's been around for 11+ years! It's a small shop, but so packed with manga, anime figurines and other stuff that it's a bit hard to walk through, lol. This chain of shops also makes its own manga covers, which is of higher quality (thicker) than the ones you will find in other shops.

Area: Taipei Main Station (台北車站)
Subway: Taipei Main Station (台北車站) , of course

Taipei Undergound Mall (台北地下街)
台北地下街臺北市市民大道一段100號B1
http://www.taipeimall.com.tw/
This is a undergound mall right next to the Taipei Main Station itself. Do note that there are 2 parallel stretches of shops, 1 along the "Y" numbered exits and 1 along the "Z" numbered exits. The anime and video game related shops are located along the "Y" numbered exits.
Taipei Underground Mall is the place to go for not only anime-related merchandise, but console and PC games as well. An example is the Hot Dog Toyz branch located here. (http://www.hotdogtoyz.com/shop/product_info.php?info=p511) The shops start to open around 12-1pm onwards. Remember to compare prices before you buy, otherwise you end up like me buying an artbook only to find out 5 mins later that another shop was selling the same item for $NT130 less. (>_<)

Fatimaid
台北市鄭州路21巷4號2樓
http://www.piware.com/fatimaid/
Yes this is a maid cafe. :-p It is near Exit Y13 of the Taipei Undergound Mall, so you can visit it to have a tea break after you finish your anime shopping. ;-) Order the most expensive Moe package meal and you get an chance to play a game with the maid where IF you win, THEN you can take a photo with her.

Yes I had my lunch there.......for research purposes, of course. (ahem)

漫畫小子(重慶店)
台北市重慶南路一段5巷4號
This small shop is located in a small alley (hidden away again) behind a bookstore. Nothing really special about this shop, just that it was located directly opposite to my hotel, which made it convenient to visit. I just put it in as well since it is also near Taipei Main Station.

Area: Guang Hua Digital Plaza (光華商場)
Subway: Zhongxiao Xinsheng Station (忠孝新生站) (I think)
located on the corner of Xinsheng North Road (新生北路) and Civic Boulevard (市民大道)
http://www.arclink.com.tw/

Unfortunately due to time constraints I was unable to vist this place. I heard from friends that this place is the hub for shopping of electronic goods, something similar to Sim Lim Square. Some anime-related shops are also there from what I heard, but was unable to verify it myself. If others have been to this place, feel free to leave your impression in the comments section.

Here are some links (in Chinese) to a list of shop addresses that i found while writing this post.
http://blog.xuite.net/qzwxeasd/ACG/3518954
http://www.kingcomics.com/tw_world/shop.asp
http://www.prowaremedia.com.tw/special%20sale.htm

A useful blog post which I found while doing searching online for info. Lots of photos describing many of the places I have visited.
http://www.akibanana.com/?q=node/1081

Sailor Pink Gundam

2009-06-25T17:23:25Z

This is just...wrong.

New Gundam anime series confirmed. It will be called "Magical Bishoujo Gundam Pink!"

In the name of the moon I punish you!

Gem Encrusted Shield. To blind the enemy with sparkling bling.

Love!Courage!and Pretty Pink Hearts!!

Think Heero Yuy will have a field day with this. He will press the self-destruct button even before getting inside.

Way to traumatize your otaku fanbase on your 30th Anniversary, Bandai.
娘炮鋼彈
via
Kotaku

Random manga related Rant.......

2009-05-29T15:04:14Z

/begin rant

HUGE SPOILER AHEAD.......

Chapter 449.....when did Naruto become Dragonball?!?

spoiler

/end rant

Why learn japanese? ...To pick up girls!

2009-05-05T14:52:39Z

Random rant....

Was chatting with my friend over MSN the other day , and came up to the topic on how to motivate people to learn the Japanese language. So I came up with this theory...

Theory: How to pick up girls
1. Learn Japanese
2. Play Japanese love simulation (bishoujo) games
3. Learn from techniques used in love simluation games and use them to pick up girls.
4. ???
5. Profit!!

...Yes this is a random rant. :p

Japanese commercials are so ...different...

2009-04-21T11:30:20Z

Nope not the "Big Effort! Little Effort!" stuff.

This is one of the more psychedelic commercials I have seen, and it is 5 minutes long. Guess who it is promoting for.

via Super Happy Anime Fun Time

Jim Henson's Resident Evil 5

2009-04-20T05:11:34Z

Presenting Resident Evil. Now with more Muppets...;)

Survival ~~Horror?~~ Humor..

On IGN

Dark Days are Coming....

2009-04-14T15:41:59Z

This is the tag line for Funcom's (makes of Age of Conan) new game, The Secret World. The trailer looks interesting.

To top it off? It is an MMORPG it seems. And its designed for the Xbox360 as well as PC.

Street Fighter IV: Ken's flowchart

2009-04-06T15:37:58Z

Epic LOL. How do people play Ken on Street Fighter IV Online? This flowchart says it all.

From Humji TurTur via a forum post on BoB

Just remember, when in doubt, SHORYUKEN!!1

Google block me...

2009-03-25T16:36:27Z

Today, I was just starting my RSS Feeds Reader (Feeddemon, in case anyone is wondering) as updating my usual news feeds when I noticed some of them cannot be updated, even after repeated refreshes. At first I thought the website was down, but going to the website itself seems to show no problems. Then finally when i clicked on the feed itself, I saw this message:

I don't think my computer has a virus, so the likely culprit is likely to be my RSS news reader Feeddemon sending out too many update requests at once. (maybe Google don't like competitors to their Google reader.:p )But then, the block is by IP address, so even Internet Explorer and Firefox cannot access that page anymore. Still, it is slightly disturbing that Google is blocking my access to a 3rd party website like Kotaku. Perhaps we are giving Google slightly too much leeway in controlling our access to the World Wide Web.

Google evil? Hardly...yet. Maybe they are just trying too hard. But as some say, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

Now gimme back my interwebs.

Month of disaster movies...

2009-03-04T13:56:28Z

The apocalypse is coming. Prepare for the onslaught.

March 12, 2009

Dragonball Evolution:
Watch Chow Yuen Fatt act as Master Roshi. (龟仙人). And consider that he is the only one in the cast that (somewhat) fits the character he is playing.

March 13, 2009

Race to Witch Mountain
Ex-legendary wrestler Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson acting in a Disney movie. Enough said.

March 19, 2009

Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun Li
Kristin Kreuk as Chun Li was a good decision. A suit-wearing blond dude as M.Bison is not. Reviews say this movie makes Van Damme's 1994 Street Fighter Movie look good.

A word of warning....

What not to bring:
Your brain: It will get a headache trying to make sense of the many obvious plot holes and glaringly lack of canon.

What to bring:
A box of tissues: To wipe your tears as you weep, watching Hollywood desecrate your childhood memories piece by piece.

Mario Explains It

2009-02-15T16:14:31Z

Found a interesting new topic that started out on reddit. It started out with a relatively simple yet pretty accurate pic.

Mario Explains It. Lesson 001 (Relationships)

Then someone suggested a solution

Mario Explains It. Lesson 003 (Reality)

Being from US, other people suggested a more direct route :p

Mario Explains It: Lesson 002 -( There's always another path! )

Of course there are implications to that route.

Mario Explains It: Lesson 004b.1

Some others suggested a escape route

Mario Explains It: Lesson 006 - F*ckit! I'm outa here!

In the end. Someone just constructed the meaning of life itself from all this.

Mario Explains It: Your entire Life!

And there you have it. The cycle of life, as explained by Mario.

Life imitates games, or games imitate life? :P

via Kotaku

Starcraft University

2009-02-05T16:14:47Z

No wonder people like to go to US universities, this is what they teach there!

"Starcraft 101-The Art of War" at UC Berkeley

Excerpts from their syllabus:

Prerequisites:
"Starcraft: Brood War"

Course Workload:
"Each week, students must submit 2 replays of games they played and are willing to analyze in depth."

I love this module already. <3

Heck, NUS/NTU wants to be world-class universities like UC Berkeley? Then they should start offering courses like this as electives!

Local version? "The Art of Warcraft-DOTA 101"? kekekeke.....

Happy New Year! You know you are getting old, if during your NS days...

2009-01-26T18:08:18Z

OMG I am getting old...quite a few of those points actually applies...

Mr Brown: You know you are getting old, if during your NS days...

And btw, Happy Lunar New Year to everyone!

Street Fighter IV

2009-01-23T17:24:12Z

The new Street Fighter IV trailer looks good. The dubbing...not so good.

The anime made specially for the game looks good too.

If you can't stand the dubs, (and understand jap) here is the original Japanese version. :p

The new final boss. he's called Seth. He looks gay...

And is gay. I mean, just look at his Ultra move...

Gives a whole new meaning too "I want you inside of me...." :p

Akuma's Raging Demon is still way cooler...

And hey, it's got Sheng Long! (now known as Gouken) Don't know how he's gonna fit into the story though, since he's supposed to be dead and such. then again, video game characters never do stay dead, do they? Just look at WoW's Illidan....

Oh yeah, and there is the live action movie....

Kristen Kruek as Chun Li!....and Edmund Chen as his father.(^_^;)

Hopefully, this will turn up better than DOA:The movie. Then again, it's Holloywood, so maybe not. :\

Remembers this...(T_T;)

Free Antivirus, Firewall and other useful software

2009-01-11T15:41:49Z

Recently a friend asked me for recommendations for free antivirus and anti-spyware programs for a old PC he is retrofitting for his parents. Thought I will share these links to others as well.

Antivirus:
AVG
Avira
Avast

Firewall:
Comodo
Online Armor
Zonealarm

Antispyware (haven't really found any great ones yet)
Spybot
Ad-aware
Microsoft Windows Defender(provided your version of windows is authenticated)

Others stuff you should install :
Firefox
Peerguardian 2 ;p

Any other recommendations are welcome.

Kings of Power Pirate Baby's Street Fight

2009-01-04T16:11:32Z

Recently came across this animator Paul Robertson while surfing kotaku. What started off as a (fake?) advertisement and tribute to games in the 8 bit era led me to go find his short films.

His style is pretty interesting. He draws 16-bit cutesy sprites from a a earlier gaming era, adds in a lot of blood and gore, and yet his story does tribute to many video game franchises all in 1 package.

To give you an idea of his work, just imagine Maple Story characters fighting zombies in Resident Evil. ;)

In a era where most people use machinima to do their short films, it is rare to find such a talent who still does (hand-drawn?) animation (emulating 16-bit sprite format, of all things) and yet pulls it off so well.

His first film seems to be Pirate Baby's Cabana Street Fight (Cool name, ain't it?). A tribute to Double Dragon, Streets of Rage, and Resident Evil all at the same time.

Be forewarned, this show can be considered PG. Blood (lots of it) spilled in black and white movie.
Part One

Part Two

His next movie is Kings of Power 4 Billion%. In colour! Tribute of so many video games and other stuff that I lost track of them. The torrent link comes from his blog, so it should be considered legit? Ha ha.

Be forewarned again, this show can be considered M18. (Even more blood (in red this time!) nudity and some religious references near the end.)

Part One

Part Two

Impressive, and yet disturbing, at the same time. Ha ha.

His blog and website can be found here.

kerokun @ 2008-12-28T08:10:00

2008-12-28T12:38:16Z

Saw this advertisement at Raffles Place MRT while I was going to work.Never knew there was an anime fan in Stanchart.

Maybe Stanchart should change its tagline to "The otaku bank" to attract new niche customers. ;)

They can start by bringing in credit cards like this...

Or better yet, these....

Maybe then more people will sign up for Stanchart credit cards then. :p

Final Fantasy XIII Trailers

2008-12-14T15:38:05Z

Pretty CG movies. Need I say more?

kerokun @ 2008-11-26T23:29:00

2008-11-26T15:33:50Z

Come across this cosplay photo while surfing the anime blogs for AFA coverage....

EPIC.

Source: hontou ni sou omou?

Food Fight!

2008-11-09T16:41:49Z

Ever wondered what would happen if fast-food tie-in promotions started mixing up with fighting video games?
Maybe this....

Extra Value Combo Alpha

And the game might look something like this.....

For an old guy, the colonel sure moves freakin' fast he he pulls off his combos... (o_0; )

From Kotaku