Unfair!!

There are so many depressing things going on with my life currently. I actually cannot afford the time for blogging. But the thing I am about to write is really infuriating..

Call me jealous, childish, etc and I don't care... But tell me, do I have reasons to feel jealous, angry, being treated unfair and other negative feelings?

You gave permission to my sister to get a $888 handphone (iPhone!). And last time you were screaming for my $1000 airfare ticket to Korea!

Last time you disapproved my ~$600 camera phone and you gave my sister a digital camera and a phone!

You lambasted my $1800 laptop, something that I could not survive with in university. And you bought my sister $1500 laptop (and another $1400 for my other sister) which they did not really need.

Eh but wait, my PSP did not get scolded! Aaah that was because I did not even bother to say. Haha..

And please stop saying about whose money bla bla bla.. My whole money here has been mixed up with yours up to the point I don't know whose money I am spending. And do I give a damn that in terms of absolute amount of money, I need more than my sisters? No! If you wanna dump your son away in other countries, then you better have enough money to support him in the first place. And who taught me to be so anal about money matters? YOU!! So blame yourself! I also would be happy if I were nurtured in a different way and to be able to just spend money as if money rains on earth everyday.

Grr.. But looks like I will buy that stupid iPhone eventually.. And that's not because I am nice or what.. It's just out of goodwill.. To repay my sister for helping me to get that anime book. Well, I REGRET IT! I found out that I have a friend here who has a paypal account to help me.

Retail "therapy"

FYP is a life sucker but for this post, lets forget about it first. I had a clique outing on Friday and we ate at Astons Prime. The name sounds expensive, doesn't it? The good news is: they have fantastic food in a nice place with reasonable price. I paid $23.90 for steak + chicken combo. Suprise #1: I expected a half serving of steak and a half serving of chicken. But I got a FULL serving of steak and chicken each. OMG! Wow! Although the steak was too "well-done" aka hard to be eaten ba.. All of us were astounded with the large servings that we received. Surprise #2: I paid what I saw in the menu. $23.90 is inclusive of GST and service charge. That is just WOW! Yea a big WOW! Lol..

Thank to stupid FYP, everyone's day ended late and it was pretty late after our meal. We wanted to go somewhere to chill but alas Singapore night life just sucked. There was nowhere to go and everyone was camping at either Starbucks, Coffee Club, Coffee Beans, etc. Shopping malls closed as usual. Come on! It was Friday night and it's holiday time!! Bleah!! Wanted to have a drink but there was no seat for 7 ppl.. Zzz.. Actually since I was at Marks and Spencer, I was already eyeing the alcoholic beverage. Haiz.. I feel like just getting drunk and forget forget all about this life..

I had the urge to buy a netbook again. I wanted to buy today so yesterday I was looking for price. Anyway in the end I decided not to buy. The MS Office is so expensive! No point getting a netbook if I cannot use it for my work. I still have MS Office 2007 original CD but they *bang* I remember netbook has no CD drive. Meaning I cannot use the CD or I have to fork out money for external CD drive, something I don't wish to have. Oh well, anyway lessons learnt :) Next time really should just go at those huge electronic exhibitions. Although the prices are the same, the additional stuff (eg. RAM upgrade, extended warranty, etc) is better.

Thanks to my window shopping yesterday, I have new gadget in my "WTB" list: XBOX Kinect!! Haha.. Yesterday I saw someone demo-ing the thing. I was just blown away. There is no joystick or controller whatsoever. Just swipe your hands in the air. This reminds me of the high tech stuff which I saw in Science Centre. I thought how long it will take to finally have a computer which only has a screen and the whole navigation system is just by using our hands.. Looks like the technology is not that far. Haha.. Anyway the demo guy is quite cute. He kept smiling to himself. I think he was quite embarassed to demo. Only kids and parents were looking and he was trying to get any kid to try the machine. The kids were too shy so he had no choice but to demo. Haha.. Lol.. It was a dance game and I was like woaaa... This is nothing like Dance Dance Revolution (only need to step at the 4 directional squares) or its variation (the one need to wave your hand to appropriate direction). This is literally dancing!! The movement includes squatting, neck movements, shoulder movements etc. No wonder the guy was paiseh.. Haha.. But oh well, why the hell did he choose a Lady Gaga song? That made it more embarassing..

Now I think the most expensive pieces of electronic gadgets are HANDPHONES. Bleah.. Xbox + Kinect costs $469.. Nowadays, newer phones are like $600+ Woot... That is even more expensive than netbook and low end laptops. But still, I don't understand why people wanna spend like $800+ for iPhone. Come on, no matter what it does, it is still a phone! An overpriced phone! Haha and now I am more than sure not to help my sister to get an iPhone. Lol.. I'm an anti-Apple. Sorry.. I refuse to give my money to Apple.. and I will also not help someone else gives their money for overpriced piece of gadget.

Yesterday was the SECOND time I got the hints along the line that "I am lazy", "I am seldom in the lab", "I am not producing enough results", "Slow progress", etc. I had ENOUGH. Haiz.. I am very angry.. I wanted to tell the truth and explain but I was worried that I would sound too angry and too rude. Bleah.. I plan to formulate my argument better and see how on Monday.

I am just very agitated with all the nonsense that progress is equal to how much time spent in the lab. My reactions are all 24 hours and I will not be that insane to sit there do nothing and watch the damn thing stirring. I got 3 main problems: 

1) Nobody has done the freaking thing I am doing now so everything is trial now, so I cannot use a lot of materials, need to repeat a lot bla bla bla 

2) Every part of the stupid experiment needs 24 hours.. and that's a LOT of time!!

3) Too little materials are given to me.. everytime I can only use a bit a bit... I do right or wrong also in the end must repeat

4) I cannot do things in parallel since everything is continuous.. I need to make A and B, then combine A and B together for the next step.. If combining A and B fails, I need to repeat making A and B again.. gaaah... the whole process takes me a total of NINE days!! Gosh.. So NINE days for one result provided that I do everything flawlessly

5) I am not productive. During all the 24hours waiting time, there is simply that I can do..

OH MY GOD! I thought I only have 3 problems.. I have MORE than that.. Sigh.. That shows how hopeless my stuff is la.. Lame shit :'(

The time that I hate is finally here. I have to be a full-time FYP slave now. Gaaah... Anyway only after 2 days, I fell sick already. Perhaps that was because 11 hours straight on the second day. I had a pretty bad sore throat. The sore throat is not 100% gone and now headache, stomachache, diarrhea, lethargy and insomnia. Ironic eh? I need more sleep but I keep waking up in the middle of the night/early morning. I don't know they are Danzen's adverse effects or FYP adverse effects.. Sigh..

I was looking for sorethroat medicine urgently. Thank God I could ask for a help from my senior at NUH. Lol.. Despite using 'shortcut' it was still too long waiting time for me. Haha.. Too much red tape in hospital la. No way I will work in hospital Lol.. And the medicine is not much cheaper anyways T_T Why are medicines so expensive here while pharmacists are paid so cheaply?

Eits, what is the above random picture? Haha.. today Starbucks is giving free drinks. The "tall" size.. Oh my, I am not a Starbucks fan and when I read "tall", I thought it was the LARGEST size.. Well, too good to be true rite? Anyway "tall" is the smallest size in Starbucks. Haha.. Since it was free, I shall not complain. I tried the nut toffee something (Christmas special drinks) and again, I just can't love Starbucks ba. Haha.. I still prefer Coffee Bean and Spinelli. I queued about 10 mins before the event start. Got my drinks in about 30mins (with about 40 people in front of me). Actually this is meant to be a charity event. But too bad, I don't think people donate. Haha.. I went to West Coast Plaza and most people there were either school kids (on holidays now..) or NUS students. Lol~~ We students are poor creatures k :p

My project is still as depressing and as hopeless as ever so I am not in the mood to rant about it..

I just end the post with the clip below. Found it featured on youtube main page 2 days ago as the "most watched" under music category. I think this is one of only few Chinese songs that I like. Haha.. I think these 2 guys have very nice voices.. And the best part was the trumpet and violin in the end..

Just one thing lacking: the "emo" expression. At some parts I feel that they wanna show off their vocal skills rather than showing the 'emo' feelings of the song. But oh well, who can beat Guang Liang (the original singer), the king of "emo" love songs :D

My phones

Since I am rather bored and I am really tempted to get a new phone, I shall 'crap' about the history of phones that I used to own. Lol..

Nokia 3350

This is my first phone. I bought it in  May (or June) 2002 after I completed my junior high school. The price was slightly less than Rp 1.500.000,- (about less than S$ 250 at current exchange rate). Not too fantastic but I don't hate it either. I like the blue case colour (as compared to metallic grey 3310/3330 which was very popular at that time). The highlight of this phone is the backlight which can flicker according to the ringtones, something which was very new and exciting at that time. Ah the vibration varies according to the ringtones too. The vibration and backlight are not monotonous. They literally vary differently for different songs! Other than that, the rest is the same with other phones at that time: black writing + yellow light, 12 inbox + 12 outbox + 9 picture messages, snake + pinball + spaceship shooting games, music composer, notes, alarm, calculator etc. Haha I mention the things that I can remember or features that I often use.

I used the phone for 4+ years before the battery failed. Too bad by that time, Nokia was not even selling the original battery. I used a fake battery which only lasted for 3 days. Lol.. Anyway, as it was dying, its capability started to diminish from: can only be used to sms (for phone calls, the phone had to be charged at the same time) and as alarm until it cannot be used to make calls at all and it did not even have the power to ring the alarm. Before it rested in peace, I changed the casing to Mickey Mouse in the hope of making it more loveable. Anyway since I have 2 sim cards in Singapore, I kept this phone for my spare sim card. I kept this phone until this year (when I got a new phone) and then I shipped this back to my parents for them to do whatever they deem fit. Lol..

Overall, I am fine with this phone. My only unhappiness was: the original casing glitter flaked off, the print on the keypad faded, and the screen became 'cloudy' even with a screen protector. But in all, I am satisfied :D

Sony Ericsson K800i

My second phone which also happens to be my FAVOURITE phone. I bought it in  Feb 2007, right before I had to go back to Singapore to collect my A level results. I bought it not too long after its release so it was quite expensive. Rp. 3.200.000,- (about S$ 500 at current exchange rate). It was considered expensive and my dad refused to pay for it. My mum bought it for me.

Since I had no digital camera, I always wanted a phone with a nice camera. At that time, this 3.2MP camera phone was the best (although unfortunately a few months later, there was another K series with 5MP camera)! Everyone in my house mocked this phone as a 'brick' since it is quite bulky and thick.

Anyway, I love it so much. This is considered a flagship phone by Sony Ericsson at that time and thus every aspect of it is damn good. I love the camera, it has lens cover, the alarm has auto snooze, the speaker is not too bad, the tennis + golf + diving games are good time killers (even up to now!), I downloaded many themes to make the phone even more loveable, and many other things. I know it is not fair to compare it with my previous phone (the technology was too wide in gap) but the vast upgrade from earlier generation really makes this phone a 'part of my life'. I use almost every feature in this phone, except the video call. Lol. Waste money in my opinion. The camera is so good that I brought it to Australia, Thailand, Cambodia, and Korea as a substitute for a digicam which I never have.

Still, I have a few complaints haha.. After a few years, the rubber parts sort of 'died'. They become very sticky and dust loves to adhere to it. The camera is terrible in low light (my expectation is too high I guess,. Come on, it's a phone! not a camera, what do I expect?!). And the joypad was kinda spoilt after few months, although that was partly because I was a hardcore gamer for the first few months. Lol. But after all I am very very satisfied with this. After 3 years, it is still up and running well, although now it becomes my 'spare' phone. I still used it to listen to music and the alarm. In these 2 aspects, this K800i is even better than my current phone! Unbeliavable right..

Although the battery life starts to decrease, it is still doing well. And the best part is: even now Sony Ericsson is still producing the battery (and it is still costly at $$70+ each). I guess this phone still has a long way to go ^o^

Nokia C6

July 2010. My most 'memorable' phone. It lasted LESS THAN 12hours for me! Gosh..  Record breaking. People always say Nokia is lousy when you see how their service centre is always crowded everyday. I decided to give it a try.. I tried my luck and it was bad luck.. In the 3G era, most phones go for the touch screen etc. Unfortunately, I am still old fashioned. Haha.. I use my phone primarily for sms and there is no way I can survive with touch screen. That's why I got hooked to this phone. It has touch screen and keyboard. Nokia's touch screen is good and sensitive (that's a good point!). And this was cheaper than other phones with sliding keyboard (only S$ 98 with contract).

Too bad this is a piece of junk to me. It could not even perform as a phone for me. I don't know whether I was unlucky to get a faulty set or Nokia just sucks. Firstly, its reception is poor. Other phones are doing well in my room but not this one. The speaker is terrible. Even with a full signal, I could not hear what the other person was talking about. With that, don't even talk about 'smartphone' capability, this phone cannot even perform as a phone i.e to make phone calls! In addition, the phone is very laggy. It takes forever to display photos and messages (gosh I could not take it!). And the QWERTY keyboard is poorly designed. The first row is too close to the screen part that when you are typing, your fingers are obstructed by the other half of the phone.

The only thing I can praise is the feature to customise the desktop with various icons and shortcuts (though I was super pissed that the phone always automatically connected to GPRS when any internet related shortcuts are put on the standby). I exchanged the phone to other model.. I just don't dare to take the risk (after all the bad experiences my friends have with various Nokia phones). So yeah, now I am done with Nokia too although (again I repeat) I don't know whether I was unlucky to get a faulty set.

Sony Ericsson Vivaz Pro

Should I consider this my 4th or 3rd phone?? Hmm... Anyway this replaced the stupid Nokia C6. The same reasoning applies, I need to sms so I need a keyboard since I cannot 'tahan' touch screen. This cost me S$198 (with contract). The camera is 5MP so it is an upgrade from my previous K800i :D For the sake of keyboard, I sacrificed an extra 3MP camera capability (Sony Ericsson Vivaz has no keyboard but it boasts 8MP camera!).

To be honest, other than the camera (well, as expected from Sony, good cameras ^^) , I don't quite like this phone. It is Symbian and guess who made Symbian? Yeah, that sucky Nokia -_-" I hated the menu etc. I owned this phone for less than 6 months and it hang for more times than my 3.5 years old K800i. Thanks to Symbian. The media (photo viewing) load time is fast. And that's all the good thing about it.

So what are my complaints? Firstly, it has no lens cover and it has a poor positioning of the lens. It is unnatural for me to hold it in such a way so as not to touch the lens (lousy deign!). So for normal usages, it is inconvenient! Secondly, its display of portrait and landscape pictures sucks! Too hard to describe. But when you hold the phone in a portrait manner, it will display all the pictures as portrait, even for landscape pictures. Thus you will see only the middle part of the landscape pictures. When you hold the phone in landscape manner, the portrait pictures are 90degrees slanted. Gosh. Terrible. Thirdly, the speakers (referring to songs, not to phone calls) suck. Forthly, the back cover is made of flimsy plastic material. It makes the phone feels cheap.. And it feels that it can snap anytime everytime I take off the back cover. Gosh.. Lastly, the battery kinda sucks. I gotta charge it once every 3 days and I don't go online/wireless/bluetooth etc. Bah.. I had no idea why it has a green light which is always flickering and maybe that sucks the battery! Oh don't forget, my unhappiness about Symbian is in the previous paragraph. Lol.

In all, this phone, at best, is just a phone for me. Make calls, send sms-es, take photos, and that's it. In fact, it is still quite inconvenient for a normal phone since I have to take special care in order not to touch the lens. For alarm, notes, and any other things, ironically I am still using my K800i. I guess that really highlights the difference between FLAGSHIP and non-flagship phones ba.. The company really put effort for flagship phones in a way that they are 'perfect' in every aspect.. Unfortunately, nowadays companies hardly have flagship phones. They just release phones in many types to satisfy wide range of needs and prices bla bla bla..

Therefore, I am not quite satisfied with my current phone. Hence, I wanna get a new phone. Lol.. But I think I learnt my lessons ba. The most important thing for a phone is the convenience to sms and make phone calls. Other things (erm... except camera perhaps LOL) are secondary. So next time I will find something which is convenient to use/hold as a phone for daily usages as the main criteria to buy a phone. Well, at least I am grateful that I insisted on something with a keyboard. I will just die if I chose a phone which is totally touch screen. Haha..

So what's next??

Grr I am emo again. I am just back from Coffee Beans. I am too distracted to my own room that I have to go out if I wanna concentrate to study (or in this case is to prepare for my experiments). It is so ironice. The last time I went there was when I read my FYP articles for the first time. And today I was back there for my FYP again.. Before I emo, I will write about the Holiday Special drink that I bought today. Haha.. It was called Dark Chocolate Orange Ice Blended. The citrus flavour was nice (not too overpowering) but the chocolate was too sweet for me.. I am not a fan.. It tasted more like a melted orange-flavoured chocolate bar than a drink. Haha.. Ok, now comes the emo part.

I am emo because my project seems to be hopeless.. I am in big dilemma. I have planned everything to best that I can do, up to the amount of ingredients. Then I started to get emo as I was contemplating about the amount. If I use too little (to save), I am worried that for subsequent steps, the things would be too little to even be detected or measured. Worse, when I need to repeat the step, or re-do the step with few modifications, I need to waste at least 48hours to re-synthesise the whole stuff. However if I use too much, my materials will not last long. And what if I fail?

It sucks!! I feel very sucky :( Seriously the main thing which inhibit my progress is my limited materials :'( Well time is also limited but that one is less crucial. How am I supposed to work with amount like 0.1 or 0.2 mg?? Even the weighing machine is not up to that level of precision.. At zero-point-something decimal point, the number keeps flickering so there is no way I know the number is due to fluctuation or what..

Oh God.. I can't do it alone.. I need You!! :( But I know You won't help me.. Just like how You did not help me for my exams.. Damn :'( Call it blasphemy or whatever but currently this is what I feel towards Him..

At least I gotta thank Him for the 'enthuasiasm' to plan my experiments (it happened!) and to go early tomorrow (I hope it's gonna happen! Not only for tomorrow but throughout the whole month).

Air ^o^

I think this is the most uploaded picture in my blog haha..

Aaa~~h I am so ecstatic. After waiting and hunting down the book for YEARS (the book was out in 1999), I ordered the book on ebay and finally it came yesterday! I did not expect it to arrive so quickly so I was so delighted when I checked my mail yesterday.

The book is not perfect. Well considering it is at least 10 years old, I can forgive a bit of imperfections ba. Overall, I rate the condition as 90%. I am still satisfied. The content is fantastic! Really worth all my effort and frustration to get it. Lol.. Worth the price too haha.. There are 104 pages and only the last 8 pages are black and white!! Woohoo!! There are quite a lot of pictures which I never see before, not from the manga illustrations. So it is very exciting. And since the manga is not made into anime, all the pictures are hand-drawn. Pencil, ink, colour pencil, crayon.. OMG T_T Drool... Perhaps a decade ago, computer graphic was still unusual for many mangakas..

The only regrettable thing for me is that the mangaka chose to focus more on Naruse, Sawamura, Sakurai, and Kobayashi. With so many characters in the manga, she could draw more of the other people ma.. Anyway the other people are equally good looking too.. And where are the female characters?? I thought basketball mangas are for guys.. So shouldn't it have more drawings of the females? Haha.. Oh well, since the mangaka is a female, what to do.. But still, I LOVE THE BOOK! Lol..

So happy ^o^ Anyway my next hunt will be Weiss Kreuz books.. I am aiming for 4 books worth >US$100 (inclusive shipping cost). Actually there are still 2 books but I decided not to buy since they are more like manga (black and white pages). I prefer illustration books. And aaah.. that will complete everything from my childhood memories :D

Weiss Kreuz

Thanksgiving

It is the second day and I have not yet rebounded from my emo and self-pity. One big B- or C+ is coming and that is just gonna ruin my whole university results transcript. I wonder how long I need to forget about this. Sigh.. Sometimes I feel angry, what's the point of all the results so far :( Might as well that I am not doing well from the start.. But haiz putting things into perspective, I think right from the start I am not that smart as a person. I am "smart" rather than smart. Last time, I was "good" because I always hunted for test questions from my friends in other class beforehand lol. Even when a teacher knew about this, I did not care. I did no wrong ma. That was my benefit for having the test later than other people. If the teacher wanted to prevent this, then jolly well change the questions lor. Aaa~h those are my days in Indo. No wonder ever since I came here, I have been doing worse in school. Bleah.. But seriously yesterday paper was the worst T_T That just shows how stupid I am. Cant survive without tips :'(

I watched Harry Potter yesterday. I expected to be disappointed but I did not expect to be THAT disappointed. The movie is the WORST among all Harry Potter movies! I always think that I used to be disappointed because I knew the book. Thus I would be disappointed for things which were left out. But for this one, I read the book 3 years ago and I hardly can recall the story now. That puts me as a non-reader who watched the movie and it was a much worse experience. The action scenes were few. And the things happened to fast before I could catch what going on on screen. The 'vision' scenes came in flashes.. way too quickly for us to know what's going on. Plus the people spoke damn fast in thick UK accent.. Bleah.. And so many unusual names that I could hardly follow. Nightmare! Oh well, the only thing worth seeing is Hermione ba. Haha.. I see that as the guys grow up, they become uglier and wider. Lol.. Only Hermione becomes prettier and slimmer. I wonder whether such person exists in real life: pretty, tall, slim, and smart.. And here is an ugly, short, fat, and stupid boy writing..

Today life went on as usual. I did my laundry and read newspaper. I found out about SITEX (computer exhibition) which is currently running and I wanted to buy a netbook! Lol.. It is very 'easy' to buy netbook. Many have exactly the same specs.. And the price hardly differs.. Looks like I gotta choose based on colour and costumer care experience ba. But oh well, come to think of it, I do not need a netbook that urgently yet. I decided not to buy haha.. That was as quick as the initial urge to buy one :p

I am more inclined to buy an LG flip phone. The price was still 300+ without contract. Ouch.. I could get if for $0 with contract last time. But thanks to my stupid choice of Nokia, I could downgrade to a cheaper phone. Actually nothing fanciful about the phone in terms of specs. I just want to experience a flip phone.. and this one is kinda cute too LOL. I kinda 'hate' my current phone. Because it has no lens cover, I always have to take extra caution in holding it so that I do not touch/smudge/scratch the lens. It's 5MP le! Haha.. I even need a pouch to put it in my pocket. Grr.. So troublesome.. Well the LG also has no lens cover. But since I am not buying it for the camera, who cares about the lens! Lol.. I wonder how many more months to go before it becomes below $100. Only then I will buy haha.. It was released in January for $428.. It was $0 with contract in July. How come I saw it being sold for $350+ in a shop yesterday? Bleah.. Why must the LG shop at Vivo close?!

Cute right? Haha.. Oh well, apparently they come in green and red too but I have never seen them. I would like to have the green one! Lol.. But heck, I will do fine with the blue one! Black looks good but my phones have always been black so it is time for variation ba haha...

And how ironic my life is. It is Thanksgiving Day and I had nothing to be grateful of :'(

PR 4103: Research Methodology

Fucked up module..
Fucked up paper..
And it fucked up my honour and my life..

Perhaps the paper was not that hard.. I am the one to blame. I am just too stupid..
Fuck me..

Dynasty Warriors: Strikeforce

Based loosely on Chinese novel: Romance of the Three Kingdom, choose a hero and pledge your allegiance to Kingdom Shu, Wei, or Wu, to unite ancient China under one rule.

  

Graphics

Zhao Yun (in Fury Mode) from the opening cutscene

The opening cutscene is exciting and that is as far as it goes. Throughout the game, it is just normal in-game graphics. Cutscenes are limited to in-between chapters summary. Unfortunately, for each Kingdom, there is only ONE cutscene differing only in narrations for different chapters. And these cutscenes are in sephia, not full color -_-". The only cutscenes worth mentioning are the final cutscenes for each Kingdom where the officers are gathered to celebrate their victory in uniting the 3 Kingdoms. And thank goodness they are colored!

The background looks 'dead'

Many stages share the same backgrounds (eg: city, fortress, swamps, etc) and the colours used are rather dull. The mythical beasts look majestic but they also point out the poor layerings, especially when the character have to climb to the body of the beasts to whack them. The layering issue is worsened with poor camera positioning sometimes which make the enemies or the character we control disappear from our screen. The 'chi' equip also looks akward to me. It is as if the people are wearing huge colorful bracelets and socks.

Character Status Menu with Fury Mode outfit

The only treat for the eyes is the characters status menu. The different outfits do not really matter as often they are just different colour palletes. The Fury mode animation is quite refreshing and detailed in colours though. Other than that, the only positive thing about the graphics would be the weapons. Every single one of them looks different from another and the differences are not just in colours. This includes how Sword A differs from Sword B and Sword C etc. Considering there are many weapon classes (i.e bows, sword, double-handed sword, staff, pike, fans, etc) and many weapons within each class, I find it refreshing to see various weapons.


Gameplay/Features
I had fun playing the Dynasty Warriors GBA version (I can't recall the exact title) and I am utterly disappointed with this game. The developer decided to remove the strategy part of the game and replace it with the 'multiplayer' and 'fury' component. Since I am solo-ing most of the time, this game becomes purely a hack and slash game. It becomes very brain-less, and it has a HUGE tendency to get boring very fast. I no longer get the feeling of Kingdom vs Kingdom or Army vs Army kind of fights as it becomes one person to fight all the enemies.

All the missions are very linear. For each mission, there is 1 main objective to clear the mission, and there maybe 1 or 2 side objectives to get extra cash. Sometimes the side objectives are not related to the story at all. It can be as lame as "kill a butterfly". The maps are rather small and simple. Boring...

The AI for the enemies is also quite dumb. Most of them just stand stationary waiting for the player to kill them. They are quite easy to kill or in fact, players can choose to skip them altogether. Unfortunately, the bosses are meant for multiplayer. It is ridiculously hard to solo them (the good  news is: it is still POSSIBLE to beat the game by solo-ing). That makes level grinding compulsory and makes the whole game quite stressful to be played alone. Even with hours of grinding and leveling, some of the bosses are still too hard. And worse, some stages have multiple bosses.

Imagine being gang-banged by Phoenix, Cao Pi, Cao Ren, Zhang Liao, and Xu Huang

There is a nice attempt to put the city upgrade feature. Now weapons, items, orbs, chi, are obtained from the city (sounds more like RPG eh?). During the missions, players just collect money and materials to assemble equipments. The city is upgraded at certain rate depends on the officers (in terms of officer cards) that player collects throughout. However, the methods of collecting cards and upgrading the city are too slow. It can be easily abused by starting and quitting missions repeatedly (after starting and quitting a mission, the city will gain "experience" and there is a chance of meeting a new officer who gives officer cards when we return to the city). To me, it is a nice feature turned ugly..

There is also a nice attempt to costumise the equipments with orbs and chi.  Most of them are effectively useless. Only towards the end that the higher level chi powers are more interesting and useful. Unfortunately, there are a few Chi combinations which effectively makes the character immortal. With these few combinations, the game becomes very easy. Even those hardcore bosses become a piece of cake. This takes out the challenge of the game and why bother offering so many things while there are a few sure-win combinations that everyone will use

Each character has 1 main and 1 subweapon. Only the subweapon is customisable to any weapon types. The weapon system is supposedly pretty good with 'vulnerability' system. For example, bows and tech are good  (5 stars) against wizards but weak (1 star) towards machines, staff is good (5 stars) against heavy machines, while spear is relatively good (3 stars) against everything, etc. Unfortunately, only the wizards are annoying enough to make bow or tech a necessity. Equip spear + bow/tech will ensure a pretty easy gameplay. This makes all the attempt for customisation useless altogether. For each weapon type, there is a separate speciality point system. The system is a failure because for the type of weapon that we use, a random  (rather than based on frequency of usage of that weapon) 1 to 3 speciality points are awarded after every completed mission. Grinding for weapon point is even more tedious and time consuming than grinding level -_-"

Most characters share the same movesets, particularly because the movesets are based on the weapons. As the specialty for one weapon goes up, the moveset evolves with more hits and better combos.  Thank goodness the combos are fluid, elegant, easy to execute, and enjoyable to perform. Perhaps the combo is the only thing which salvage the gameplay of this game.

Another good thing is the movesets for different weapon types are vastly different. It makes the game less dull and more challenging. For example: using bow normal attack cannot cause the enemy to fall/fly/etc. The enemy still can attack while  being shot with arrows. Thus using bow poses a challenge to constantly moving to avoid enemies attack. In contrast, other weapon types can stagger, knock down enemies, etc, basically disabling them from attacking so we can just happily whack them. Some weapons can cover your backside too while some are only useful for frontal attacks.

The collectibles are lame since there is no way a player can have 100% completion using 1 save file. So what is the point of showing a percentage? Seriously! I think this is plain stupid.

To add on players agony, the 6th chapter is a bonus chapter. In this chapter, we get to play ALL missions (right from chapter 1) with a 5 star difficulty. Wow.. how "exciting" is that? I am being sarcastic here!! Haha.. By the time you reach this part, your character will be too strong to notice any difference between 1/2 star vs 5 star mission. You will be too sick of the game to even bother trying as well. :p

What make this game different from other Dynasty Warriors games are Multiplayer and Fury Mode. To be honest, there is nothing spectacular with Multiplayer. I agree that multiplayer is fun but any game is fun when played with other people right? Some people call Fury Mode as "super saiyan mode". Other than the cosmetic issues, I also see nothing special in this feature. The character will be stronger for a shortwhile but the extra boost makes no difference. The normal enemies are too weak (no need to activate the Fury mode to beat them) while the bosses are still too difficult to solo even in Fury mode. Seriously, no big deal with the Fury mode.

Fury Mode adds more colour to the otherwise dull background

Multiplayer Mode makes it more 'war-like' with more people fighting

There is too much exaggeration that makes me wanna puke. Come on, if it is based (albeit LOOSELY) on ancient history, can't we be a bit more realistic here? I don't think in ancient times there were bladecarts, which shoot electric sparks, flying robots which shoot beams, giant monsters, etc. These are too over the top for me. And just to quote someone's comment on youtube: China would already be destroyed if these things were present in those times.

Bi Xie - Lu Bu's giant pet tiger

Wei's Guardian - Phoenix

No idea who/what the hell this Tian Lu is

Replayability
This will depend on how you wanna the view the game. If you just wanna have fun and play a hack and slash game, I guess this game can just be replayed for as long as you wish.

But if you wanna play it as a strategy or RPG, then this game has no replayability value. It does not matter which character you pick since most share the same movesets. The movesets are based on the equipments rather than the characters. Anyway, just make sure you have a spear/bow/tech + wood element + chi combination which makes you invincible and that's it! I doubt you even wanna clear the game because the storyline is kinda expected with your Kingdom will reign over China eventually.

Storyline
The first 2 chapters are the same for all 3 Kingdoms. It is about the Yellow Turban and Dong Zhuo. The subsequent chapters differ with how the each Kingdom acquired their territories and the officers which eventually join them. The last few chapters are purely fictional  (since in the real thing, all 3 Kingdoms were no more. Sima Yi united the whole thing under Jin Dynasty) on how your Kingdom beat the other 2 Kingdoms. Nothing special but I like the parts where they show how each character joins their respective Kingdoms. But even this is ruined by the fact that we can choose any character at the start even before missions where they historically join the Kingdom. Worse, we need to fight 'ourselves' during the missions. I am speechless..

Overall
The only thing that make me play this game is the hack and slash aspect to channel away my stress. After all, the battle system is really damn good. It is comparable to a fighting game, perhaps even better than some fighting games. The multi hit combos can be executed smoothly.. Switching weapons in the middle of combos is even possible. Add in the jumps (or double jump and even triple jump), dash, fly, etc and your character can literally dance and go on an endless rampage in the battlefield. Lol.

But then, there are nicer (nicer in the sense of a more whole-some gaming experience) hack and slash games out there ^^ so seriously, why bother about this game? :)