zeroinitiate

Bloodline Champions - Ravener Trailer

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 31 Oct 2010 03:29:00 +0800

Funcom has released a new trailer and four fresh screenshots from Bloodline Champions, a PVP game with short, intense matches for up to ten players divided into two teams. Every player plays one of several different bloodlines with 7 unique abilities each.

Bloodline Champions - Ravener Trailer

Castlevania Lords of Shadows 2 Being Planned

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 31 Oct 2010 03:28:00 +0800

Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2 is already in development reports confirm.

Apparently the game is in the “advanced planning stages” and will once again be headed up by the developer of the first game, MercurySteam.

Castlevania Lords of Shadows 2 in advanced planning stages

World of Warcraft: Cataclysm System Requirements

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 31 Oct 2010 03:26:00 +0800

MINIMUM SPECS

Windows XP 32bit (SP3), Windows XP 64bit (SP2), Windows Vista

32bit (SP1), Windows Vista 64bit (SP1).

Intel Pentium 4 1.3 GHz or AMD Athlon XP 1500.

1GB or more of RAM.

NVIDIA GeForce FX or ATI Radeon™ 9500 video card or better.

DirectX-compatible sound card or motherboard sound capability.

25 GB free hard drive space.

You must have an active broadband Internet connection to play.

RECOMMENDED SPECS

Windows XP 32bit (SP3), Windows XP 64bit (SP2), Windows Vista 32bit (SP1), Windows Vista 64bit (SP1) Windows 7.

Dual-core processor, such as the Intel Pentium D or AMD Athlon 64 X2.

2 GB RAM (2 GB for Vista users).

3D graphics processor with Vertex and Pixel Shader capability with 256 MB NVIDIA GeForce 8600 or ATI Radeon.

2600 or better DirectX-compatible sound card or motherboard sound capability.

Broadband Internet connection.

Multi-button mouse with scroll wheel recommended.

Star Wars: The Old Republic: Site Updated

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 21:04:00 +0800

The Holonet has been updated with a trio of new biographies: Bouris Ulgo, Diab Duin and the Imperial Spymaster "Keeper". The second feature is a Fan Friday update where the SWTOR community is spotlighted.

Star Wars: The Old Republic: Site Updates

Trion Worlds Reveals New Rift Classes

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 13:03:00 +0800

Trion Worlds had just revealed three new player classes found in the upcoming MMORPG Rift: Planes of Telara! The game has a rather unique class system although sometimes you will be a little confused. Anyway, you are bound to find one of the four major MMO archetypes (fighter, cleric, rogue, wizard) and among them with the more specialized subclasses. The three newly-added subclasses are justicar, stormcaller, and warlord.

Trion Worlds Unleashes Three New Rift Classes

PlayStation Phone faked?

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 02:03:00 +0800

A PlayStation Phone prototype has been leaked online and reveals a possible design for a future mobile phone that also would apparently play games (PSP Go games?) and uses the same buttons as a PS3 controller.

However Sony has officially commented that the leaked prototype is “definitely fake”. So take all this with a grain of salt.

PlayStation Phone prototype info leaked?

Comedy RPG DeathSpank Comes to PC

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 02:01:00 +0800

Hothead Games’ DeathSpank is now available for PC via Steam.

Ron Gilbert’s return to gaming is a goofy action role-playing game that’s often described as Diablo meets Monkey Island. Playing as the eponymous hero, you’ll get to stomp around a colorful world while hunting down an item called The Artifact. Along the way, you’ll scoop up unicorn droppings, fight dragons, and stuff orphans into a burlap sack.

Comedy RPG DeathSpank Dispenses Justice to PC

Zeroinitiate.com Is Now Online

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 23:25:00 +0800

I decided to make it official, folks. You can visit the new site below.

http://www.zeroinitiate.com

We're still ironing out the site design and all that, so pardon the bare bones look.

Ferrari Enzo Crash

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 28 Mar 2007 07:24:00 +0800

How to crash a million dollar car. I can almost feel the pain on this one.

Three Filipino Women

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 20 Mar 2007 14:45:00 +0800

3-4 years ago a friend of mine gave me a book as a birthday present: Three Filipino Women by F. Sionil Jose. It gathered dust in my bookshelf for that same amount of time. I would lift it occasionally and try to start reading, but I just wasn't interested because I simply wasn't into Filipino literature.

I don't know what compelled me this weekend but I found myself reading it. The book is a compilation of three unrelated novellas by Jose. The first story, Cadena De Amor (Spanish for Chain of Love), is a story about two childhood friends, a boy and a girl, and how they both grew up to become successful, and in the case of the girl Narita, powerful people. What I found striking, and later on, haunting, is Narita's strength, which I probably won't do justice if I try to describe it here. I found Cadena De Amor bittersweet, like a pleasant memory that turned out to be a lie. I prefer not to go on at this point. Just get the book if you can. It's highly recommended reading.

Game! March Issue

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 12 Mar 2007 16:14:00 +0800

Show me some love and get a copy of the March issue of Game! Magazine. You (hopefully) won't regret it!

Where I Bought My DS

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 12 Mar 2007 12:42:00 +0800

As you can probably tell from my last post, I recently bought a Nintendo DS lite. Following my friend's recommendation, we went over to Recto to buy it from a guy he met through an online forum.

Now, video game consoles are usually bought in Greenhills. There are a lot of shops there that offer competitive packages if you know where to look. Only the rich and/or the foolish buy consoles from Megamall or any of the major malls since the price tag literally spikes to a few more thousand pesos. Instead of going to Greenhills my friend suggested we buy my DS from his seller, so off to Recto we went.

Now, maybe I've been to Recto before, but I don't remember so I when I say I haven't been there it means I don't remember the last time I was there, if I ever was. When we got off the tram it was like stepping off into a war zone. My friend said 'kinda like Fallout, isn't it?', to which I agreed. Fallout is a video game set in a post-nuclear world, and while Recto didn't have any radioactive waste, it sure was reeking of something else. The buildings looked dilapidated and the streets were, I don't know. I can't say they were dirty because they weren't, but they weren't clean either. We passed through an open movie theater and felt the air conditioning coming from within. It was cool, but the smell was otherworldly.

When we got to our destination I called our contact to find out where we were exactly supposed to meet him. He gave us the directions to a compound and off we went. The place reminded me of the Math Building back in UP. It was a rectangular structure that had an open space in the middle. Corridors ran along the perimeter and people lived along the lines of the rectangle itself. Our contact told us to go up to the fifth floor.

The compound itself was clean, but it was really old. Both the paint and the tiled floor were chipping away and there was grime running along the wall. I found myself looking for lights because it was a little dark inside even though it was broad daylight. I wondered how the place looked like at night and decided that I didn't really want to find out. Considering the state of the building, I found it surprising that I couldn't smell anything unpleasant.

Our contact himself was kind enough so nothing wrong there. I bought my DS and went back as soon as we could. All in all, it was an uneventful trip, but I'm probably going to buy my next DS in Greenhills.

On Elite Beat Agents

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 6 Mar 2007 14:30:00 +0800

I'm addicted to Elite Beat Agents. It sounds so silly.

Elite Beat Agents is a Nintendo DS rhythm game similar to Dance Dance Revolution. Instead of stepping on your NDS you tap it with the stylus in time with the beat.

For once, it's not an RPG, RTS, FPS or any other gaming genre that I usually play. I now have a minor obsession with unlocking the Divas.

A Girl & Her Guitar

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 6 Mar 2007 13:33:00 +0800

A girl playing Guile's theme on guitar. Video game music is looking good.

Tyra Banks & Katharine McPhee's Breasts

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 25 Feb 2007 18:43:00 +0800

LOL.

No More Heroes: More Violent Than Manhunt!

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 22 Feb 2007 13:04:00 +0800

A violent game for the Wii? Tell me it ain't true!

For those of you who care but don't know, Nintendo has a reputation of being the "kiddie" console maker. It stays away from violent games in general. Remember Mortal Kombat? It was an arcade game that was later ported to the Sega Genesis and the Super Nintendo Entertainment System for home gaming. MK was notorious for its vast amounts of blood and gory finishing moves, which included ripping heads off and pulling out vital organs. When it was ported, Sega retained the blood while Nintendo opted for "green sweat", literally changing the color from red to green.

Fast forward to today and we now have the Wii, Nintendo's latest console. Game developer Suda 51's Wii title No More Heroes is going to be "as violent, or even more violent than Manhunt 2!"

I'll believe it when I see it. Also, note that violent games doesn't necessarily mean good games.

No More Heroes trailer, courtesy of YouTube.

Source: Joystiq

Reading & Writing

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 19 Feb 2007 09:31:00 +0800

I already told you guys twice that I've been doing a lot of...well, you know already. A few weeks ago I was thinking about getting some reading done.

Before I go on, I'm going to tell you one of my secrets about writing. There's a lot of stuff out there that tell you how to write. Google "how to write" and you'll find a whole boatload of resources that you can use, from guides to tips to classes, lectures and whatever else is out there. Their actual usefulness really depends on you, but the best thing that I can recommend is Stephen King's "On Writing". He tells you how to write and, more importantly, how he writes. While King isn't my favorite author because his work has been hit and miss for me (Bag of Bones and Hearts in Atlantis were great, Tommyknockers was weird), I like his writing in a general sense. So in terms of actual reading and learning material, that book is what I recommend.

One of the things the book will tell you is that you can't write if you don't read, which is why I've been looking for a book. Writing is your output, your product. Reading is your input, serving as your fuel as you type on that keyboard or jot on your notepad. I haven't read in a while, which is possibly one of the reasons why I felt so uninspired last week. Possibly, I'm not sure. I read a book over the weekend and it felt good to finish it. I'm considering getting Gaiman's Anansi Boys next week.

Dark Crusade: Tau Campaign Mode Guide 3

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 5 Feb 2007 15:06:00 +0800

The Campaign Continued

With Pavonis under your control you are now able to go to almost any province in the map. I recommend that you either go to the Eres Badlands next so you can get Fury, which will allow you to move/attack twice in one turn or the Vandean Coast, which will give you an additional 1000 resources at the start of each battle.

The Eres Badlands

To win this province you have to kill 70 opposing units. Your enemy has two bases, or so the report says. I've never been able to verify this because you can win this map by simply playing defensively. Start building your base the usual way and amass your forces nearby. Eventually your opponent will attack you. As long as you can keep yourself alive and kill his units faster than he can kill yours, you'll win this map.

The Vandean Coast

The game tells you that in order to win this map you have to gain 2600 power. What it doesn't tell you is that you can also win the old-fashioned way, by destroying your opponent's base. I'll leave it to you to decide on how you want to win. If you want to go the power route, simply build generators and play defensively until you reach the required amount. You can also increase your power-gathering by building a Thermo Plasma Generator (or equivalent) on the Slag Deposit above your base. You can also simplify things by simply walking over to the other side of the map with your army and destroy your opponent's base. Again, if you rush him early it'll be easy.

The Tau Commander

The Tau commander is one of the strongest commanders in the game because of his weapons arsenal, stealth and mobility. He can take out enemy bases single-handedly if you set him out early in the game. In terms of wargear, I recommend you get the stealth field first, followed by either the jetpack or the missile pods. The jetpack provides great mobility for an otherwise slow unit and the missile pods are good at destroying enemy vehicles and buildings. They also knockdown enemy infantry. Add the fusion blaster and the plasma rifle next. If you want to make him a solo assault unit you might want to get the advanced sensor array earlier than the other upgrades. Get the flamer before you get the drone upgrades.

Enemy turrets can detect infiltrated units. To get around this you can toss a snare trap within range of the turret. The turret will start firing on the snare trap and when it does, the Tau commander will start attacking the turret. Similar to the Fire Warrior Bodyguards, the range of the Tau commander's weapons have a greater reach than his line of sight. Tossing the snare trap will extend his line of sight far enough to attack the turret from a safe distance.

The Campaign Continued

I recommend that you attack the Demes Northlands next so you can get another Fire Warrior Bodyguard honor guard unit. If you attack this province early in the game you'll only have to worry about one base. Wait longer and there will be two bases next time. Everything will be easier to rush if you have your commander and two squads of Fire Warrior Bodyguards.

Later on you'll be dealing with provinces that have two bases. Rush early and eliminate one base as quickly as possible. Should you ever be involved in a late game scenario, I recommend following the path of the Killing Blow. Hammerhead Gunships will make short work of almost anything that get in their way. Remember to build a Coalition Center so you can get the Ethereal unit. Aside from providing a global boost to the Tau, he can also summon Fire Warrior Bodyguards for free. Just right-click on the icon and he'll summon them as soon as they become available.

With the Space Port, Fury and Industrial Production under your control it should be pretty easy to go out and conquer new provinces. For the strongholds themselves, I suggest you consult NightmareHunter's excellent walkthrough for details.

That's it for now. I hope you found the information useful. I'm considering writing guides for the other races as well so you should let me know if there's a race that you want me to write about first.

Part 1
Part 2

Dark Crusade: Tau Campaign Mode Guide 2

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 5 Feb 2007 15:06:00 +0800

Playing Defense

One of the things you have to remember is that your provinces can be invaded by your foes. While you can choose to resolve such things automatically, I recommend that you fight it out so your commander can earn wargear.

When one of your provinces is invaded, any of the structures that you built the last time you were there will still be there. The key to resolving these invasions quickly is to build everything you need before you win a province. Let's say you're in the Agamar Desert and you're on the verge of winning. Stop. Destroy everything except your opponent's HQ. From that point, start building all of the structures you need and upgrade your listening posts. You may also want to capture additional strategic points and build listening posts on those as well. The point is that make sure that you have everything you need in case you need to defend that province later. When you're done, destroy your opponent's HQ to win the province. When that province gets invaded, you'll be ready because you'll have the resources and the structures needed to send your advanced units to the fray. Note that any technology available through research will have to be researched again, but at least you'll have the structures set up already.

Playing As The Tau

The Tau's strength is their range, which is pretty good in terms of power and reach. Their melee attacks are secondary, so even with the Kroot and the Vespid you're still going to have a tough time dealing with your foes if you go head-to-head with them in close combat. Always keep this in mind as you make your progress through the game.

Here's my recommended build order:

1. Create a builder unit then build a barracks.
2. Create 2 stealth teams and begin capturing strategic points.
3. Create another builder unit and build 2 plasma generators.
4. Create listening posts on the captured strategic points using the builder unit that just finished your barracks.
5. Create a fire warrior team from your barracks.

When you build your Barracks, press the F2 key immediately to set all units from that building to the Ranged Attack stance. You can also use this on the Vehicle Beacon when you build it. This way, units from those structures will engage foes within firing range but won't chase them if they flee. You don't want your Tau units to fight foes in melee. They're next to useless that way.

For starters, I recommend that you conquer the Agamar Desert first so you can get the Fire Warrior Bodyguard honor guard unit. Combine it with Pathfinders to maximize their line of sight and you've got extremely long range at the start of the game. Remember that their weapon range is longer than their line of sight, so don't forget to have some Pathfinders tag along with them. You can use this combination to annoy your enemy and prevent him from capturing strategic points. You can use a starting army of a squad of Fire Warrior Bodyguards, a squad of Fire Warriors and the Tau Commander to harass your opponent. Continue to build your base and fortify your army until your foe is defeated.

When you're done with the Agamar Desert, move your way two provinces up to get to Pavonis. Pavonis is a special province that holds the Space Port, which will allow you to go to any province on the planet except enemy strongholds. To win Pavonis, you have to find 6 Servitors on the map and keep them in your base.

Pavonis

To win this province you have to find 6 Servitors and keep them in your base. Your commander will keep you informed when you or your opponent finds one so keep track of things by using the counter on the right. There's a Servitor near your HQ, standing close to the upper strategic point.

Your opponent has three bases. There's one in the south corner, one in the middle and one in the northeast end. Although the map tells you to find Servitors, destroying your opponent's bases is a good strategy because it'll keep you from being overwhelmed later on. Remember, three bases equals three different armies that can gang up on you, so move quickly.

I recommend that you go after the one on the southern end first. Move your commander and your honor guard units to raid the base. If you do it immediately it will still be vulnerable by the time you get there. Continue amassing your forces in your base and have those troops join your commander's army and move on to the second base in the middle. There should be 2-3 Servitors in that base by the time you get there so capture those as well. Finally, move up to the northern end and destroy the base there.

Part 1
Part 3

Dark Crusade: Tau Campaign Mode Guide 1

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 5 Feb 2007 08:59:00 +0800

First of all, welcome to this guide. As the title states, this is a guide for the single-player campaign of Warhammer 40000: Dawn of War: Dark Crusade and it focuses on the Tau.

The Tutorial

Don't underestimate Dark Crusade's tutorial because each race gets its own custom tutorial. Aside from showing you gameplay mechanics, it also provides you with excellent information about each race: their strengths, weaknesses and distinct characteristics that differentiate them from the other races. If you're going to use an unfamiliar race, I highly recommend that you go through the tutorial first, even if you know the basics already.

The Campaign

Dark Crusade's campaign mode involves conquering the planet of Kronus. Each race has a stronghold or home province and a commander unit, represented by a banner and a commander "token" respectively. The commander tokens symbolize the movement of each race's army as they move across the planet. The colors of the borders dividing each province signify which race controls it.

Regardless of what race you use, I advise you to start small. Look at your potential target provinces and click on Attack to get a report about what you'll be facing. What you're looking for is the number of bases the enemy has. If it's only one base, go after that first. Normally, the smaller provinces have only one enemy base but that's not always the case. You can also consider the honor guard unit and planetary requisition you'll gain if you win the province. Planetary requisition are resources that you can use to fortify your controlled provinces and to buy honor guard units, which are special units that become members of your commander's army. They will accompany your commander as long as you can keep them alive after each mission. If they die, you can use planetary requisition to buy them again.

There are also special provinces that grant different kinds of bonuses.

Pavonis - Space Port - lets you ignore the adjacency rule and move to/attack any region on the map except for enemy strongholds.

The Eres Badlands - Fury - you can move/attack twice in one turn.

The Aceria Forests - Manpower - increases the squad and vehicle caps for your army, allowing you to produce more units.

The Hyperion Peaks - Forward Base - allows you to use planetary requisition to purchase buildings prior to a battle.

The Ariel Highlands - Bulwark - reduces the cost of reinforcing provinces.

The Vandean Coast - Industrial Production - gives you an additional 1000 requisition resource at the start of each mission.

Part 2
Part 3

Excuses

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 2 Feb 2007 10:23:00 +0800

There are two reasons why I haven't been posting lately. One, I can't connect to Blogger properly. Anything Google-related on my end has been having problems. There are times when I can't log on to GMail, Google Docs and Blogger. Two, I've been doing a lot of writing lately, more than I've ever done since I wrote my first article for PC Mag Philippines, which I'd like to mark as my semi-professional writing birthday. I'm not going to go through history, but right now I'm doing regular work for two blogs and one website, then semi-regular stuff for three magazines. I'm not bragging. I just thought about it earlier today and never really imagined that it would get this far. Don't get me wrong, I like what I'm doing. It's just that all the writing has kept me from updating this blog, which shouldn't really be an excuse since this is where I practiced my writing.

Part of the problem is that I really don't know what to do with this site. It started out as a personal blog that turned into an online notepad and then became a gaming-related website. My most popular posts so far have been the guides for Final Fantasy XII, which was fun to write. I'm currently writing another guide for a different game (Dawn of War: Dark Crusade) that I'll hopefully be able to post here as well.

My friends are going back to school to get post-graduate degrees. I thought about it for a while then told them that it would be impossible for me to keep my writing and my gaming if I go back to school. With my job, writing, gaming and school, something will definitely have to give.

That's it for updates. I consider myself a semi-professional writer/blogger since I'm not into this full-time. It's one hell of a ride though.

Writing Some More

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 29 Jan 2007 11:05:00 +0800

I've been busy doing a lot of writing lately. I just finished my review for Dirge of Cerberus and I'm also doing something for a local magazine. Hopefully they'll approve it by the end of this week. It's a 1500-word article that's been edited, re-edited and re-re-edited last week so I want to see the end of it by Friday. I just want it done and over with so I can move on to writing other things. The mild aggravation had me mentally asking is this worth it? I'm crossing my fingers.

I've been actively using Google Reader for my RSS feeds. I've known about RSS for a long time now but this is the first time that I've bothered using it. It's pretty good for news junkies (which I'm not). It's extremely useful for getting new information quickly though.

I saw a House marathon last Sunday to catch up on the Tritter arc. I stopped watching it ever since House got arrested so that I wouldn't get all excited thinking about what would happen next. The next episode's on the 30th so I'm waiting for that.

Lastly, I want a Nintendo DS!

Review: Dirge of Cerberus: Final Fantasy VII

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 09:31:00 +0800

You can read my review of Dirge of Cerberus here.

Hugh Laurie Wins Golden Globe Award

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 18 Jan 2007 06:41:00 +0800

Hugh Laurie won a Golden Globe award for his portrayal of Dr. Gregory House. Here's a video of his acceptance speech.

Colonic irrigations FTW.

iPhone Features

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 16 Jan 2007 07:03:00 +0800

From About.com

Mobile Phone:

Allows users to make calls by simply pointing at a name or number.

Syncs all of your contacts from your PC, Mac or Internet service such as Yahoo!

Construct a favorites list for your most frequently made calls.

Merge calls together to create conference calls.

Visual Voicemail lets users look at a listing of their voicemails, decide which messages to listen to, then go directly to those messages without listening to the prior messages.

A SMS application with a full QWERTY virtual keyboard with predictive text to send and receive SMS messages in multiple sessions.

A calendar application that allows calendars to be automatically synced with your PC or Mac.

A 2 megapixel camera and a photo management application. Users can browse browse their photo library, which can be synced from their PC or Mac, and choose a photo for their wallpaper or to include in an email.

A quad-band GSM phone which also features EDGE and Wi-Fi wireless technologies (802.11b/g) for data networking as well as Bluetooth 2.0 EDR.

Widescreen iPod:

Touch controls that lets music lovers scroll through entire lists of songs, artists, albums and playlist.

Cover Flow, which lets you browse your music library by album cover artwork. When navigating your music library on iPhone, you are automatically switched into Cover Flow by rotating iPhone into its landscape position.

A 3.5-inch widscreen display.

Touch controls for play-pause, chapter forward-backward and volume when watching TV shows and movies.

Syncs content from a user's iTunes library on their PC or Mac, and can play any music or video content they have purchased from the online iTunes store.

Internet Communications Device:

Features a HTML email client which fetches your email in the background from most POP3 or IMAP mail services and displays photos and graphics right along with the text. iPhone is fully multi-tasking, so you can be reading a web page while downloading your email in the background.

Yahoo! Mail is offering a new free "push" IMAP email service to all iPhone users that automatically pushes new email to a user's iPhone, and can be set up by entering your Yahoo! name and password.

iPhone will also work with most industry standard IMAP and POP based email services, such as Microsoft Exchange, Apple .Mac Mail, AOL Mail, Google Gmail and most ISP mail services.

Runs a version of the Mac Safari web browser for viewing web pages and lets one zoom in to expand any section by tapping on iPhone's multi-touch display with their finger. Also includes built-in Google Search and Yahoo! Search, automatic syncing of bookmarks from a PC or Mac.

Support for wireless Internet usage via Wi-Fi or EDGE.

Built-in Google Maps, featuring Google's online maps service and iPhone's maps application, lets users view maps, satellite images, traffic information and get directions.