The Zone

Highway toll from Klang Valley to Malacca and back: RM38.10

Petrol: RM60

Permanent marker pen: RM1.80

Bleach calander poster: RM20

Meeting Masakazu Morita in person, interviewing him, and then getting his autograph: Priceless

Masakazu Morita is an awesome person to meet in real life. He's so polite and humble that it's hard to imagine that he's the same person to voice Ichigo in Bleach. I may have never watched the series before, but seeing how open and friendly Morita-san is, he's made a new fan out of me.

e-learning courseware for the young have traditionally been either full feature interactive movies (practically any Malaysian Smart School e-learning topic) or a graphically bloated quiz with prettied up graphics. Usually the interactive movies are better due to the more involving storyline, higher production values and interactivity. But developing such courseware often reaches into the hundreds of thousands to the millions of (insert your choice of denomination here) and take lots of time and effort. In many cases, the courseware ceases to be fun over time as the rote learning effect comes into play. 

 However, this may not always be the case with more game developers getting into the fray. Amanita, creators of the Samorost game have developed a quirky, fun and quite effective e-learning game for BBC titled Questionaut. Even adults have found it hard to put down, check it out after the jump.

With the release of NVIDIA's 9800 GX2 we're seeing more and more multi GPUs pre-daisy chained together and embedded into a single graphic card. With what started as two graphic cards stuck together (the GeForce 7900 GX2) we now see two GPU's pre-crossfired on a single PCB (AMD-ATI's Radeon HD 3870 X2) or pre-SLIed like the current multi-GPU on a stick, the 9800 GX2. Will we see more multi GPU graphic cards using the same concept in the not so near future? Perhaps a pre-triple SLI 8800 GTX GX3 or 8800 Ultra GX3? Or maybe a quad crossfire HD 3870 X4?

Time will tell, but with actual development of new GPU's using smaller fabrication processes taking up too much time and effort (and both companies just having released new GPU series), its unlikely that either NVIDIA or AMD-ATI will begin rolling out a new series of GPUs more powerful than the current single card multi-GPU. My only question is, will these multi GPU cards get thicker or longer?

When two game companies collide, they result in awesome. Especially on April Fool's Day! Stay on to the end for a surprise message!

Hot on the heels of Carpal Tunnel Syndrome and other RSI (Repetiitive Stress Injury) cases we're now seeing the emergence of Wii related RSI which some have dubbed Wiiitis. Many complainers are saying they've hurt, strained or sprained their shoulders through the use of the Wiimote, mainly cause its not the same as swinging an actual golf club, baseball or bowling ball.

No official word from Nintendo or from the courts just yet, but if you're going to play the Wii for 5 hours straight, 7 days a week all we can say is .... serves you right.

The Swedish game awards 08' has featured this conceptual adventure game; Blueberry Garden which is the work of a single person, Erik Svedäng. While its not available on any system anytime soon, it reminds us of Loco Roco, thanks to the zany level design. The art takes a rather simplistic turn though, and its always nice to see a mashup between Loco Roco and Patapon :P 

Check it out!

Didn't expect a triple GPU on a single card to come so soon ("More Multi GPUs on stick" 19/03/2008) but here's ASUS's HD 3850 X3 Trinity. Featuring 3 HD 3850 GPUs on a single watercooled card. The card manages to fit in all three GPUs using MXM modules at a hefty 1.45kg weight (wonder if it's gonna need supports for those tall tower setups?). Can't wait to see it its worth the trouble.

How soon do you think we can expect an X4 coming out?

PC Gaming seems to be heading down the path of the Elitist if the economic decisions made by today's game developers are any indication. Just recently, Lucasarts, developers of the up and coming Star Wars : The Force Unleashed game have stated that there is not going to be any PC version. The rather obscure reason for this decision was that not many people would be able to afford a machine or gaming rig capable of playing the game to its full potential and has thus focused efforts on console development only. According to Lucasarts this means that most gamers can afford a next gen game console compared to a top of the line gaming rig which can churn out even higher resolutions. Unfortunately this is actually true.

Crytek, makers of the gaming rig pushing Crysis have actually had to dumb down their CryEngine so that it can be run off consoles like the Xbox 360 or the PS3 and thus make Crysis viable for the console market. So far there hasn't been any statement from Crytek on whether they will or will not make Crysis 2 for the PC but for the most part it doesn't look good for most PC Gamers out there.

For now, we can't really blame developers for going the console way as in the end, they need to make money. However, this development does not bode well for many players in the industry such as graphic card makers and processor makers as most of the really hardcore (and expensive) stuff have generally been bought by gamers. But with many game devs abandoning the platform, things definitely don't look good for PC gamers unless we can get official console emulators to run off of our superior hardware. Until then, only time will tell.

Animax-Asia sent word that they will be having a contest in line with their latest broadcast of Sergeant Keroro, now airing 6 p.m. weekdays on Animax. Titled ‘My Friend is an Alien‘, the contest is to create and draw ORIGINAL characters inspired by Keroro and his gang. If your illustration is selected, it will be animated and featured on air across Animax in Asia! Nice.

The top 3 winning entries will win themselves a Dopod smartphone handset and have their works turned into Habbo home stickers. Closing date is 9th September 2008, so you’ll have some time up to come up with some spiffy character designs. Full press release after the jump.