hoorooscoop

The Bottom Line

If a project’s vital component is missing, wait for it. A substitute won’t do.

In Detail

If one of a project’s vital components is missing, don’t waste time trying to come up with a substitute. You need what you need, and trying to fudge your way through this is only going to lead to major disappointment or even embarrassment. It would be much better to postpone a deadline so you can carry on with the people and resources you need. In the meantime, you can enjoy spending a bit more free time with the people you love.

-I’m missing a gunmetal gray and matt-black paint for my gundam. tuesday, that is…

Nokia 5300 XpressMusic – a Glimpse

HO! At last, another Music Player phone from Nokia. They made a lot of attempts in making such phones. Although sadly, they were not successful in making one, even today. But this one will surely bring them up. This phone and the phones made previously have one common target: youth. And as always, it caught the least attention in the market. From the complicated Nokia 5510, the phone that contained the divided qwerty keymat to the Nokia 3300(the one I have now) that obtained the quality music that I’ve been looking for.  The only disadvantage is its low memory card capacity. You can only use only up to128mb of external storage. The advantage is the music’s quality that even had an equalizer and a Stereo Widening feature(e.g. Dolby Digital Surround System, makes you feel like the sounds are not coming from the speakers, but rather coming from nowhere). They made another mp3 player phone, Nokia N91 but it didn’t have the music quality of Nokia 3300. It only received better Operating System and later on a bigger inbox memory card. Now though, they started making the youth the target again and this is what they made. The Nokia 5300 XpressMusic Featured the same Stereo surround from Nokia 3300. It also allows memory cards that notches up to 2GB which isn’t bad at all. It also has a built-in 1.3-megapixel camera and has an internal memory of 5MB. 5MB?? That’s bad!!!!!!!!!! If you will look at Nokia 6230 which was a generation older contained 32 MB of internal memory! Oh well, never mind, could be worse. A disadvantage though for this large screen phone is the OS of a Nokia UI Series 40 version3. It also has the same basic S40v3 components, Gprs and other stuff. The only thing that made it down for me is that they never made it 3G-capable. If you will look at the phones with the same OS, they are all 3G but this doesn’t even have WCDMA or HSDPA reception. So sad. The screen made it through, though. A TFT, 256K Color, 240 by 320 pixel resolution. That might be a slump here in the Philippines because it will be difficult to find games and applications with the required resolution.

Another Image but specifically modified for Regulus theme, WordPress

Here you go, another one. It’s very simple, with a border line of blue and white gradient, the same graphic modifications that I did for the letters in the previous image and for the first time, I included a reflection!

Wait for more ideas

Concept Graphics

At the moment, I’m thinking of new ideas about the look of my header and I thought, maybe I can put more colors. My color is mainly BLUE. But then I thought maybe it’ll be a little bit more energetic if I put more colors and stuff. Here’s the concept design, still planning on making more. Oh yeah, I’m also thinking of a new icon.

Splinter Cell : CHAOS THEORY Nokia N-gage Format

By the time I got my first ever colored LCD screen phone, the Nokia 6100, the first ever game that arrived in it was Splinter Cell Pandora Tomorrow. After downloading the game, that’s the time I realized how the game immediately became famous after its first release. The Splinter Cell by Tom Clancy became a game by Ubisoft and later on, a mobile format was released by Gameloft. And because Gameloft was chosen to be the official producer of the game for mobile format, you cannot deny that this game won’t reach the Nokia development. The very famous Nokia N-gage received a lot of games from Gameloft and the one of those games is the Splinter Cell : Stealth Team Action. It’s a side-scroll type RPG for Nokia N-gage. That game stayed there for a while until one of the famous chapter of Splinter Cell, CHAOS THEORY went out. So, Gameloft thought this might get a good catch, so they produced one for N-gage. But it seemed that they don’t want to put the target market into a mind of potential embarrasment. Theyy knew that people wanted a new Splinter Cell, not just a side scroll one but a better and exciting and a thriller game. So, by the time of release, here you go!

To show you how the environment looks like:

It’s now a 3D environment, much like what we can see in our X-play-box-station whaterver thingy. You can now do the interactions between enemies, you can do some interrogation as well. The game features very nice graphics with full movement of the character Sam Fisher. Sam can run or just walk, crouch then run or walk slowly. The enemies cannot see you easily on dark but if you move a lot, that can make enough noise for them to notice something weird around. The game is really tough. For example, if you are moving around,say walking to a door, picking something up, you are actually not “action” ready. Meaning if an enemy spots you and the only way to keep him silent is to gun him down, you cannot fire at him easily because you’re not holding your gun yet. You still have to press 1 to put it in action mode, it comes with the close-up of the camera to Sam’s chicks and a crosshair appears on the center. You can also choose a weapon of choice. You can switch weapons during the game. Several weapons appeared not only the very famous silencer-equipped handgun but also a multi-type gun that can be used with a shocker, which can deactivate electronic devices for a few seconds, like cameras, a person-stunner that stuns an enemy for a couple of seconds. It can also serve as a machinegun! And you can fire a camera to a wall to see something you cannot see within the range of your vision. The problem with these weapons though, is that if you’re like Arnold that doesn’t mind about how many bullets he has, you’re in deep trouble because they pushed this game so hard and so realistic that you have to conserve your bullets because you canno easily pick up reloads. You barely see reloads around, to be honest. Here’s the action view:

And because they made it realistic, even the guess-the-password and pick locks should be done by you:

you enter the code using your keymat. Yeah, very nice, I like it.

And another thing, no Splinter Cell will be complete without the classic Sam Fisher visuals. You can choose from normal view, Night vision and thermal vision.

from top left:Normal, Night vision and Thermal vision. What’s that???

I haven’t finished the game though, but reaching the third chapter without walkthroughs and help is really tiring, especially that the enemies are beginning to sharpen up their visions and tactics. That’s all for now!

GAME! Next Attraction!

Sure it’s familiar but the VW Golf and Lamborghini Countach and that laser target beam from above and the HUD? I think that’s different! We’ll find out next time!!!

1/100 scale Master Grade Gundam Mk-II Titans Colors ver2.0

The white one on the left is the one I’m about to build. The other one next to the AEUG colors is the one from the Titans Factory. The story tells that as the “Zeta Gundam” Series starts, the Earth Federation became corrupted and built the Titans factory. And due tot his corruption, the AEUG (Anti-Earth Union Group) captain Quattro Bajeena, the incognito Zeon ace pilot Char Aznable of the One Year War(guess what, he’s not wearing a mask here), planned to steal the three pre-production prototypes of the Gundam Mark II. The Gundam Mark II was based loosely on the famous RX-78-2 Gundam used in the One Year War. So, about the modelkit, why does it seem to be different from the AEUG colors? Well, in fact the two modelkit do look exactly the same. The only visible difference you can see at first glance is the colors. But actually, if you will look at it properly, there’s a small difference in the body’s articulation. The Titans can articulate its waist better than the AEUG. To see more of this unit, click here!

To read more about the history and technical data of the RX-178 Gundam Mk-II, click here.

MAHQ.net

Dalong.net

Factory – Pending Request

Yes, my Gundam’s still hanging there in bits because I haven’t bought a single spraycan of paint for it. Even the markers are not yet purchased. Anyway, I’m excited about the construction of the Gundam Mk-II AEUG colors. I might build it with my brother’s upcoming Hi-Nu Gundam.

(second paragraph deleted, sorry)

Saturday journey

Eleven o’clock in the morning, my brother and I went out and took a ride to MRT Quezon Avenue Station and from there we went to Ortigas station to wait for a ride to Greenhills, where the most awaited unit will rendezvous me. I’ll tell you later about that unit. Anyway, while riding the train to Ortigas, I remembered that there’s some meaning to me, some sort of goodluck when I see exotic cars around me that day. I think, for me, seeing such cars tell me that this day is somewhat have a good ending or everything will be in favor to me. Exotic cars refer to the most expensive ones and filled with high caliber of engineering that when you put it all up, it performs like nothing our local cars can do. Something little children dream of, like everyone of them has an Athena poster of a Ferrari Enzo or a Porsche 911 Turbo or a classic Lamborghini Coutach. They also call it exotic because the manufacturers limit the production population. Sometimes they only produce 700 of the exotic car or worse, 100. You cannot call something like a Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution or a Subrau Impreza WRX or NISSAN SKYLINE GT-R an exotic because they are meant for mass production (i really mean mass!) because they need to distribute it in other countries. BUT! Since those cars like the Evo or Scooby is not that affordable to some of our fellowmen (and I’m one of them), I call those cars exotic. Heheh, well, for Subaru, I cannot call it exotic because they found their way here at our shores and built their homebase. I actually saw one test unit outside their Dealership at Greenhills and saw the other units inside the showroom. So, that’s one car, something exotic, at the moment. And then, as the train continued moving, I ended up in front of the dealership of one of the biggest names in Supercar industry, Porsche. And as we move along, I saw in their showroom a pristine Porsche 911 GT3 RS. Whoah! that’s second so proabably this is gonna be a good day. And so it is. I discovered one of the good ‘ol tricks of our fellow jeepney drivers. The Stop light beside Robinsons Galleria is their area of action. The jeepney’s route is from there, robinsons, to greenhills shopping center. To get passengers, they don’t do the usual routine of gathering passengers. Since most of the passengers come from Robinsons, those passengers have to cross at the pedestrian crossing near the stop light. So instead of doing the usual routine, they wait for the red light to glow. When they know it will glow any moment, they drive near the stop light and by the time they arrive at their waiting point, the red light glows so all vehicles stop. It’s an advantage though for both people and drivers. For people, they don’t have to walk far to get a ride to Greenhills. For drivers, they instantly get passengers, therefore filling their seats quickly and get to go around their route fast so money goes in fast as well. Whew! that was nice…

Greenhills – This unit I told you before is the Master Grade 1/100 scale Gundam Mk-II. My brother gave it to me as a graduation gift. It was a good opportunity to build this since it’s already summer. I have a lot of time putting a lot of details in my Gundam. The rest of the day is bonding moment with my brother Mark and ate Chil. It was tiring though, it made my body ache a lot but it made me satisfied and happy.

Battle Gear 4 Tuned – Test Drive

Alright, now the awaited review. I was amazed with this machine, really, to be honest. Let me show you why.

Battle gear is an arcade racing series, well, I don’t know when it started. I only saw the second series up to the present. The game was technically created to compete with the “top” names in arcade racing games, namely Initial D Arcade Stage series and Wangan Midnight Series. Recently, Initial D released the Arcad Stage 3 and about to release the fourth and Wangan Midnight carries “Maximum Tune 2”. Now, Battle gear is basically a realistic simulation of vehicle maneuvering. All aspects and specifications including the real-world physics. The way the car behaves is their aim to simulate. Now, what the punks can play these days is the Battle Gear 3. Unlike the 2, the 3 features the same basic controls, hazards, high beam buttons, semi-auto gear knob but with added “hand brake”, probably for drifting purposes. The “2” actually had a later version called Battle Gear V2 or something like that, that featured a handbrake but they emphasized the handbrake feature on the “3”. The “3” had an improved graphics, much better than the a-bit-pixelated “2”. I can say that the 3 has graphics similar to Gran Turismo 3. Just like Initial D, BG3 has an individual identification system called NETSYS, which, instead of using a magnetic card to store info, it uses a key but not all countries can avail it. Unfortunately, we belong to those countries. Still, could be worse…

Now, only BG3 can be seen on the usual playgrounds of youth, meaning those places that are easily accessed by common people. Why don’t we move to the more “sophisticated” ones. Timezone is just an example of those and new games usually arrive here first. They use cards instead of tokens and other “luxurious” stuff. It’s really expensive to play there, to be honest. Now, they have Battle Gear 3 there and Initial D 3 and WMMaxtune as well. But recently, I noticed that the positions of the cabinets are moved. It’s because of this new game, the Battle Gear 4 Tuned.

BG4 featured the basics from BG3: handbrake… wait. The gearknob is different though. The gearknob can be set in 4 distinctive settings. First is Full Auto, meaning no need to use the gearknob and Driving assistance is observed. second is Auto that can be observed in our latest auto vehicles. Can’t tell you exactly because I did not use the feature. Third is “Manual – Semi Auto” Meaning, manual transmission with gear-up-gear-down feature. and then the fourth is the 6-speed MANUAL TRANSMISSION. So I thought you can only move the gearknob up and down but when I chose the 4th feature, the gearknob setting changed and can be moved like a real manual transmission with all gears having separate place, like the manual of a real car. So, just like Maxtune, but not so fast. I noticed something with the pedals. You’ll see the gas pedal, brake, and to my surprise, a CLUTCH PEDAL, JUST LIKE THE ONE IN THE REAL CAR!!!. When I played the game with the feature, you really have to step on the clutch to shift gear or else if you don’t step on it, the gearknob will lock a neutral and will not be able to shift at any gear you want. It’s really amazing, they really went on simulating it with the best of what they have. They even have a lever just above the gearknob. That’s overboost feature or nitrous, depending on the car and situation you choose. They have 4 modes of racing, you get single race, time attack, self explanatory, “same make race”, meaning all of you have the same car and last, drift mode. Yeees, drift mode! I liked it a lot. Just drift and earn points. Unfortunately, the game is not featuring the Netsys key. I’ll jot in more observations after playing more. It really ate up all my money. hehehe, here are the pictures:

The game cabinet. Features the basics and a rollcage. (what the hell was that for???)

Usual scene: from right, gas pedal(currently stepping on it), brake pedal, and the amazing addition, a clutch pedal!!!!

The gearknob at neutral position. The red lever triggers the overboost or nitrous oxide. Bright view change and hazard trigger buttons. Black, plastic beam at the right of the gearknob is the handbrake.

Gearknob at first gear.

GAME! – Next Attraction

Splinter Cell:Chaos Theory, N-gage Format

Battle Gear 4 Tuned

Also upcoming:

Initial D Fourth stage – a glimpse

The Battle Gear 4 Tuned will come up soon. It’s just that I haven’t uploaded yet the pictures I took when I first played it.

All coming up soon!