McDonald’s and McCafe Katipunan NOW OPEN~!

Yup, it’s now open! Today is the first day of its soft opening, according to one of the people at the counter. January will be its grand opening with a lot of freebies~!

The place has now an integrated McCafe inside. Both McDonald’s and McCafe share the same entrance which make it really nice and let the designers share the cafe-style of the McCafe to the McDonald’s area. This is not like the branch at Quezon avenue where the previous motif was still used by the McDonald’s area while the McCafe has the Cafe-style. Since McCafe shared the design, the whole place really looked good. Of course, renovations brought a lot of changes.

• The tables near the counter are now seating 6 people instead of 4
• There are now tables with cushioned seats, 5 separate tables and a long, bended cushioned seat with tables along it.
• The McCafe counter is bonded with the McDonald’s counter
• I don’t know how much seats were added but I’m sure it is at least 25% more.
• The long, high tables were removed. (awww)But they were replaced with more tables and seats.
• The elevated area is now fully lit and has more seats, round tables were moved towards the high table areas.
• Party rooms stay on their previous positions
• Better motif for lights, making the place pretty much noisy-hater (I hope)
• Same management but added more employees. Expect someone to come over your table and ask if you want to buy desserts from McCafe.
• Some employees offer ordering services which makes you wait in your table while the employee buy the additional stuff you want, say, coffee. 😀
• The tiles don’t look like you’re in a comfort room. They look good now probably because of McCafe.
• Oh yeah, the food. They are made after you order. It might be hassle when classes resume but still. I ordered a Cheeseburger meal and my burger is still steaming hot when I opened it. Nice…

Captured from one of the tables with cushioned seats. There’s the McDonald’s and McCafe counters. The partition beside the tables with cushioned seats are made of glass.

Those are the things I’ve noticed from a quick glance around. and the COOOOKKEE, I missed their coke. now it’s back~! Although there’s a rise in prices but probably because to compensate with the renovation or maybe I haven’t noticed the whole McDonald’s family increase prices since I’m not eating at any Mcdo after our branch at Katipunan was renovated. (Yess, loyal) There will be a Grand Opening when classes resume and expect a lot of freebies~! See you there~!

Need For Speed Undecover – PlayStation Portable Review

Need for Speed Undercover is the latest installment of EA’s racing chain. This time, an undercover job (obviously) will be in your hands and you shall play as a wheelman to know where the smuggled cars went. You will be under Chase Linh which is Maggie Q and plainly all she will do is talk to you. For this review, I will chop it into bits so that I will be able to cover most of the game’s aspects and I will be using the Nissan GT-R most of the time.

THE GAME ITSELF

It’s pretty much the same as Need for Speed Most Wanted because most of the time, cops will try to take you down even though you’re not speeding. What amazes me is that the cops recognize you when they see you around again. Although the cop thing is not gonna help with the race, I think the cops in this game were sharper than before. Unlike MW, the cops here appear and run opposite your car, making you stop if you don’t notice them because they will crash head on to you. Which is pretty annoying for some of us because we hate repeating and repeating the race. Other than that, rechargeable Nitrous, speedbreaker and heat levels were shifted back.

NEW STUFF

There are new stuff in the game although it might not be appreciated that much. The game itself has the largest EA world created with several highway links to three different places. In the race types, new ones were highway battle, Cop escape, Cost to state and outrun. In Highway Battle, it’s the same as a Sprint but it is “Wangan” straight with minimal traffic which makes it nice to drive around that thrash your opponent easily. Cop escape is also similar to MW except that the whole city is open for you to hide somewhere unlike in MW where you should keep on outrunning cops in one circuit. Cost to State makes you damage anything in front of you, beches, signs, cars and even cops. You’ll have to damage enough to get through to this type of race. In Outrun, you play cat and mouse with one opponent with, again, the whole city or world open to you, much like Tokyo Xtreme Racer or old Wangan Midnight games.

There’s also a new feature which Maggie Q called “In the Zone”. She said that when you are “IN the ZOnE”, your speedbreaker and nitrous will refill quicker than normal. This will also create a nitrous brake light beam effect from the back of your car and glows your tach when you are in the zone. That feature will be gone once you hit any barrier of wall. You will get the feature when you do a lot of stuff like airtime and near miss.

Another new thing is that this time, the AI is using a real life cop car which is the Nissan GT-R. Also, cops are using choppers so that it will take time before you shake them off.

Yup, definitely a GT-R. Run!

NO NEW CARS, NO NEW GRAPHICS

Yep, I think most of the cars there are apparent in previous titles and if ever there’s a new one, it is not that good although I would like to make it a point that the new Nissan 370Z is an exception, makes me wonder this car might have a bias. The Nissan GT-R and the 911 GT2 were there while there are cars being removed such as Subaru Impreza. Even though the environment has changed, the graphics didn’t. When I saw the game, I preferred the new graphics that the Need For Speed ProStreet had. It’s was back to rubbish wheel designs and reflective roads. Although there is a new type of bodykit which is named “Integrated” which makes the car look better. It might compensate to the rubbish designs of the old era but I don’t think it will compensate that much.

That’s integrated bodykit for you. (whut?!)

BAD GAME PHYSICS

It’s also the same as MW when turning. At some point you will be forced to use the speed breaker in order not to let your opponent pass you when you turn in like a stupid person because you’ll crash on a wall. I hate using speed breaker because it interrupts me looking for another button to press so that it can make me corner better. The cars tend to slide badly when you encounter jumps which is pretty annoying. It may be good because it really happens in real life but sometimes the slides were too exaggerated.

RANTS~!

The game itself is not even gonna reach satisfactory rating. One because it’s like a repeat of the MW. Another, the new features may be good but they’re not gonna lift the game up the ranks. Cars may be accessed with ease but tuning all cars will not be necessary. For example, once I got my hands in the Nissan GT-R, I tuned it up and used it all the way. I did tune the Zonda and the Porsche but I did not use them. Once you’ve tuned the high end cars, most of them have the same specs. That is why in this review, I’m just using a GT-R. The graphics suck because they kept on repeating the same design. I was expecting it to be more like the Prostreet. Prostreet cars have better reflections compared to this one. The new bodykit series is really great, I admit, it made the Evo X look better unlike the exaggerated wide bodykit for Race.

When I read reviews for NFS on PSP, I always optimistic towards the game. Like the Prostreet, I liked the damage modelling and wondered why is it not included in the latest. Why are the improvements not implemented on the new installement? I’m really an NFS fan but it seems that the interest is fading away. Right now I have NFS Prostreet because I enjoy the physics of the game and the online feature. If I played Undercover online, it will be no challenge. really.

This game is nice, in terms of its story. I admit, I liked the story more rather than the game. The story made me continue the game because I’m always interested on what will happen next. Other than than, it felt like I was back in Most wanted but this time on the side of the cops being a puppy to them. 😀

Gallery:

My Barkada’s Gift

Yep, two Choro-Qs were given to me as Christmas presents from my beloved barkada during the famous UP Lantern Parade. It was a Bayside Blue Nissan Skyline GT-R R34 and a Silver Honda NSX-R. I was planning on modifying them so that I will be able to mount them on the R/C Chassis Q-steer but I think the sentimental value of these cars led me to a conclusion not to do so. Thank you guys, I love these. Merry Christmas!

The University of the Philippines Lantern Parade 2008

“Just by looking at the big crowd, the floats and the atmosphere, surely no other university can match it.”

-Me. 😀 6:00 p.m., Running alongside the parade to AS.

Every year, prior to the celebration of Christmas, the University of the Philippines holds their one-of-a-kind Lantern Parade. Every college and organization takes part on these momentous event. A parade of lanterns and astonishing presentations give color to UP Diliman’s 2.2-kilometer oval. I was really excited since this was my first time to take part in this event. I am not a UP student but an Atenean and that is why I can say nothing in any university can match, not even my university. The atmosphere is really alive and everyone who can join took place beside the road to cheer on the best floats around. Also, a finale of spectacular fireworks display was lit.

This was one unique Lantern Parade because it is also UP’s Centennial and what my UP graduate mother said was true, this is gonna be one hell of a presentation. For instance, the eternal cheerdance competition champion, UP PEP Squad performed in front of Palma Hall, (where I viewed the presentation) and made me realize how good they were. Imagine, perfoming on a basketball court surface would be nice but doing the same actions on tarmac, that would be really a very brave and great performance.

I had a lot of fun joining another university’s event. It is really nice and a very good kick-off for your Christmas vacation. It really takes a very big effort for one college or org to build a fully lit float… or a lantern, I should say. We have a similar event in Ateneo not about Christmas but in celebration of the “Linggo ng Wika” which is called Sagala ng mga Sikat although that was very nice, I find UP’s Lantern Parade more exciting. Nothing beats it(sorry my dear alma mater… ) It is very nice.
I was with my barkada (who all went to UP and left two of us in other universities, I’m in Ateneo and the other one at La Salle) to celebrate Christmas with them. They’ve done this before and I was not able to join them because of multiple long tests before Christmas break starts. Now I was able to sneak out of the long tests and was able to join them that night. I didn’t know that they had a lot of expectations before the year ends. I was laughing with what they expected of me. Although what they’ve expected was fulfilled. 😀 😀 😀 Anyway. It’s a nice event, I wish I can join the rest of the parades with the rest of my stay in college. Cheers to University of the Philippines, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

I might upload a gallery of pictures. I still don’t have the snapshots but I’ll upload them on the gallery section of my blog as soon as possible. 😀

NISSAN GT-R ON PHILIPPINE SHORES!

I just saw in ebay.ph that there’s one Premium Package Nissan GT-R that’s resting at Automoville at Ortigas!

Yup! We have a Nissan GT-R on our shores! Of course it has to be a US version although the problem that the buyer will have is the warnings that appear. I think he should send the ECU to Japan or to US to get it reflashed as no one yet here knows how to reflash the ECU of that mighty car. Cheers to the rightful owner!

Ebay.ph link : Nissan GT-R

Lenovo Ideapad S10 – Review

Yup, my dad bought one a unit with the specifications for Philippines. We had the RAM upgraded to 2Gb from 1Gb and it was a very good upgrade. The impressions I had before were nice but the experience was better. The performance of the computer is not that far from the mediocre ones. I, for instance, thought that 1.6 Ghz Single core with hyper threading technology still does not match with 2.0 Ghz and above with dual core. Surprisingly it performed better than expected. The system’s One Key recovery is one of the best bits of the system as it can recover the whole computer from a serious crash, something that the MSI Wind cannot offer. MSI wind was the other choice when my dad was searching for a good laptop because it had the same price for the… actually not. We got the S10 at Php 25,300, that was Php 24,500 for the unit and an additional Php 800 for the RAM upgrade. It had 1-year warranty, same as any typical laptop. The MSI Wind with the same specs comes around PHP 25,999 which is a little bit more expensive than the S10. The party piece for the MSI wind was its overclock feature but it was not that good because it can only be set to overclock mode when it is plugged. If you ask me, it’s not that necessary because laptops or netbooks like these are not optimised for gaming or any extensive use of programs. We just chose the recovery program as my dad is not that careful when it comes to plugging USB drives in any computer without knowing it already vacuumed a lot of virus. The only thing that’s not that good in the S10 is its battery which is a small, 3-cell battery. A 3-cell battery will not last much on an Windows XP OS. Nevertheless, the netbook is great and the so-called ambient heat brought by the netbook is not that really apparent.