Naruto Rise of a Ninja

Naruto game for the Xbox360, not made by a Japanese company! It's made by Ubisoft. As expected, it comes as English dub out of the box. However, amazingly Ubisoft offers Japanese voice download via Xbox marketplace. The first thing I did after I booted up the game is to download the Japanese voice and switched to it. Ahh, no cheesy "localized" dialogues.

The game is part GTA, part platformer, part 2D fighter. The game is not easy either, especially the platforming and fighting part. Graphic is nice cel-shaded. Alas, it's buggy. It's my first 360 game that actually crashed. Background music frequently stutters, especially when exitting shops. Voices are sometimes delayed, or even not played at all, especially during cutscenes. Hopefully Ubisoft can patch things up.

Kudos for Ubisoft to actually put out the Japanese voice. The only thing missing is the Japanese music. I'm tired of US version of games from Japan/based on Japanese material that are dubbed (censored) with the excuse of localization (yeah, I mean you Square Enix, you and FF-X, X-2, etc). Dubbing and localization cost money, delay game release dates, is simply annoying. It seems things are changing with games like .Hack, Onimusha (1 and 4), Enchanted Arms, Blue Dragon, Gundam Musou, etc, and now this, that include/offer option for Japanese voice. Hopefully this trend will continue (yeah Koei, do this favor for your Dynasty Warrior series).

Iron Man

I'm a big fan of Iron Man, and can't wait for the 2008 movie.

Enjoy the full and HD trailer at Apple's website.

Calpico Hello Kitty shipping box

Calpico Hello Kitty shipping box, originally uploaded by pika2000.

Calpico Hello Kitty shipping box

My car mileage Lucky 7

My car mileage Lucky 7, originally uploaded by pika2000.

My car mileage
Lucky 7

Amazing Pen Spinning

I know some people that were good at this when we were in junior high, but those moves are God-like! Amazing!

Cutie Honey The Live

It seems to be the trend to remake old cartoons/comic books into live-action version in Hollywood lately. Well, Tokusatsu is nothing new for Japan, so it's a no brainer to see live-action remakes of old animes/mangas. 1 quite popular franchise is Cutie Honey, which has gone quite a few anime remake, live-action movie, and OVA. Now there is another live-action series called Cutie Honey The Live.

The original 1973 anime OP:


The new live-action OP Cutie Honey The Live:


Yeah, Hollywood will never have the エッチ factor. :D
Check out the fansub of Cutie Honey The Live at TV-Nihon.

Seahawk roll

Seahawk roll, originally uploaded by pika2000.

Seahawk roll

Red dragon roll

Red dragon roll, originally uploaded by pika2000.

Red dragon roll

Funny dog costume

Saw these at my local Target. LOL. :D

Calpico Hello Kitty, more flavors part 2

IMG_0331.JPG, originally uploaded by pika2000.

Calpico Hello Kitty, more flavors

IMG_0329.JPG, originally uploaded by pika2000.

UltraSeven X

By pata2001 at 2007-10-08

Wow, remember Ultraman? Ultra Seven is one of the old Ultraman shows. Although the Ultra series was heavily updated in terms of maturity, coolness, etc starting with the Tiga series, and then Nexus, looks like this remake of Ultra Seven upped the ante. Check the fansub at TV-Nihon. Not for kids. :)

Flame on The Fire - Mega NRG Man

iPod Touch

Audio:
+ Cover flow seems to group some compilation albums correctly, unlike my 3G nano. Still not foolproof. Apple should just have a Various artists group.
- Cover flow mode is not linked to playlist, unlike cover flow in iTunes.
- No shuffle by album. So much for the "best" iPod.
- Tracks without album art will have a large generic music icon displayed to waste screen space. Apple could've designed the Touch to display the track title/artist with larger fonts instead.
- No dedicated volume button ala iPhone.
- Apple's iPod remote is not compatible!

Internet:
- Since there is no accessible filesystem, you cannot save/upload files from Safari. The internet browser is strictly a browser.
- Although Safari on the Touch is probably the fastest internet browser on a portable device I've used (PSP, WAP cellphone browsers, Nintendo DS, Pocket IE, etc), it can be sluggish, and it even crashes on few occasions. The problem in loading web pages is the ads. Wish Apple can implement something like Adblock so Safari can render web pages faster instead of loading all the animated ads.

Video:
- Nice screen, but the fact that iPods only support MP4s is really annoying. I hate transcoding. It's a waste of time. Maybe when we all have 8-core processors then transcoding videos should be quick and easy.

General UI:
- Certain UIs (like the scrub bar) is too small for my finger, and not as accurate as the iPod's clickwheel.



So, what I think about the iPod Touch? It's larger than the nano and full multi-touch interface (even for volume control) really make it not the ideal on-the-go DAP. As a PMP, video codec and storage size limitations are the hurdles. What is it great for? Here's an example. I was listening a podcast in my bedroom when the podcaster mentioned an interesting link. Instead of turning up my PC and loading up a browser, I just turned on the Touch's wifi, open up Safari, and check out the link right then. Also when I need some hints while playing a video game, I just use the Touch instead of going to my PC. It's a nifty portable internet browser, that have some iPod functionalities. Definitely not a replacement for the regular iPods (mainly missing shuffle by album feature). Some says it's just a training-wheel for the iPhone, and to a certain extend, that's correct. The iPhone would be a better device thanks to a full calendar app, phone and EDGE. The Touch seems out of place at its pricing point. Not for everyone. If you want a music player, go with the regular iPods. I would rate it 70 out of 100. It's cool to show off, has nifty interface and wifi, but not ideal for a DAP use.

Eric Suen (孫耀威) Live

Wow, he's still alive... LOL I used to listen to his songs a lot, even have quite a bit of his albums. Even one of my friends became his 'fanboy.' Listening him singing those 90's Chinese/Canto-pop songs really brings back memories.