Philippines Online Gaming | MMPORG
Archive for February, 2007
Elevation: To the Top with Level Up!
Feb 28th
Level Up! Philippines rocked the i-cafe industry with its trade launch entitled “Elevation: To the Top with Level Up!”, held at C3, The Events Place, last February 9, 2007.
Bright lights, overflowing beer and a sumptuous buffet greeted cafй owners and special friends as they entered the main hall transformed into a gaming haven by Level Up personnel.
With almost 800 guests in attendance, popular gaming personality Iya Villania and Level Up’s own JC Medina started off the festivities with a video that recapped Level Up’s numerous accomplishments and the programs instituted in 2006.
The party rocked at a higher level as Level Up introduced new game updates and revealed its newest games like Perfect World, SilkRoad, RO2 and BethereCafe as rock-reggae band Sidhi performed a medley of all time hits like “What I Got”, “Born To Be Wild”, “Summer Romance”, “Come Together” and “I’ll Be Here Awhile”.
Apol Dionglay, Level Up’s Head of Sales and Trade Marketing, brought the celebrations to a fever pitch by unveiling the trade plans for 2007, most of which are targeting cafe owners.
And, as a gesture of appreciation, Level Up also gave away several amazing prizes, including a brand new Creative Zen V Plus, Nokia 3250 phones and an Intel dual core laptop!
Legendary Pinoy rock band The Dawn capped off the night with their signature songs “Enveloped Ideas”, “Iisang Bangka Tayo” and their own interpretation of the U2 hit and the unofficial trade launch anthem “Elevation”.
It was indeed a great start to what will surely turn out to be a great year for Level Up and all their partners.
Search For the Next Gunbound GM
Feb 14th
Search For the Next Gunbound GM
Solve hack cases
Catch boosters, hackers and cheaters
Officiate in-game events
Make public appearances
All in a day’s work!
Do you have what it takes to be the next Gunbound GM?
Join the nationwide search and be part of the Mobius team! Join the search for the next Gunbound Game Master!
Do you have the looks, the guts and the skills to be a Gunbound Game Master? How far will you go to become one of us?
Requirements:
+ Must be 19 – 27 years old
+ Attractive and pleasing personality
+ College degree in relevant course
+ Excellent oral and written communication skills
+ Good computer skills (internet savvy, knowledge in MS Office)
+ Ability to effectively manage multiple priorities
+ Willingness to work shifts (including night shift), weekdays and holidays
+ Must be a resident in Metro Manila
+ Open to male and female applicants
Interested parties must send:
+ Resume with a 2×2 photo attached
+ Full body photo
To jobs@mobius.ph
Be one of the chosen 15 males and 15 females to take up the challenge! Prepare for a bevy of difficult tasks to emerge as the next Gunbound GM!
30 GM Wannabes
5 Tasks
1 Winner
Get the chance to be part of the most popular Game Master team of the #1 Online Shooting Game in the country!
Apply Now!
BIG SHOW LIGA ’07
Feb 12th
Get ready for the biggest ball-handling showdown online gaming has ever witnessed!
FreeStyle Online Philippines brings you BIG SHOW LIGA ’07!
Sixteen teams representing internet cafes from all over the country will try and outshine each other through their freestylin’ and hoop- shootin’ skillz. To reach the top, these cyber ballers must work their way through a series of matches and playoffs. Finally, North (GMA and Luzon) and South (Visayas and Mindanao) champions will slam into each other and vie for the title LIGA CHAMPION.
Over Php80,000.00 in cash and in-game points await the winners, from the first round all the way to the Grand Finals!
First round winners(8 teams): 10,000 points per player
Second round winners (4 teams): Php6,000 Cash per team
Division Champion (2 teams): Php 6,000 Cash per team
Big Show Liga 2007 Champion: Php 21,000 Cash (team prize)
MVP will get Php 5,000 Cash
Plus up to Php15,000 worth of Level Up! game cards for the winning cafйs
Watch out for the details of the tournament at the FS BIG SHOW LIGA ’07, coming February 2, 2007!
Click here for the full mechanics.
Jumboplay
Feb 8th
You know how we told you about the game rental service gamehopper? Well Here’s another company that’s offering all you can play downloadable PC games for the low cost of 270 pesos a month. Jumboplay.com has 68 games up for grabs for users who want to download their games legally. Typical downloadable games like Diner Dash and Monopoly are available, but so are more high end games like Prince of Persia:The Warrior Within and Tomb Raider Legend.
Now call me a cynic (or an asshole, if you like), but I don’t know that a lot of people would have access to internet connections that would allow them to download a gig of data, and even if they did, how long would it take to download a game? Also, the site design leaves a lot to be desired, and call me shallow but that always, always means a lot to me. A well designed site speaks preofessionalism, and frankly, the jumboplay site like like it was cobbled together by a first year IT student.
Elmer and I will try to look into the service some more in the near future, but till then, feel free to try it out, dear readers (yes, all 3 of you).
Here’s my initial take on Jumboplay. I’ll start with the one that got my attention. I don’t mean to be too negative about it, but the site design really looks like it has been ripped off from Gamespot. I know we’re supposed to talk about the service itself, but come on! I don’t know if the people from Jumboplay have purposely done this to put a familiar gamer theme to it, or their just plain uncreative and unoriginal. C’mon people, that little Philippine flag is really not the glaring indicator that this is a Pinoy site – it’s your inability to come up with an original design of your own.
About the service. I agree with Ryan; the success of this venture is doubtful.
Number one and most blatant fact: We’re in Asia. We’re one of the cornerhouses of software piracy. If people have the bandwidth and the time to download a gig-worth of a game, they’d get it from a torrent site. That’s plain truth.
Number two: I see only TWO premium titles here: Neverwinter Nights 2 and Tomb Raider Legend. NWN2 is not even downloadable yet. What do I mean by premium titles? Those that still sell for 1,500 to 2,000 pesos. The rest of the titles in Jumboplay are ones that can be found in Datablitz bargain bin where each title sells for 500 to 700 pesos. Shelling out 270 pesos for downloading unlimited games a month would be a good deal for the kind of gamer that just installs, plays and forgets. I still don’t know much about download gaming but I think the customer will not have the option to save the game onto a disc. It will be installed directly to the hard drive; and if you uninstall, goodbye hard earned pesos. (I could be wrong here, which is why we’re really planning to test this service first.) Anyway, like I said, it may work for the ripper gamer. But for those gamers who’d want the CD, manual, who loves the art of the cover, the whole shebang – the collector-type – I believe they’d still go the Datablitz way.
I’m also curious as to how they would implement support. Downloadable games don’t have manuals so players don’t have a hard copy of the technical support number if anything goes wrong. Will Jumboplay accept support calls from players?
Simple questions from a player who just got introduced into a new service. Guess what – no FAQs either. A half-baked service? Smells like PLDT…
The Hour is upon us
Feb 7th
Not another WW2 shooter.
Midway has recently announced that it’s releasing a WW2 shooter exclusively for the Xbox360 called, Hour of Victory. (No official site yet.) How is this going to be different from Call of Duties and Medal of Honors (or Medals of Honor)? Apparently, the player will take on different roles which forces him/her to change gameplay style. Play as a sniper, assault rifleman, or commando. Talk about class-based systems; we’ve seen this in the Battlefield series so it’s not much of an innovation is it?
From Midway:
“Hour of Victory allows you to play a key role in the pivotal and cinematic battles from the European and North African theaters of World War II, using the skills and gameplay style you choose. Sneak into enemy territory as a covert operative, storm the gates as a British Commando, or snipe from afar as an Army Ranger — each character’s unique attributes will be needed for the fulfillment of the overall objective. Only with all these skills working closely together will you be able to say that you helped define the Hour of Victory. “
Hmm. That just about describes all of the WW2 shooters out there.
Oh well, more for us gamers I guess.
e-Games confirms RP launch of Granado Espada
Feb 6th
IP E-GAMES, the Philippine publisher of popular online games such as RAN Online and O2Jam, has confirmed it is bringing in to the Philippines the highly anticipated Granado Espada, the new game from the “Father of Ragnarok” Hakkyu Kim.
“We’re bringing it in. It won the Game of the Year Award in Korea and we’re very excited about it,” Steve Tsao, president of IP e-Games, told hackenslash in a telephone interview.
“See you in the game,” Tsao quipped.
He said that IP e-Games is scheduled to hold a press conference on Jan. 30 to formally announce that it is distributing Granado Espada in the Philippines.
Granado Espada offers a revolutionary system that allows a player to control three characters at once. Singapore-based Infocomm Asia Holdings Pte Ltd is the regional distributor of Granado Espada, and has chosen local publishers in different countries in its bid to consolidate the Southeast Asian online gaming market. With this in mind, IAH held the “One Market, One Asia” regional press conference last September in Singapore, which was attended by Philippine online game publishers, including IP e-Games and Level Up! Inc.
Ironically, the latest game from the “Father of Ragnarok” will in a way be used as a weapon against the company that brought in Ragnarok and popularized it in the Philippines, Level Up! Level Up! is bringing in China’s Perfect World and has also announced that it is gearing up for the release of Ragnarok 2.
IP e-Games has not yet divulged full details of its plans for Granado Espada, and whether the game will also be free-to-play in the Philippines. Currently, all the games of IP e-Games at e-games.com.ph are free-to-play.
Even prior to the official announcement, posts regarding the upcoming release of Granado Espada have already made their way to the Philippine blogosphere, including this PhilGaming.com post by Laibcoms, which stated that a Granado Espada advertisement from IP e-Games is in the January-February issue of GAME! magazine, which is published by Hinge Inquirer Publications, a sister company of INQUIRER.net.
Pro blogger Kiven, who handles the online media initiatives of HIP, has also stated in this blog entry that IP e-Games is bringing in Granado Espada to the Philippines.
By Joey Alarilla
INQUIRER.net
GRAW 2 with improved AI
Feb 6th
It’s known at this point that the 2nd installment to Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter will be available soon. And with that, one of the more prominent changes are the improvements to the AI.
Apparently, there were a lot of people who complained about the squadmates’ lack of coordination and their unfailing ability to “accidentally” get in the player’s line of fire. Can we just chalk that up to realism and the hazardous realities of war? Maybe not. In my case, I once ordered a marine to go to a covered position behind a wall (which, according to specs, is entirely possible), beyond which a nest of assault gunmen were waiting at an elevated position. My marine simply rushed into them and found himself incapacitated by a grenade.
Well, GRAW 2 seeks to resolve all that and have managed to make improvements to the AI *and* the way the player can control the squad. “Assault” and “Recon” rules of engagement were added. Hmmm…sounds vaguely familiar…
…Oh, right. Looks like GRAW 2 will have a helping of Rainbow Six dynamics this time around.
Supreme Commander is coming
Feb 6th
Well, for the gamers in the West, it’s already there. Reviews for this most-anticipated game have already been coming in streams, and as expected the game is mind-blowing. With all the information out there for SupCom, here’s a quick simple list of notable gameplay elements which boasts as to why you need to play this game:
- Chris Taylor of Total Annihilation is the man behind this one. Because of that, one of the core dynamics is hugely-inspired by TA; there is a single powerful command unit (the Armored Command Unit – ACU) from which you will spawn other units and factories. Most have associated this with the “king” piece in chess which is the most crucial piece in the game, albeit slow.
- It’s designed to be BIG – maps are massive. Reports have come in which stated that in huge maps, units literally will take minutes to traverse from one corner of the map to another, aircraft will have to be refueled midway, and units will have to rely more on transports. Why was this done? Chris Taylor believes that most RTS games now only focus on tactics and not enough on strategy. Increasing the scale of your players perceive the war will force them to think on a whole new level. Despite the scale, certain interface elements have been introduced. Players can quickly scale down the 3D map into an overhead tactical map from which you can direct your units in as much the same accuracy as you were using the normal 3D terrain map. And…
- …for the hardware enthusiasts, the game was developed to take advantage of dual monitors and dual core processors. Players can make use of their two monitors to actually render the map in two screens, OR (check this out), they can assign one monitor to render their mini-map on, while the other one shows the actual terrain. PC Gamer says it’s time to say goodbye to the minimap and say hello to the MEGA-map. In terms of CPU, players with dual-core processors will notice a significant performance boost.
- Particle physics is taken to the next level. Projectiles are not merely special effects and damage is not calculated depending on generic values of the combatant’s force and defense ratings. Each projectile is individually tracked and monitored by the game to see if it actually hit or missed a target. Because of this, speed and angle of attack will play crucial roles in unit tactics.
- Oh, and the unit cap is a whopping 500.
What is this list for? We’ll buy it anyway, regardless. But before you do, you may want to check your hardware.
- SC will require a minimum of 512GB of system RAM and 128MB of video RAM to play at the very least. Recommended configuration is 2GB of system RAM and 256MB of video RAM or higher.
- Low-end Nvidia 6600 series or ATI cards can support it as long as they have Pixel Shader 3.0 or Shader 2.0 (for ATI).
Ether Vapor
Feb 6th
If you want to check out the Japanese indie gaming scene or just wondering if there’s a Gradius-type fighter shmup (shoot-them-up) that can rival those in PS2s, then take a peek at Ether Vapor.
This 10MB demo showcases a fantastic, high-paced game which makes use of 3D in the best possible way. Shifting from top-down to side-scrolling perspectives in missions will make sure you don’t get bored. I have to admit, since I don’t have a PS2, I’m not updated in the console shmup space. But this game clearly shows that the PC can equally deliver with just plain-old DirectX graphics.
The website and the help file are in Japanese but the game’s internal menus are in English so it’s all playable. Have fun!
Titan Quest Impressions
Feb 4th
If you’re a hardcore Diablo 2 fan and have been milking the game’s patches for replayability, you might wanna check out Titan Quest. Simply put, it’s a mighty Diablo clone. The game is credited largely to Brian Sullivan, co-creator of Age of Empires. Now we know why the game is largely based on Greek and Egyptian historical mythology rather than the tried-and-true fantasy settings.
You start as a warrior of Sparta and that’s it. The design difference at this stage is that you don’t have to pick a class, you customize your character through skill point allocation in the different skill trees that are available. There are Warfare, Defense, Nature, a set for Ice/Lightning magic, a set for Fire/Earth magic, to name a few. You can only choose two major ones in the game so it’s entirely possible to have a Fire-magic-wielding warrior that can summon a pack of wolves. Obviously, this bumps up replayability in huge degrees.
As mentioned before, gameplay = Diablo. The difference here is that everything is 3D – you romp through forests, caves and ancentral tombs in eye-catching hi-poly splendor. What’s fun to watch is when your character makes a critical hit and you literally send the enemy flying several feet up on the screen. Gold and items both normal and magical spring forth from decapitated enemies, and everything is readily identifiable. No all-knowing, high-Lore town shaman to consult here.
(Holy tiger, is this the Great Wall of China?)
After going through 8 character levels, the enemies get more challenging (aura-equipped and magic-users) and areas get more interesting. As you play on, accept and finish more quests, you know that items will get better and enemies will get tougher and your character will look more vicious than ever before. And perhaps that’s the shortcoming of all hack-and-slash games – things will start to get boring and you’ll find yourself playing through the game to learn what the story is all about.
Nevertheless, at the time of large-world RPGs like Oblivion and traditional party-based dungeon crawlers like Neverwinter Nights 2, Titan Quest will warm the heart of that PC warrior who just wants to hack at the closest arachnid soldier and grab that fallen armor.