Devil May Cry 4 Review

Alright I’m back with another review of one of my favorite games of all time. This time I’ll be reviewing the very popular, Devil May Cry 4.

Ever since the first Devil May Cry came out, gamers were exposed to an addicting hack & slash style of gameplay. The latest game of the series didn’t fail to live up to it’s expectations. At the beginning we were introduced to a new protagonist named Nero, and who’s love interest is Kyrie. This new character is pretty awesome as he doesn’t need to devil trigger to use his powers, he actually got one of his arms in devil form already. They call the arm the Devil Bringer which is really useful in battles. He sets on a mission to capture Dante but as the game goes along, he realized that Dante is not the one he should be after. He also will eventually gain the Yamato sword of Vergil. This makes Nero even more powerful as he can now Devil Trigger into his Demon form.

At the second half of the game you’ll gain controll of Dante. Dante now have all of his styles at your disposal and he’s got some new Devil Arms as well. But the playthrough of Dante won’t be something new because you’ll basically just have to fight every enemies that Nero have fought already. Also since you’ve played the game mostly using Nero, you kinda miss the Devil Bringer when you get to Dante. Some secret missions are easy while some are really hard.

Graphics are significantly better than the previous games. Boss fights looks really awesome if I may say. The only bad thing when you’re in the PC is that the amount of loading time at the beginning or when you switch to a different application and back to the game. But the gameplay itself compensates on that. Overall, this is a really fun and addicting game. I hope that rumors are true that Capcom is secretly  developing Devil May Cry 5. It will definitely be a sure hit once it comes out.

During Typhoon Pepeng (Parma)

These videos were taken during the typhoon Pepeng (Parma). You’ll see our street literally part and under the Laguna Lake.

Typhoon Ondoy Aftermath 2

Part of Binangonan, Rizal has not even recovered from Typhoon Ondoy’s Wrath and here comes Typhoon Pepeng. It’s a good thing for us here in Southern Luzon that the Typhoon shifted course yesterday at noon. But I do feel sorry for those people who got hit in the North East of Luzon.

As I’ve posted on my previous blog, part of Binangonan is still submerged in water, our street included. I was not able to go to work last Sept. 30 as water is still almost knee deep and actually about waist deep still if you try to reach the mid part of our street. I bought rubber boots so I can go to work the next day and even had to go all the way around our suberb just so that I wouldn’t need to pass by that waist deep level of water. I arrive at our office over an hour early than my shift and talked to my supervisor regarding my absence.

To my surprise, he wouldn’t approve my emergency leave and would like me to file it as a vacation leave instead. Just so you guys know, our vacation leave is convertible to cash and I’ve worked very hard to keep all my VL’s in tact. Added that being flooded is not in any way a vacation at all. He said that the water(as shown on the pictures that I’ve shown on my previous blog) is not high enough and that if it was him, he would still go to work even if his entire house had been submerged in water. I was in a bit of shock and was really angry over this. I have my 3 kids and my wife there not to mention everyhting that I’ve worked hard for is in our house. It’s like he is suggesting that my family drown and for us to lose everything first before he considers it an emergency. If he doesn’t value everything he’s got, I value mine very much specially my family.

The difficult part is… I couldn’t argue with him. Why? Beause he takes everything personal if you prove him wrong. That is why everybody under him hates him. And is also why others are resigning or transferring to another department. To think that he lives in Cainta, Rizal and was also a victim of the typhoon. You guys know what happened to Cainta do you? Cainta was submerged in water from waist deep and up during the typhoon. Yet his attitude and mentality has not changed. I swear in the back of my mind I want to punch him right in his face and even drown him in flood water. But I can’t do that of course. I just hope he gets what he deserves in the future.

To show you guys how flooded part of Binangonan is, here’s a news report footage from Oct. 1. The day that I still went to work despite of the situation.

Later I’ll post my videos during the Typhoon Pepeng.

Typhoon Ondoy Aftermath

I was only able to get back home to our house in Binangonan, Rizal 3 days after the Typhoon Ondoy tragedy. We got there at night and discovered there are still some water going to the front of our house. We had to pass by my in law’s lot in order to reach our apartment. But only by morning that I realized how high the water is still is. Below are some images of our street the next day (after 4 days).

Our street is now literally part of the Laguna Lake. The water is still almost on your knees in front of our gate and still a waist high if you try to reach the end of the street. And to think that there’s a new typhoon coming and the water still hasn’t subsided yet. I only hope that this new typhoon would not bring a lot of rain. If it does, water might reach our house and everything me and my wife worked for would be put to nothing. Not to mention we have 3 kids to take care of.

ABDC Season 4 Champs- We are Heroes

Congratulations to We Are Heroes! Big Ups to y’all! Although, Id be honest, season 4 is not my favorite season, I do believe that We Are Heroes deserved to be the winner. We’ve all seen from past seasons that audience as well as the judges have a thing for stunts and theatrics which is why the previous winners are bboys. But this season is completely different as the season was dominated by choreo-based crews. My picks for this season is a actually rhythm city and we are heroes for the finale. It would have been a great finale as both crews have a thing for intricate movements. But I enjoyed seeing the sexy style of Afroborike as they brought something different to the table. A good season but I hope ABDC5 would be better. I hope crews with the likes of the past 3 seasons crews, including we are heroes, manage to pass the auditions. This season brought so much different styles so I think it kinda lost a little bit of the show’s hiphop theme. So I hope they return to what started the show.

Typhoon Ondoy(Ketsana)

My heart goes out to all the victims of typhoon ondoy. It’s very sad to see what has happened to all the people and all towns that were affected by this typhoon. Still, I thank God for taking good care of my family and for not letting anything bad happen to them. Even I personally experienced the wrath of this typhoon and let me share you my story.

The day is Friday, Sept 25. My son is having his vacation at my parent’s house in Binan, Laguna for about a week that time. My mom texted me that my son wanted to go home already and is asking them to take him back to our house in Binangonan, Rizal. I got there to pick up my son at around 6 or 7 pm and I was so happy to see my son again. We went to sleep early that night so we can take a ride back home the next morning. We had no idea what is about to happen the next day.

We woke up, prepared our things and was ready to leave. But for some reason the rain hasn’t stopped pouring since the night before. I checked the news and found out that it was signal #1 in Laguna and signal #2 in Rizal. But I didn’t really worry as I’m used to even go to school and work even on high typhoon signals. We were waiting for the rain to stop yet I noticed that the water was slowly rising from the streets and in to our front yard. Still I was actually more worried that I couldn’t go home to Binangonan than the water on the streets. But water started to reach our terrace. It is only then that we realize that the rain is not stopping anytime soon and water in a matter of minutes would get in our house. Me, my dad and my mom hurried to lift everything that we can out of the floor, making sure that all important items are on high enough places. Me, my son and my little brother stayed on the bed in our parent’s room waiting for the water to subside.

Rain stopped for a while… then all of a sudden rain started pouring again. And instead the water started to rise higher I decided to take my son on my 2nd floor room just right above our garage as I’m worried that the water might rise higher. And I was right, the water reached almost chest level by night time. We don’t know what will happen next. But the thing that worried me the most is… my wife and 2 daughters was left in Binangonan. And the house that we live in there is actually near the Laguna Lake. I was so worried and I couldn’t stop thinking of them. Cellphone signals are on and off and it’s very hard to contact them. Thank God my mother in law replied to one of my text and confirmed that my wife and daughters are safe and that water hasn’t reached our house yet.

But the most amazing thing happened that night. We ate dinner on my old room just above the garage and then we all decided to pray. We prayed the rosary and as soon as we are about to finish the entire prayer, the rain stopped and all hopes came back. Slowly the water began to subsied. By morning all the water inside the haus are gone but a huge amount mud was left. Still we are thankful that non of my family members were hurt and that my wife and daughters are safe. I thank God for hearing our prayers and for taking very good care of my entire family. I hope that nothing like this would ever happen again.

Devil May Cry 3 Review

Well since I’ve been reviewing some of my favorite games lately, I’ve decided to write a review of another favorite of mine… Devil May Cry. Well unfortunate for me that I don’t have a PS2 so I am not able to play DMC1 and DMC2. For some reason Capcom didn’t port those 2 to the pc. But I’m hoping to play those 2 using an emulator sometime. So I am gonna start of with Devil My Cry 3.

Well just to give you a little background, Devil May Cry started of as a supossedly sequel to the Resident Evil Series, which is one of my favorite as well. But since the gameplay and plot of the game differs a lot to the main RE series, they decided to make it an entirely new game of it’s own. We are lucky that Capcom didn’t decide to scrap the idea, like what happened to RE 1.5 and RE 3.5(hooked man), and now we have Devil May Cry. There is a strange timeline to this game as the games were released not in their chronological order. DMC3 is supposed to be the first of the series, followed by DMC1, DMC4 and DMC2.

DMC3 introduce us to Dante who is just starting of his business as a devil hunter. Here he goes on to stop his twin brother, Vergil, from using the power of Sparda. At the end, it was actually the Jester who’s playing with them all along and shows up as the true enemy. But the game doesn’t end without an epic Dante and Vergil fight. This game also introduce us to Mary(Lady), although she is not playable the whole game.

The diffculty of this game is really high. But I’m proud to say that I’ve finished this game on my own. Although some of the secret mission I was not able to complete. As Dante, you’ll have to fight through numbers of monsters and bosses from the underworld. On the PC, which is where I’m playing, the controller for some reason is not fully compatible with the game. Even the keyboard keys can’t be change. So I had to use Joy2Key in order to sync my controller to the game. The big bonus for the pc version is that you get to play as Vergil if you manage to beat the game. But I find it difficult to use Vergil sometimes as his moves are different to Dante’s. Aside from the controller issue, all in all the game is fun, action packed and entertaining. I actually wanted to upload some gameplay videos but I’m not sure what would be the best recorder that I can use. If you know a good one, please let me know. My score for the PC version would probably be 8.5. I had to deduct some points for the controller issue and because of the mid quality videos.

Trying to play Resident Evil 5

I was so excited when I got RE5. I instaled it immediately and when I try to run it… Arrrggghh!!! I got an error! At first, it was just Err 09. After a few days of tinkering with the settings I finally manage to run the game and get inside the menu. So I totally got excited again. But when I try to play it, no video is showing on the cutscenes and only subtitles appear. I said to myself that would be OK for now at least if I can play the game… then all of a sudden… another error!!! I think the error is something like D3DX9 or something like that. aaarrrggggh!!!! I would admit that my video card is outddated but I was hoping I could at least play the game on very low settings. I guess there’s nothing left to do but buy a new video card….

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Alright, I now manage to make RE5 run on the current PC I’m using(not mine). Since I’m using a Radeon X1550 on this one, it’s not easy. First of all your operating system should be Vista. For some reason, Vista enhances the performance of your video card. The driver should be updated, in my case i’m using Catalyst 9.8. Now you’ll need a patch made to make your video card recognized as an Nvidia GeForce card. Here’s what I used http://boris-vorontsov.narod.ru/download_en.htm. Once you’ve installed and run the game, make sure to lower the all video related settings to minimum. You should now be able to play RE5. But note that the game will be very sluggish most specially when enemies started to come out.

Resident Evil Code Veronica Review

Sorry for taking too long to add a new post regarding my reviews for the Resident Evil games. My wife just gave birth and I’m also a bit busy with downloading and burning movies. I’m actually still not done with RE Code veronica yet but I’m almost there. If I can remember correctly, I’m in the part where Steve just died. So if I am guessing it right, I’m about to fight Alexia for the last time.

My feedback so far would be the game’s great graphics. Of course, this game was developed for Dreamcast instead of PS1 so the difference in graphics are highly noticable. Strangely, the game no longer gives you a linear path of taking tasks. If you for example decided to go on to take a different path, there will be some changes to the story. Also you are no longer able to play the story on another person’s point of view. You will have to play as Claire at first then Chris after to continue the story. But that’s alright. I still enjoy playing the game. I actually loved it if not for the fact that I’m only playing it using an emulator. So there are a few bugs here and then like for example some text does not appear on the screen so I am left asking what should I do next. Will update this post once I’m done with the game. Hopefully next week.

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Okay I’ve finally managed to finish the game yesterday. It took a while as I got busy with other stuff. The game was great considering it was designed for Dreamcast at that time. The graphics still looks great to date. I enjoy the fact that they gave the user ability to shoot 2 different enemies at the same time using  advance weapons. But this feature actually made the game a little easier than the previous installments. I will admit that I use a walkthrough to finish the game. I had to because I played the game only using an emulator and for some reason some necessary text or image does not appear on the screen. I had a hard time with the first person weapons on this game. They kinda hard to aim specially with the final Alexia as she kept moving. But all in all it was a fun game. I would actually like to play it again sometime.

America’s Best Dance Crew

I can’t believe I’m so late in this. The cable company that we have sucks because we don’t even have MTV on it and so I just recently found out about the show America’s Best Dance Crew. So I had to dig a lot of stuff out of the Internet in order to catch up.

Some of you guys who might know me may be wondering why I even watch the show when I’m not even a dancer myself. I actually appreciate different genres of music. When I was a kid, the first music that I listen to is actually Hiphop. It’s just that I started to get more inclined to rock as I grew older but I still do listen to different genres. In fact, I even danced when I was in college and I’m proud to say that I kick ass back then. Well some of my college friends and schoolmates are a witness to that.

There had been serveral crews who made the show but I think nothing can compare to my top two picks and both of them are from season 1. One of the two are the Jabbawockeez. Since the Live Auditions of Season 1, I think no other group is on the same class as the Jabbawockeez (except for my second pick of course). Catching the taste and hearts of the audience with their theatric and mime style of dancing. It’s pretty cool how they choreograph their routines and how they add some humor into them. And the best thing is that some of them are actually Filipinos. Here is a compilation of their routines that was showed on ABDC.

The other crew whom I think is as good as the Jabbawockeez is Kaba Modern. Seriously! Have you seen how sick their isolations, tutting, popping… everything! Best of it all, they have hot girls to complement the guys and all of them are good dancers! They don’t have stunts on their routines but their sick moves makes up for all of it. It’s sad to think that they didn’t even make the Top 2 of Season 1. But they are of course arguably better than Status Quo. Just look at where Status Quo now compared to Kaba Modern. I personally think Kaba Modern have a very clear shot at the Jabbawockeez on that season. Although it’s a bit ironic that even though Kaba Modern has been started by mostly Filipinos, the crew that joined ABDC don’t have one. Here is a compilation of their routines that was showed on ABDC.

It would have been nice to see JBWKZ face off with Kaba on the finale of Season 1. Unfortunately we got robbed of that dreamed face off. We got a little taste of that during the Asian Excellence Awards 2008 which I’ll show below. If it was a real battle, Kaba would have won it hands down!

The other crews that I like from ABDC are Super Cr3w, Fanny Pak and Quest.