The Overwatch Beta Ended...

And now I have nothing to play... But to be honest, when I first played the game during the open beta, the game was rage inducing. I kept getting killed by what I thought were cheap kills. But after giving it some time (3 hours of raging and dying in game), I finally got better at Overwatch (better, not good, there's a difference). In the beginning, I had a bit of a problem. Do I try all the heroes (and possibly not enjoy the game at all), or do I stick with a few heroes, get the hang of them and possibly kick butt (I did the latter).

I have been hyped up about Overwatch ever since the first trailer came out. Such a new look for a Blizzard game (more cartoon-ish and a first-person shooter too), and also Pixar level animation. Then, the characters were shown, as gameplay overviews, and more hyped built up. And as hard as I tried pressing that sign-up for beta button, I never got invites to the closed beta, until the open beta was announced, and I decided, "Hey, I have decent internet speed which means I could probably play it before the beta ends." I enjoy first-person shooter games a lot so this was also pretty much a must for me.

So, you start off the game with this loading screen. No, you don't get McCree staring at you every time you start the game, random heroes appear each time. You get "HIGHLIGHTS" only get after a few exceptional games and you can go through each one. This is a very nice feature, from which you can view (and also screen record if you forgot to) your best plays in every game (if you perform that is). You have several modes, Quick Play, Vs. AI, Custom Games and Weekly Brawl. I basically spent most of my time on the open beta in Quick Play, cause I wanted to get the best feel of the game.

"Dooo dooo do bee do"

The first character I actually took the time to practice and master was Bastion. To be honest, the moment I saw his gameplay overview, I wanted this character to be my main. However, the way Overwatch works is each player in the team has to play a role. Bastion falls under the category of a defense character because he can hold points very well. And true to that he does. He plays mostly like a normal gunner in recon mode, but press shift and he transforms into a turret, which just begs you to spray hot lead at targets. Probably the most played character (many people use him as well), but that's to be expected because of his simple playstyle.

Being able to repair up without looking for a health pack also makes him relatively easy to play. Take too much damage, find a safe spot and repair up, then get back in the fight. He can also repair while in turret mode, which makes it so that you have to kill him quickly when you find him defending a point. However, you can't repair with firing or moving, so you are a sitting duck while doing it, and being able to do so would be very unfair. Also, they remove the shield from him when in turret mode, which is a logical move, he is very hard to kill even without it.

"Time to raise my APM!"

Second on the list was McCree. But I'm so bad at using him I'll skip to third... but make it seem like she's second. I practiced D.Va because... reasons... Well, not really. She falls under the tank category, which makes her great for holding a point or trying to capture a point which is filled with enemies. And most of the time, I get paired with people who like to choose the "cool" characters, ie. Tracer, Soldier 76, McCree, or Pharah. The team ends up being too offensive, and the game even recommends a more balanced team. So I chose D.Va because, well I did say reasons.

The main mistake I made with D.Va was playing her like a medium-ranged or long-ranged character. She is only effective at closer ranges, which allows her auto-shotty cannons to deal a lot of damage. However, once your HP gets lowered to 0, instead of dying and waiting to respawn, you eject from the mech and play as D.Va herself. She plays very different then, from tanky to extremely squishy, from close range to medium or far-range. You then try and build up your ultimate "Q" to get your Mech back. With the Mech your ultimate ability is self-destruct, which upon activating makes you eject from the Mecha and it explodes shortly after. This was extremely fun to use, especially since you can boost the Mech before ejecting to keep the Mech moving, and man does it do a lot of damage. D.Va was fun once I got used to playing her, and also knowing to use her defensive matrix ability, which allows her to soak up a lot of shots.

At the end of a game, the play of the game is shown. This guy owned us as Bastion. The game was to capture a point, and this dude was so incredibly annoying to get by.

After the game ends, this screen appears after showing you the play of the game. This is where honourable mentions of other players in the game who have contributed significantly, and allows you to commend them, even the enemy team! I kind of like this (especially when people upvote you) as it shows how people think about your performance.

"It's high noon somewhere in the world..."

And now... McCree... I have not been blessed with the skill to play this guy. Like seriously, I get wrecked (REKT) so hard every time I decide to give this guy a chance. But man, to get wrecked playing this guy and also get beaten by someone else playing him is extremely infuriating... So, not going to talk much about this guy.

"I have opened the path!"

I never excepted to enjoy Symmetra as much as I did but man, she is quite awesome. However, playing as her does take off the need to go completely offensive. She mainly excels at defending a location due to her being able to put sentry turrets however she can still take down foes with her really close range left click or really slow moving charge up right click charge attack.

But the reason why I enjoyed playing as her was the switch of playstyle. You start to worry more about positioning your turrets at good locations to take an enemy by surprise near the objective, as well as keeping your allies shielded. And her ultimate might be the most boring, but it's incredibly helpful as it allows your allies to get back in the action very quickly. Your allies will always appreciate a good Symmetra, even if it's just for the teleporter (position it so that it's safe that's all).

Even got honourable mention for sentry turret kills, muhuhu~

And now the character I probably spent the most time on : Soldier 76. I won't lie, the reason why I spent the most time playing this character was because of how comfortable I was playing him. I played a lot of Blacklight Retribution, and he plays just like those kind of first person shooters. It was also because of how versatile he is as an offensive character, and also his (in my opinion) overpowered ultimate ability, you basically wreck your enemies if you are fairly capable in an FPS. 

But, that was the reason put him in as a character. You can very easily take him down by using other characters (in my case it was that McCree), however, you have something to fall back on after if you keep losing trying out other characters. His ultimate ability does not do all the aiming for you. You still need to aim your crosshairs close to the target you want to take down or else in the event of more than 3 characters in your sights, the auto-aim goes crazy if you don't focus on a target.

Overwatch's rating system focuses on many different stats and not just number of kills. However, usually for play of the game, it is number of kills. But I like the move of focus to overall play. I mean, characters like Mercy, or Zenyatta excel in healing allies or boosting the damage they do, hence, how would such characters get kills. Symmetra and Torbjorn excel at defending locations, with their respective turrets, or armour supplied.

You can also view your profile overview, and as you can see, I did try other characters, I just wasn't good at them (never got the hang of Genji as cool as he was).

And now the Loot Boxes. You get a Loot Box after you level up, and your level cap is infinite if I'm not mistaken, you could possibly get every character customization just by playing the game... a lot... The drops range from Heroic Intros, Victory Poses, Colour or Character customization, Emotes, Spray Patterns and Quotes. In the screenshot above, I got an emote, a new quote, and 2 spray patterns. You will never get duplicates, as if you get a duplicate, you'll be awarded in-game currency instead equivalent to the price of the customization you would have gotten, and then, you can buy more customizations!

You view all the customizations you unlock through the Hero Gallery and they nicely list how many you have unlocked for each character. It's almost funny, how I got the most unlocks for the 2 characters I don't play much, Reinhardt and... ugh... McCree...

An example of the different Heroic Poses (poses that play during the highlights of the game). I actually spent my in-game currency for Bastion's heroic pose on the last day of the Open Beta, since I would lose it after the beta ended.

 Above are some of the different colours or customizations for D.Va. I do like the Scavenger D.Va model. Looks much better in my opinion.

I thoroughly enjoyed playing Overwatch during the open beta. However, I worry that after buying this game, I won't spend as much time with it as I should (spend so much time playing Diablo 3 and Starcraft 2, so Overwatch has quite a record beat). Now to save money to buy this...





Farid

HG Guncannon Revive, Better in Every Way?

The new HG model for the legendary RX-77 Guncannon has been re-released (design improved, for better articulation, more detail and so on) in the new "Revive" line of gundam plastic model kits. Now a little back story before I start. Guncannon was one of the first gundam models (does this guy count as a Gundam, or is he just a mobile suit?) I actually really liked. The design of quite bulky but not too much, all red except for the head and TWO CANNONS! Dang, I basically went "I'm gonna buy you when I get older... and I'm gonna put you together!!" The first version of this model I saw was the older SD model, sporting two Missile pods instead of the cannons. But I liked the design and whether it had the missile pods or the cannons, didn't really bother me. Man, thinking back, all the time I spent going to the toy store and asking for help from my brother to see the MG Guncannon box (they kept the MGs higher on the shelf), I really liked this model. So anyway, back to the topic at hand.

(Above-Right) I'm not sure whether many came out before this, but to me this was the original SD Guncannon which I had been wanting to buy.

(Above-Left) And that model was what I was tempted to buy before the new "Revive" series was announced. 

You might be thinking, "Hey, what about that MG you wanted so badly?" Way ahead of you buddy. I bought that during the Clear Part Campaign which I think was in 2010, so got that covered too. It's still shelved however, I'm hoping to improve my building quality before attempting that one.

(Above) The model in all its glory.

The colours/colour mixtures used :

All grey parts : Tamiya Enamel Dark Grey

All red parts : Tamiya Enamel Flat Red (9 Parts)
                       Tamiya Enamel Flat White (1 part)

All yellow parts : Tamiya Enamel Flat Yellow

All white parts : Tamiya Enamel Flat White (8 parts)
                           Tamiya Enamel Medium Grey (1 part)

The part behind the visor : Tamiya Enamel Aluminium

(Above) After a long time of not using Tamiya Enamel White paint, the quality and the way the paint adheres to the parts deteriorated significantly, and that's why in the mixture above I mixed a bit of medium grey. That paint is a life saver, it helped the paint "stick" and apply very smoothly to the part. Note I sanded everything before painting, but I might look into why I had this problem. Not too proud of my paint job this time, basically summed up in one word : Sloppy. I rushed to finish this initially and I had to pay the price. Broke some parts while cleaning up two sloppy paintjobs to the head, snapped off the antennas, I don't know maybe three times and cracking a polycap on the right arm, yeah... I might buy another HG Guncannon Revive.

(Above) Another problem I faced was running out of Matt/Flat Top Coat. If you build Gundam Models, unless you like the original plastic look (I don't mind the look for certain models) I highly recommend you top coat them. It gives your models a cleaner, smoother look, and for hand painted works like my own, smooths out brush strokes to give them a spray painted look. Basically, top coat make model look good, capiche? So, I ran out of top coat and I know certain smarty pants might say "Just buy more Farid, like seriously?" Well, I went to almost every store selling spray paint, auto stores, paint stores, departments stores, and none of them had it. Even the auto spray store I usually go to buy my spray paints (and they always had flat top coat) didn't have them. Oh and ordering online was not really a choice, I rushed to finish this remember? Well... initially...

However, I am extremely pleased with the model. The articulations all having more than 160 degrees of bending. The parts are very well separated. For example, the leg consists of the upper thigh ball joint, the thigh, the knee joint and the lower parts are all separated easily to allow gluing the part before putting them together, this was a big problem for me with older models as the knee joint (usually) had to be painted and put between two parts which are to be glued (for seam line removal) and then that part sanded and painted for a complete leg. All the thought put into how the model is assembled made this model so easy to paint and put together. The fact that this model only requires very minimal painting can also be a plus, only the machine guns on the head (originally white) and the parts right next to the arms joints needed to be painted yellow, oh and the inside of the visor, would make this model look pretty good as a straight build model.

That's pretty much it, and excellent model to build and paint! Now to save up and buy two more of these bad boys~




Farid

Upgrading the Old Desktop PC!

Recently, I have been dreaming of building my own gaming rig (or in more appropriate terms, my own personal computer). So when my older bro asked me what would be a good upgrade for the desktop computer (which I think was bought in 2012) I was excited. My first time actually installing new components into a PC. Basically I thought, adding a graphics processor would give the computer the biggest boost in performance when gaming, and basically that was the idea, so that the main PC could run Starcraft II and Diablo III, with max settings on a 1360x760 monitor. It wasn't a particularly demanding game, it's no Crysis 3 or Tomb Raider, but it surprised me how much the graphics processor would cost.

Specs of the original PC are :

eMachines ET1862

Intel Core i3-550 (dual core)

Intel HD Graphics

2 GB RAM

500 GB HDD (the product in the website has a 320 GB HDD)

and then... MAXIMUM PAWAAAAA! Basically what went on in my head.

Initially I thought the upgrade would be easy, throw in a graphics card, a little more RAM and hmmm, maybe even an SSD and the computer would blow me away with the sheer awesomeness of its power! So I went to the most reliable source anybody would pick, the internet, and found on Sapphire's website a performance chart. (View here) And since my bro and I didn't want to have to change parts which are already available, I decided to pick a graphics card which didn't require a 6-pin PCI-E connector, the R7 250.

I chose Sapphire cause it had the coolest looking shroud and fan.

However, life reminds you, well, let's be honest, in rather harsh ways that things don't go that smoothly. Basically the power supply included in the PC was a 250W power supply. And even for the R7 250, a minimum 400W power supply was recommended in order for the card to have sufficient power for it to perform smoothly.

Yup, right there.

So, a certain percent of the budget for all the parts had to be reduced to fit in a new power supply. Which then prompted a new thought, "Since we were going to pick a new power supply anyway, new power supply, PCI-E connector, graphics card which requires PCI-E connector, stronger card!" And there's where the R7 250X came in, a stronger card, which would also allow for more demanding games. After a lot more research, and also watching a video from LinusTechTips (This one), I found out that AMD cards are better optimized for Starcraft II, yielding about 60 frames per second even using the HD 7770 which was re-skinned as the R7 250X (based on this review). With all this taken into account, the R7 250X was the card to go for.

All that aside, the serious business, getting the stuff installed. For the R7 250X, it requires a minimum 500W power supply, I went with the Cooler Master Elite V2 550W power supply, a little bit more just for more head room, Kingston 2 GB 1333 MHz RAM and of course the R7 250X.

Installing it was pretty simple :

(Above) The R7 250X with 1 GB of GDDR5 VRAM, an AMD/ATI card from Sapphire.

(Above) 2 GB DDR3 1333 MHz Kingston RAM.

(Above) The 550W power supply which I had bought and installed much earlier.

Installing the graphics card in the case provided by eMachines, you will realize that the PCI-E slots are covered. The metal covers are supposed to be pried open with a pair of pliers before the card can be inserted. For me this was not fun to do, however aftermarket cases come with easily removable slot covers which are removed by unscrewing a small screw holding the slot cover in place. And basically after installing a card there's no going back. 

(Above) Everything installed, and although the graphics card does come with a reminder, if you're installing a graphics card, please connect the 6-pin PCI-E connector to avoid destroying your brand new graphics card.

With all of the new components installed, how do the games run you ask? Well an easy breakdown. Diablo III, which you can easily turn on a built in frame rate counter ran at a constant 43 FPS. Why 43? Well, I suspect the CPU to be a bottleneck, however, no matter how much action went on the screen the frame rate stayed at 43. Starcraft II also stayed at around 50-60 FPS, it did  fluctuate a lot especially as action started to get heavy on screen, however it should run smooth unless you have 4 players duking it out with maxed out armies.

I tested a few other equally demanding games like Counter-Strike Global Offensive and Dota 2. While I didn't have a frame rate counter on, if you have been playing on integrated graphics before this, the difference is too apparent and significantly better.

Farid

A New 3DS?!

It has been a while but I have to say thing have been busy. Anyway, on to the topic at hand. After recently watching a video from GameXplain (check them out) it has been announced that a new handheld console will be released from Nintendo as a better, updated version of the 3DS. Now what do I think about this? WHAT IN THE WORLD NINTENDO?!?? That was basically my first reaction, not to mention that i had only recently purchased a 3DS of my own. Well, before going on I should at least mention the changes they have added to the new console. It's as standard as standard gets for the hardware, a better CPU and GPU so games run smoother (hopefully Pokemon will run at 60 fps with 3D on), load time are faster and, well and overall better experience for the user.

I'm just wondering why'd they move the start and select button

(courtesy of wikipedia)

In the video they also hinted that the new 3DS will have better 3D. Now, this raised a few questions in my head. How did they improve the 3D? Did they add the eye detection technology I first saw implemented in the Toshiba Qosmio F755? If they had added this technology, then playing with 3D on will almost never result in double images or at least if the system can detect your eyes. Aside from that, some of the bigger changes would be the repositioned "Start" and "Select" button, an additional circle pad but smaller, and 2 extra buttons, ZR and ZL. This highly suggests that they are opening up the console to wider variety of games, especially shooters, since a single analog stick isn't exactly optimal. But where does that leave the older 3DS and 3DS XL? Nintendo does seem to be very careful about allowing their consoles to be backwards compatible, but after just recently releasing the 2DS, I seriously thought the 3DS would not be getting a hardware improvement any time soon.

Watch the video first before continuing.

Done? Ok, my main concern about this is, since they have the newly added buttons, most new games will utilize those buttons, leaving them unplayable on the older 3DS. A similar case happened during the transition from the DS to the DSi. A little back story, the original Nintendo DS was launched in late 2004. While the Nintendo DS lite was released about a year later, no major change in hardware was made, it was merely a thinner, lighter and mostly less bulky DS. It was only after 3 years that the DSi was launched, with new hardware such as the camera and also internal storage in the form of an SD card. Most games utilized the camera and the added storage in the system. Sure they still released games for the original DS but only a fraction of the total games, and what developer would go for weaker hardware? Well, what I have mentioned are just a few of the features added. Other features are, NFC (near field communication), storage slots for both SD and microSD, and if you see the picture up top, coloured A,B,X,Y buttons, but I'm not going to cover them all.

Basically the point of my post (rant) is has the 3DS reached its limit? I mean the DSi had 2 solid years before the 3DS was released, and Nintendo had just released the 2DS. And if so, why not make this out to be a complete new one, not just updated hardware and a few extra buttons. Replace that resistive touch screen with a capacitive one, a 3 MP camera at least, I mean phones for less than RM 500 have cameras with better quality (compared to those 0.3 MP ones on the 3DS).

It has barely been a year for the 2DS

(courtesy of wikipedia)

I have to admit, and maybe you have noticed, that even though I am angry at the decision to launch a new version of the console after the 2DS, I like the new features added. Faster loading times and a better CPU and GPU, I'll accept them with open arms, but not this early. I seriously thought that this would have at least a year and a half left before the announcement. And like the points mentioned in Rich of ReviewTechUSA's video, it does seem like Nintendo is doubting their decision of the 3DS' hardware in the first place. Lastly, its sad that eventually, I'm going to have to buy the new 3DS if I want to keep up with the games, so my 3DS XL won't have the as long as I thought it would.

Farid :(

There's a first time for everything!

What do you mean Farid? What have you tried new for the first time? Excellent question dear reader of my blog, which I have not updated for the past month. So to answer the burning question in your minds, I have built my first Zaku gundam model!! Yeah, break out the confetti and them unhealthy drinks, because finally, I have completed one of the requirements (self-made) of my gunpla fan must build! Some of you guys might say, "Hey, what about that SD Zaku II you built a while ago?". Well, for me SD models don't really count, because of the noticeably less parts they have as well as how simple they usually are, so they are a lot of fun, but that was just a guinea pig for painting techniques or whatever new things I want to try. Another new thing I will try for this is how I post about my gundam models, in a certain format, and every other model I post here will be posted in a similar fashion, just so things look more organized. So on to the topic at-hand!

The model I built was actually something as close (at least in my eyes) to the original Zaku II I could find, the HG MS-06FZ Zaku II FZ is the model I went with in this build of mine. Just to throw this out before I post any further, this might be one of the messiest paint job I had done, mainly because it has been a while since I did a fully painted model. I was relatively pleased with how the model was meant to be put together, the articulations as well as the detail on the model. But there were a few gripes I had with certain design aspects, which gladly aren't completely implemented into newer cyclops models. The first one, and also my biggest gripe was the power cables for the Zaku. Sadly, this model uses solid cables, not the flexible kind which are implemented in newer models, as well as a not so solid mounting method on to certain parts, but you might find the most trouble with the power cables on the legs since those face a lot of movement. The second gripe would be the non-movable eye for the Zaku. I did manage to find a way around this, since the sticker for the eye can be taken off and placed back on in a different position, which I think was how the model's eye would be adjusted for certain poses. But it does annoy me that its not easy to pose the model without having tweezers nearby. Everything else was either happily accepted, such as the separable limbs, allowing me to easily paint those separate parts, and others were not really a problem.

This model was kind of a guinea pig as well, my first model partially painted with Tamiya Acrylic paint. I have tried painting a few parts using Tamiya Acrylic paint, such as a few small parts or even weapons for some of my gundam models. And during those projects, not sure whether it was how inexperienced I was at the time, turned out beautifully. However, while painting big parts, like an entire leg or shield, I finally saw a few major flaws, one, they do not turn out as smooth as my paint jobs using Tamiya Enamel Paint. Two, you can't use the thinner to easily clean up bad paint jobs, the paint turns into a pile of sticky goo. Whereas when using Tamiya Enamel Paint, you can very easily rub off the paint using its thinner. Sometimes too easy that if you get some on your fingers, you'll rub off the paint while handling the model if you're not careful. However, Tamiya Acrylic Paint dries extremely quick, as well as requires a very thin layer of paint for it to cover the previous colour, so those are the benefits of using this kind of paint.

The colours/colour mixtures used :

Brown used on the arm and legs : Tamiya Acrylic Brown

Lighter tone of brown used on arms and legs : Tamiya Enamel Medium Grey

Darker brown used on the body : Tamiya Enamel Flat Brown

Joints, power cable shading and back pack : Tamiya Enamel Dark Grey

Thrusters : Tamiya Enamel Chrome Silver

Innner part of the Thrusters on the back pack : Tamiya Enamel Gun Metal Grey

Black on the feet, chest area and knee guards : Tamiya Enamel Flat Black (3 parts) 

                                                                       Tamiya Enamel Flat White (2 parts)

Grenades on hip armour : Tamiya Enamel Flat Red and Tamiya Enamel Gun Metal Grey.

This is actually my first try doing a camo-ish paint job for my gundam model. At first, this was because of the failed attempt trying to paint on digital disruptive patterns (DDPAT or digit camo) on the majority of the brown parts. However, I tried to make it work, and well, I'm quite pleased with the result. Note that Enamel paint doesn't stick too well on Acrylic, well at least Tamiya's Acrylic Paint using my method of painting. The camo method was done basically covering one part with masking tape, and since it is simply a two tone look, not much precision cutting was required.

The rifle took quite a lot of my time to paint as well, since there were 4 different parts to complete the rifle. The rifle was basically painted Tamiya Enamel Dark Grey, with the barrels as well as some metal parts highlighted using Tamiya Enamel Chrome Silver and Tamiya Enamel Gun Metal Grey. The ammo clip as well as certain parts of the muzzle was painted Tamiya Enamel Flat Black.

One of the worst mistakes I had made. As you can see in the above picture, you can see an "L" written down on the foot. This was basically so that I could know which foot was which but the layer of paint I applied was too this to cover it up completely... *sigh* *weeps slowly*

In the above picture you can see that the power cable was roughly glued and just put in place. Basically a way to remind myself not to continuously assemble and disassemble parts just to make sure they "look okay". *weeps again* The brown weathering was not expected, and I'm not really sure how that got there, but it looks okay to me, a little surprise!

Well, that's pretty much all I have to say about this model. If you want a Zaku II to try and build for the first time, I would recommend the original HG Zaku II, or any other Zaku model which the eye is movable. If you're a little bit more experienced, the RG Zaku II is an amazing kit to put together with all the different shaded parts and looks beautiful even as a straight build. That is all, finish!!

Farid