November 2007 Archives

By Alex Villafania, hackenslash Reporter INQUIRER.net I’M an air guitarist, that is I strum my fingers without a real guitar. Actually, I don’t know how to play the guitar nor will I have the patience to learn how to. I just use my imagination like most non-guitarists. But Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock (PlayStation 2) just about made me wan to pick up a real guitar and learn how to pluck chords. This is the very first time I’ve played a game from the Guitar Hero series, which has been getting more and more popular and gave PS2 owners a reason to actually keep their PS2s for quite a while. This is not a game about graphics and as such players will not be concerned or distracted by the 3D background, which I would say is nominally good in some sense. All the players will be concerned about are the five colored notes from the top of a screen coming down along a virtual guitar neck and the player will have to press the corresponding fret button on their guitar controller. It’s also important that every time a fret button is pressed the strum bar has to be pressed down as well. As in a real guitar, there is also a whammy bar for hammer-on and pull-offs for rapid, consecutive notes. First-time players like me will find playing the game difficult to start with, especially when having to press five buttons with only four left fingers (the left thumb is at the back of the guitar neck). Most of the time, the index finger will be used to press two buttons as it is the most movable finger among the four. Still, it takes quite some time to learn what to press and can be daunting even with the easy mode. The concept is similar to the arcade Dance Dance Revolution wherein the player has to time their button press when the notes hit the empty colored buttons at the bottom of the screen. Missing a note will cause some points and the Rock Meter to be shaved off. The Rock Meter serves as the player’s health and when it drops to zero it will cause the music to stop. Not missing for a while will give special bonus points to the player. Bonus points become harder to achieve as the levels increases. Getting in the “groove,” that is, being able to completely following the buttons on screen would take at least 1 hour. But once the buttons are mastered, it’ll be hard for anyone to let go of the controller. If just following the buttons is fun enough, there are little touches in the game that makes playing Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock even more fun. One is the use of the Star Power Meter. This is a special meter that has to be filled first by correctly pressing notes with stars. Its main use is to double the points earned during gameplay. When filled, the player can activate the Star Power Meter in two ways: either by slamming the whammy bar near the strum bar or raising the guitar vertically. The latter is more fun especially if the guitar has that gyro-type function (mine does!) and it makes you feel like a real rock star. Another feature to Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock is the two-player game, either in cooperative mode or battle mode. For the cooperative mode, one plays the lead guitar while the other plays either a rhythm or bass guitar. Meanwhile, battle mode has you compete against another player. Technically, I didn’t have a second controller and my companion had to use the standard PS2 controller. Nevertheless it was still fun. Veterans of the Guitar Hero series will be familiar with some of the in-game characters such as Johnny Napalm, Axel Steel and Izzy Sparks who will be strutting their stuff. But rock music fans will be familiar with real rock stars Tom Morello, Slash, and Bret Michaels who will make appearances as boss stages in the career mode. Of course, what’s Guitar Hero if not for the playlist? While this is the very first time I’ve played a Guitar Hero game I could say that it the latest version has a very good playlist that gave me days of fun. It’s also one of the very few times that I’ve actually stood up for at least 2 hours playing the game if only to listen closely to the music (the constant tapping on the fret buttons could sometimes be distracting). As the name implies, Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock is all about the big-hair musicians of the early 70s, 80s and 90s, with a few new bands that play classic rock music. Among the legends here are Kiss, Alice Cooper, Cream, The Who, Rolling Stones, Metallica, Sex Pistols, Dead Kennedy, Scorpion, Aerosmith, Guns ‘N Roses, Black Sabbath, among others. Newer bands include Rage Against the Machine, Smashing Pumpkins, Weezer, The Killers and Beastie Boys. There are at least 150 songs in the game. Take note, half of the songs here are not easy to strum. Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock is available on all of the game consoles (Xbox 360, Nintendo Wii, PlayStation 3) as well as PC and Mac, but the PS2 is already so much fun for both newbie players and veterans of the series and has a lot of replayability and can be fun for a group of music fanatics. It would be easy to say that this game becomes a legend of its own.

By Alex Villafania, hackenslash Reporter INQUIRER.net THE TEAM representing the Philippines in the upcoming WarRock World Championships has replaced one of its players with a member of a rival team, days before they are to depart for South Korea. Baguio Clan Uno's Melvin Bares has been replaced by Edgardo Abiera Jr. from Team Ambush, one of their rivals during the WarRock Philippines Road to Korea Finals. Bares' departure stemmed from the delays in the processing of his passport, which means he will be unable to fly to South Korea with his teammates. Meanwhile, Abiera was chosen from Team Ambush as he was the only player that had a valid passport. Incidentally, none of the members of Team Zero Orange, whom Baguio Clan Uno faced in the Philippine finals held Nov. 10, had passports so none of their members were chosen to replace Bares in time for the Korean competition. Nevertheless, Amped Games director Mitch Padua said the team is ready to take on the teams from other countries. "They've been training a lot in the last few weeks so we're hopeful that they will be able to go [up] against the other players," he said. The WarRock World Championships will be held on Dec. 1 in South Korea as part of the Game and Game World Championship. The Philippines will face players from the United States, Japan, some European countries and South Korea, which is touted to have the toughest team to beat. The members of Baguio Clan Uno who are going to South Korea are Walter Mamaril, Aquilino Soyosa, John Paul Naputo and Dexter De Castro.

By Alex Villafania, hackenslash Reporter INQUIRER.net ASIAN MEDIA, which publishes the massively multiplayer online role-playing game Lineage II, promises to make big splashes in early 2008. In particular is the commercialization of Lineage II, which has been in open beta since July this year. The company will also launch in the first quarter of 2008 the Kamael update of Lineage II, which is expected to introduce a new race of characters. In line with the early year plans of Asian Media for Lineage II is the upcoming single of the winners of their Game Girls competition. A Lineage II-inspired music video will also feature the five-person Game Girls. Asian Media partnered with record label Sony BMG Philippines for the Game Girls competition. The winning Game Girls, who follow the same concept as the widely popular all-girl dance troupe Pussycat Dolls, will become part of the marketing strategy of Asian Media for its games, as well as become Sony BMG talents. In an interview Asian Media chief operating officer Ronald Allan Aquino said the company is prepared for 2008, expanding the current games they are publishing as well as introducing new games after Lineage II goes commercial. Aquino declined to go into the details of the new games they plan to launch in the Philippines, but noted that one will be an online role-playing game and another a casual game. "We're focusing all our efforts now with Lineage II, which is showing a lot of promise since the start of the beta testing," Aquino said. He said the Philippines has the most number of players in the game, accounting for about 80 percent of the total. Other markets where the game is played are Malaysia and Singapore. "There are approximately 300, 000 Filipinos playing the game and about 60, 000 from Malaysia and Singapore," Aquino said. He also revealed that Asian Media has commissioned a third-party survey on their game's popularity. The study, done by a local research company called Frames, surveyed 109 online game players from at least 10 Internet cafes in Metro Manila. The survey, which started in mid-October until the first week of November, revealed that Lineage II was the second most-played online game in Internet cafes. "Of course, it comes as a surprise because we expected the newer titles from the other publishers to be the first in the list because they came right after we did. It just shows that this game has so much more potential," Aquino said. Earlier this year, Asian Media went into an exclusive partnership with Lineage II South Korean developer NCsoft to publish and market the game in the Philippines, Singapore and Malaysia for a sum of $5.5 million.

By Alex Villafania, hackenslash Reporter INQUIRER.net YOUR Xbox 360 and Nintendo Wiis are environmentally poisonous. So says the latest review of electronic waste by environmental advocacy group Greenpeace. The latest Guide to Greener Electronics by Greenpeace has rated console makers for the first time since the quarterly report started about a year ago. It also included LCD TVs, which are fast replacing old CRT monitors as the display panels of choice. The game console business is also one of the reasons more consumers are buying LCD TVs. In the latest report, Greenpeace rated Nintendo with a very low 0 out of 10 score for having no plans for recycling discarded consoles. Meanwhile, Microsoft had a score of only 2.7 out of 10. However, because both Nintendo and Microsoft are newcomers to the list, Greenpeace opined that both still have "room for improvement" in terms of their disposal strategies for old consoles. Incidentally, Sony's PlayStation business was not included on the list. Only the Japanese firm's mobile phone subsidiary Sony Ericsson is part of the current and previous rankings. Despite Microsoft not having an official Xbox 360 sales office in the Philippines, Microsoft Philippines' official statement sent to hackenslash stressed its commitment to environmental sustainability. "In our consumer electronics business, we comply with and exceed all environmental guidelines and regulations. We are committed to making ongoing progress on environmental issues while maintaining product durability, safety and performance," the company said in its statement. In addition, Microsoft Philippines spokesperson Mae Rivera-Moreno stressed that Microsoft has other initiatives that fall outside the scope of the Greenpeace survey. In particular, it is working with the US environmental organization Natural Resources Defense Council to make the Xbox 360 more energy-efficient. "We expect to implement product modifications over the next year that will demonstrate significant gains in energy efficiency. The Xbox 360 is packaged with 100-percent environmentally-friendly packaging that is approximately 30 percent less in volume over the original Xbox and eliminates the former use of styrene. Additionally, the Xbox 360 has environmentally-friendly technology integrated into the console, such as a low power mode. We also plan to phase out the use of substances such as polyvinyl chloride (PVC) and brominated flame retardants (BFR) -- substances that have been associated with significant environmental impacts-- from our products, including the Xbox 360, by 2011,” Moreno said via e-mail.

By Alex Villafania, hackenslash Reporter INQUIRER.net FILIPINO game development firm Anino Games said it has put on hold the development of what could have been its first console game called Project Phoenix. Anino announced in January this year the development of Project Phoenix and showed an alpha version of the game to hackenslash. The game was originally intended for the Microsoft Xbox 360 but could eventually be ported to the Sony PlayStation 3. In an e-mail response to hackenslash, Anino senior producer Paraluman Cruz stressed that Project Phoenix was put on hold as they "pursue other platforms." "Our end goal is to make next-generation games, but to get there we realized we need to build up our portfolio on current-generation platforms (PC and recently the Nintendo DS); these platforms will give us the experience and credibility we need to make our dream [of a] next-gen game," Cruz said. Project Phoenix is a third-person action-adventure shooter with a female character. The setting is a sort of cyber-punk megacity under threat from underground hackers.

By Alex Villafania, hackenslash Reporter INQUIRER.net COMPUTER processor maker AMD has renewed its commitment to its core market, the PC gaming enthusiasts with the introduction of a set of processors, chipsets and graphics cards. The entire line of AMD products is collectively called the Spider platform as they are developed parallel to each other and will feature enhancements when they are installed together. AMD Spider is composed of the latest quad-core AMD Phenom processors, the high-definition ATI Radeon HD 3800 video cards and the AMD-7 series board chipsets. In an interview, AMD South Asia technology director Tan See Ghee said PC gamers are still the company’s main target, due to their relentless pursuit for more powerful gaming rigs. "They’re the ones who continue to push their computers when it comes to speed utilization. But they have also been using their PCs for a number of uses, especially as home theater devices." The Philippines launch was conducted about a week after the AMD Spider platform was introduced in the global market. The company said the AMD Spider platform is still primarily targeted at the PC gamers whose interests have expanded to high-definition gaming, especially with the advent of new high-definition monitors and cables. AMD also claims that its Phenom processor is the "true" quad core chip as it has four individual cores placed on a single die. In comparison, Intel's Core 2 Quad processors are actually two dual core processors spliced together. The Phenom processors have frequencies of 2.2 (Phenom 9500) and 2.3 (Phenom 9600) Gigahertz, relatively slower than Intel Core 2 Quad processors that run up to 2.6 Ghz. However, Phenom makes up for the lack of processing speed with a faster bus speed technology called HyperTransport that aims to replace the decades-old front-side bus. This describes the method by which data is transferred from the processor to other parts of the computer. The higher the bandwidth, the faster the data transfer. The company has also made the Phenom more backward compatible; buyers who purchase a Phenom processor will be able to move the chip to a higher motherboard socket technology called AM2+ (currently, AMD's standard socket is the AM2). Likewise, Phenom processors that will be launched in the next two years will also be able to run on the current AM2 and AMD2+ sockets, but will be fully utilized with the AMD3 socket, to be launched in 2009, as well. For the chipsets, AMD launched the 7-series. Its most notable feature is a quad-capable CrossfireX configuration, which lets a motherboard handle up to four PCI-Express ATI video cards at the same time. A CrossfireX configuration would allow a user to attach up to eight monitors together that will work as a single video wall. The ATI video cards are the next biggest products of AMD. Since it acquired graphics card maker ATI, AMD has introduced new Radeon video cards that run parallel to its processors. As such, the new ATI Radeon HD 3800 cards have been developed to use the new PCI-Express 2.0 standard over the older generation PCI-Express 1.1 and have been integrated with the new HDMI (high definition multimedia interface) output, which allows a user to attach their PCs to HDMI-ready LCD TVs and projectors. ATI also ensured that the HD 3800 cards can still be overclocked with the use of its ATI Catalyst Control Center software. In overclocked mode, the cards could run at least 30 percent peak rate without overheating.

Alex Villafania, hackenslash Reporter INQUIRER.net DESPITE development delays, Philippine game development firm Virtual Titania Amusement Software (VITAS) has now scheduled the closed beta test of Bangu-Bang Mania! The company has acquired at least two servers that will be used for its closed beta test, starting in the first week of December. In an interview, VITAS president Rainier Umali said the hardware will be hosted in an ePLDT data center. He said the first few weeks of the beta test will check in-game bugs and latency issues of computers accessing the game through the servers. "We have tapped the assistance of a few Internet cafes in Metro Manila to help out in the closed beta test," Umali said. During the beta test, the company will be having a sort of "search for bugs" contest wherein players that find and report the most number of bugs in the game will win one of several prizes, including Creative Zen Stone music players. "We want players to share their experiences with the game so we could improve it before the open beta test and the subsequent commercial launch," Umali said. He noted that the open beta test could start as early as January 2008 with the commercial launch starting sometime in the first quarter of 2008. Bangu-Bang Mania! is primarily a 3D game set in a 2D environment with robots fighting each other. The game can allow one player to fight another player, or engage in three-on-three team combat. Winning would give players a chance to upgrade their robot with more powerful parts and weapons. Umali said that VITAS will be both the developer and publisher of the game. The actual development of the game is led by Umali's son, Antonio Rainier.

By Alex Villafania, hackenslash Reporter INQUIRER.net PHILIPPINE mobile game developer Anino Mobile recently became one of the only five companies to be sponsored for the upcoming Game Connection Europe (), a business networking event for the video game industry. Anino Mobile was accepted into Game Connection's Level Up program (not to be confused with the Philippine online game publisher Level Up!), which aims to help promising developers from different countries meet up with other game developers, publishers, distributors, investors and other entrepreneurs in the video game business. In an interview, Anino Games director for Business Development Jeremiah Chow said the event will help bring the company closer to its goal of becoming a premier game development studio in Southeast Asia. Chow, who will be the only one attending the event in behalf of Anino Mobile, will focus on looking for publishers for their games, introducing their company to other publishers and other developers, and discussing trends in the game development business. Anino Mobile, which is a subsidiary of game development firm Anino Entertainment, will be joined by four game companies from the US, France and Croatia. These are AGE Studio, Arkedo, Big Rooster and Ocean Media LLC. About 40 companies from 17 countries applied for the Level Up program, which was implemented only this year. The five winning companies will receive free access to all the forums during the three-day event. The attendance fee for the event is valued at 3,000 euros (P190,000). The winners will still pay for their airfare and hotel accommodation. This is the first time that the Philippines will be represented in the Game Connection convention. The event will be held in Lyon, France from Dec. 4 to 6 and will be attended by developers from at least 35 countries.

By Alex Villafania, hackenslash Reporter INQUIRER.net UPDATE: Editor's note: Added video and photos. PRESIDENT Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo is now literally “in the game.” Arroyo activated her virtual self called an “avatar” in the Second Life online game and community as part of the launch of the Philippine National Innovation Strategy in the National Innovation Summit in Makati City. Her virtual likeness will sit in the virtual IBM Innovation Center which is also in Second Life. Arroyo’s Second Life avatar was joined by those of Science Secretary Estrella Alabastro and IBM Executive Vice President for Innovation and Technology Nick Donofrio. The three avatars were created by Gabby Dizon, president of game developer FlipSide Games, under the direction of IBM Philippines, which is one of the sponsors of the Innovation Summit. In an interview, Dizon said the idea behind the creation of the avatars was to show that the Philippine president was also a proponent of change and innovation by employing a virtual world. IBM Asean External Affairs head Richard Burgos said that this would be the very first time that a head of state would have a virtual representation in their IBM Innovation Center in Second Life. With the creation of Arroyo’s avatar in Second Life, the opportunity of putting up a virtual Philippine Embassy in the game is not farfetched. Dizon noted that they are free to create the virtual embassy considering the coordination they have with the government and private sector in the Innovation Summit. Unlike most online games, Second Life, created by Linden Research Inc, is more of a virtual commerce and virtual lifestyle game than an action-adventure one. As such, there are virtual real estates and business, taxation and governance. The game is largely used by IBM for global conferencing with many of its executives regularly meeting with the use of their own avatars.

By Alex Villafania INQUIRER.net FINALLY, Philippine online game publisher IP e-Games has set a date for the launch of Hellgate: London. The game will be launched on Nov. 29 at the SM Director's Club at SM Mall of Asia in Pasay City. In a statement, Intellectual Property Ventures Group CEO Enrique Gonzalez said the game will be the company's "yearend gift to gamers." "We will be announcing the launch of a massive triple-A title in the Philippines which has been highly anticipated by many hardcore gamers. This title will redefine the online gaming experience," Gonzalez said. Gonzalez made good on his earlier promise that they would soon have an official announcement on Hellgate: London, as shown in this video interview conducted by INQUIRER.net reporter Erwin Oliva on Nov. 13. IPVG is the parent company of IP e-Games, which will launch Hellgate: London in partnership with Singaporean game distributor Infocomm Asia Holdings in the Philippines. Hellgate: London is a PC action role-playing game developed by Flagship Studios, which was set up by former employees of US developer Blizzard. It was officially launched in Singapore on Oct. 31 and in the US and Europe on Nov. 1 and 2, respectively. The game is set in a post-apocalyptic London where humans are fighting demons using magic-enhanced modern weapons.

LEVEL UP! has just announced that its sci-fi massively multiplayer online role-playing game Rising Force Online is now free-to-play. Here's an excerpt from the Level Up! press statement:

This, coupled with the Aug. 28 launch of Episode 2 -- Giga 1: "The Pioneers of Novus," means that the battle for world domination in Novus will be fiercer than ever! Episode 2 -- Giga 1: "The Pioneers of Novus," RF's biggest patch ever, features not just all-new powerful weapons but also highlights the opening of the RF Item Mall. Those who want to buy Galactic Credits for the Episode 2 Item Mall can simply choose to click on the "Buy Galactic Credits" button at the top-up page to start availing of great premium items. And those who are looking to annihilate their competition can easily take advantage of the premium subscription option. This package gives the player 2x Exp / 2x PT /2x drop and 2x mining rate as well as giving bonus credits for item mall purchases -- perfect for those who want to get ahead in the game. The premium subscription will basically be an evolution of RF Online’s current top-up scheme. To avail of this mode, just top-up via either MyLU or from the direct top-up pages and choose "Premium Subscription." Premium subscribers may also purchase Galactic Credits should they elect to do so.

GUESS what? MU is still alive! :) Not only is this massively multiplayer online role-playing game published in the Philippines by mobiusgames still alive and kicking, but the company has launched the MU Raffle promo to reward its loyal players. Here's an excerpt from the press statement that Eric Roceles, the marketing director of Digital Media Exchange, e-mailed:

The raffle offers players premier, endgame items that would otherwise be very difficult to acquire in the popular MMORPG. There are three Map Levels to choose from in the raffle with corresponding prizes for each character class in the game. Unlike the usual raffles where prizes are pre-determined, players get to choose what prize they want to win under the Map Level they choose to buy in mobiusonline. Map Levels range from 1-3 and cost 5, 10, and 15 ePoints each, the universal currency in mobiusonline. The higher map level you buy, the more “raffle stubs” you enter in the raffle, thereby increasing your chances of winning that much-coveted Arcane Armour piece. There will be four weekly draws with five winners each from each of MU Online’s servers Bahr, Titan and Ion, and a grand draw with three winners from each server.

Check out the MU Raffle page for more details. Oh, and Riane, sorry to hear you've left. Anyway, we'll always have Facebook heh :) See you around.

By Gabby Dizon, hackenslash Contributor INQUIRER.net THE GAME Developers Association of the Philippines (GDAP) marked its first international foray by participating in Games Convention Asia on Sept. 6-8. The Filipino game development studios had previously participated in international conferences such as the Asian Game Developers Summit, but this was the first time that we were representing the Philippine game industry as a whole. Our participation was largely made possible by the cooperation of the Center for International Trade Expositions and Missions (CITEM). CITEM is a government agency that conducts trade missions for the different industries in the Philippines, and because we were being highlighted as a high-growth industry, they gave us a lot of support. CITEM subsidized a very substantial part of the cost of having a booth at the event and handled most of the logistics related to the GCA. They also printed out brochures and DVDs of the GDAP member profiles to be distributed to potential clients at the event. Most of us arrived in Singapore on Sept. 5, a day before the event started. I was chosen as the GDAP representative for a memorandum of intent signing between industry heads of 12 Asia Pacific nations. It was a great opportunity for networking -- I got to know key people from the game industry in most parts of Asia, including Australia and New Zealand. After that, it was a full evening of work to prepare for the conference, which sadly caused me to miss the speakers’ party in the swankiest part of town! The first day of the event was very hectic. There was a developer conference along with the expo space for the game industry and a public expo for companies to show off their games. There were a number of GDAP members who gave talks or participated in panel discussions in the conference -- including Paul Gadi and Niel Dagondon of Anino Games, Eric Marlow and Ranulf Goss of Matahari Studios, Alex Calero of Glyph/Libranet, and myself. We were being helped out by Ms Imee Marcos, who as founder of the Creative Media and Film Society or CreaM, is supporting all creative industries in the Philippines. Ms Imee set us up with several key meetings with a lot of important people, such as representatives of Singapore’s Multimedia Development Authority, to map out cooperation and co-development between the game developers of the two countries. We had a beautifully constructed booth that pretty much stood out from the rest of the expo members -- with LCD players showing demo reels of each GDAP member who participated, and lounge chairs for business meetings. Our booth generated a lot of interest from the conference goers, and we even met some friends from the publishing companies locally. We even saw Sheila Paul, formerly of Level Up! and now working as a senior research scientist for a global company operating out of Malaysia. That’s a really cool title, Sheila! I’m sure a lot of game geeks miss you back home. At the last day of the event, we organized our very own “Philippine Gaming Advantage Forum,” which was a networking event designed to educate the conference goers about the benefits of doing business in the Philippines. It was hosted by  Rico Hizon, a Filipino journalist working for the BBC, and attended by our Philippine Ambassador to Singapore, Belen Anota, and her husband. It gave us the chance to show the rest of the conference goers how healthy the Filipino game industry is. All in all, the event was a great success. A lot of important contacts were made in the global game industry, and the GDAP members reported expecting around $0.9M worth of business to be generated in the next year as a result of the event. We can’t wait to do this again next year! Editor's note: This is the first in a series of hackenslash guest posts from Filipino game developers.  Gabby Dizon is the co-founder and president/CEO of FlipSide Games, and the president of the Game Developers Association of the Philippines.

ISN'T she gorgeous? Meet Hannah Tan, the new face on Animax. Wanna know more about Hannah? Visit her site and find out how you can send your questions to Hannah. Video provided by Animax, a partner of INQUIRER.net. For more videos from INQUIRER.net and our partners, go to iVDO on Yahoo!

By Erwin Oliva INQUIRER.net PHILIPPINE online game publisher IP e-Games is set to make announcements about the action role-playing game Hellgate: London soon, an executive told hackenslash. Asked about Hellgate: London and IP e-Games' plans for the game in the Philippines, IPVG CEO Enrique Gonzalez replied, "For e-Games and IPVG, we're not prepared today to make a formal, official disclosure. We plan to do that in the next few weeks. We will be holding a separate press briefing." IP e-Games is a subsidiary of publicly-listed firm IPVG. IP e-Games working with Infocomm Asia Holdings, a Singaporean game distributor that owns the rights to the title Hellgate: London for the Southeast Asian region. "As you know, we are IAH's partner in the Philippines. So we work and collaborate with them for all of their [game] titles." Gonzales said that the Hellgate: London servers went live last week. Hellgate: London was launched on Oct. 31 in Singapore, with the regional launch coinciding with the global release. Apart from IAH, the game will also be distributed by Hanbitsoft of Korea and Electronic Arts in the US. Hellgate: London was developed by Flagship Studios whose executives are former developers of Blizzard and whose most successful brainchild is the role-playing game Diablo. Gonzalez admitted that Hellgate: London is one of the most-anticipated games that have come out of the former Diablo developers. "It's a fantastic, triple A title. The pedigree of the developers of Hellgate: London is bar none," he stressed. "So in terms of the pedigree of developers, they are on top of the food chain." The game is primarily an action role-playing game with similar elements taken from Diablo. The game has both single-player and multiplayer components. The setting is a post-apocalyptic London that has been invaded by creatures from Hell. The Knights Templars of the Crusades have to help modern military leaders battle the demons that are able to shrug off even the most modern weaponry. The surviving Knights Templars have to revive the use of magic to fight the demons.

By Alex Villafania, hackenslash Reporter INQUIRER.net DESPITE traveling over 200 kilometers from home, five Baguio boys beat eight other teams to become the champions in the first WarRock Road to Korea finals. The five-man Baguio Clan Uno (BCU) will also be the Philippine representative to the upcoming WarRock World Championship finals in South Korea on Dec. 1. BCU is composed of Walter Mamaril, Aquilino Soyosa Jr., Melvin Bares, John Paul Naputo and Dexter de Castro. They defeated crowd favorite Zero Orange in a twice-to-beat deathmatch game. BCU won P100,000 in cash while Zero Orange won P50,000. WarRock community manager Johnny "Johnny Blaze" Nadal said the Philippines will have a fighting chance against the top players from South Korea as the game itself was only released recently and so Filipino players will be able to catch up. He noted that about 100 teams signed up for the WarRock competition this year, pointing to a growing community of fans for the first-person online shooter.

IT'S still in early beta but you can now check out our new service, Games on INQUIRER.net, which is powered by FlipSide Games. Right now, two Flash games are available, Sudoku and Memory Game. It's all free, so head on over to Games on INQUIRER.net and have fun playing. So where is this all headed? I wish I could tell you already but all I can say is that this is just the start, and that of course hackenslash will be part of this new thrust. We have exciting plans that should unfold in the weeks and months ahead, and as hackenslash has said from the start, "Gaming is serious business." And yes, INQUIRER.net realizes that, now more than ever :)

By Alex Villafania, hackenslash Reporter INQUIRER.net RAGNAROK ONLINE, which started the online gaming craze in the country when it was released in the Philippines by Level Up! Inc. way back in September 2003, will have a brother sometime next year. Ragnarok Online 2 is currently being developed by South Korean firm Gravity and those who attended Level Up! Live at the World Trade Center from Nov. 3 to 4 got a chance to play an alpha version of the game. Level Up! Ragnarok product manager Carlo Ople gave hackenslash a demonstration of the game and so far, it is looking great. The game has been totally redesigned from the original. Instead of using 2D sprites and pre-rendered backgrounds, RO2 now employs Unreal Engine 2.5, an updated graphics engine that makes RO2 a true 3D game. Here's a video interview that INQUIRER.net multimedia reporter Erika Tapalla did while Ople gave the demo. While the characters will still look like the same ones from RO1, they can now be seen in full 3D. The same goes for the environments. Ople said the current demo is just about 20 percent of the actual game and the finished product would be much bigger and look better. New game engine Ople explained that with the full 3D engine, the gameplay will also be redesigned. Unlike before where players have to point-and-click at items, enemies, or locations where their characters are going, players can now use a first-person button configuration wherein movement is done using the A, S, W and D keyboard buttons, or the arrow keys, while the mouse serves as camera panning (just like the button configuration of Counter-Strike). When in combat mode, a character can now move around an enemy, dodge attacks while inflicting damage against a target. "Here, the player can attack, dodge, then attack again, and depending on the character’s attributes, they can inflict more damage even if they’re weaker characters," he explained. Another feature in the game is the ability of the characters to jump and swim, thus expanding the complexity of movement for the characters. The jump feature would be very important as it would add more depth to the combat system. Expressive characters The characters in RO2 will also be able to express emotions, not just as bubble emotes from the original game, but as actual facial expressions, and often, as real actions. Ople said the game’s Real Emotion Expression feature will make a character act out the emote instead of just a static bubble message. A character can show happiness, surprise, anger, disappointment and sadness, among others. One particular emote will make the game character dance for a couple of minutes. Ople said there are only a few of these Real Emotion Expressions in the alpha version but it would increase with the beta and the retail versions. Job changes Another important new feature in RO2 is the mid-game job change. In the first game, players can choose one type of job and stick to that until their characters level up. In RO2, players can change jobs in the middle of the game. This expands their activities in the game but also reduces the speed of which the characters would level up. "Each job has unique attributes and job changing will add more skills but it would be more difficult to spread the attributes. However, players who like to collect more skills can change jobs as they please," Ople said. New races There would be new character races in the game. Instead of just one type of race, the Normans or humans of RO1, players of RO2 will be given the chance to choose to be either the Ellr (half-breed born of a relationship between a Norman and an Elf) or Dimago (rejected offspring born of a relationship between the Colossus and a Norman). As in most online role-playing games with multiple races, the two new RO2 races will have different attributes and skills, thus opening opportunities for players to pick the type of race they want to be in the game. Ople noted that the plot of RO2 will be set 1, 000 years after RO1. In the story, the world of Midgard in RO1 has been destroyed but was saved by St. Lif. It was here that the Dimago have awoken and the Ellr have appeared to investigate what is happening. The game is currently in open beta stage in South Korea and is enjoying high demand among Korean players. Level Up! for its part said the retail version of the game might be introduced sometime in the middle of 2008.

HACKENSLASH/INQUIRER.NET reporter Alex Villafania, INQUIRER.net multimedia reporter Erika Tapalla and I caught up with Level Up! International Gameboss Ben Colayco on the first day of Level Up! Live at the World Trade Center. Here's Alex interviewing Ben, who shared that the company will launch at least four new games in the Philippines next year through Level Up! Inc. Ben also said the Philippines remains their biggest and most important market. Level Up! International has offices in the Philippines, Brazil and India. Video taken by Erika. For more videos from INQUIRER.net and our partners, go to iVDO.

HERE'S hackenslash/INQUIRER.net reporter Alex Villafania interviewing Level Up! CEO Jane Walker during the first day of Level Up! Live at the World Trade Center in Pasay City. Video taken by INQUIRER.net multimedia reporter Erika Tapalla. Want more video clips from INQUIRER.net and our partners? Visit iVDO.

WAS at the World Trade Center this afternoon with hackenslash/INQUIRER.net reporter Alex Villafania and our new multimedia reporter Erika Tapalla to cover Level Up! Live. One of the treats for attendees was the chance to play around with the early beta version of Ragnarok Online 2, the much-anticipated sequel to the title that launched the online gaming craze in the Philippines. We asked Level Up! Inc. Ragnarok product manager Carlo Ople to give a demo of RO2 while Erika interviewed him and took video footage, and Carlo was more than happy to oblige. So here's a taste of RO2. Want more video clips from INQUIRER.net and our partners? Visit iVDO.

IF you will recall, Team Armada represented the Philippine in the Ragnarok World Championship, which I covered in South Korea in July for hackenslash and iVDO. In a twist of fate, however, the members of that Team Armada, which placed third in RWC 2007, is now playing under the name of their actual guild, Bozanian Beast Fighter, and have made it to the finals of the Ragnarok Philippine Championship, where they will face their allies, the Armada guild. Yup, the same Armada whose name they sported for the RWC, as part of the BFF (Thanks to Sniper7 for pointing out the typo. Gaah, BFF -- naging Best Friends Forever tuloy, hehe--Ed.>BBF-Armada alliance. Here's an interview I conducted with team manager Milton Sy (left) representing Bozanian, and Eric Dique, representing Armada. The noisy environment wasn't ideal -- in fact, the audio here is from the GarageBand recording I was taking at the same time, which is why it's actually Level Up!'s Carlo Ople who's shooting the video using my mobile phone. This video was taken at Mag:net Cafe at Bonifacio High Street a little over a week ago. Bozanian and Armada will clash tomorrow, Nov. 4 at the World Trade Center in Pasay City, as part of Level Up! Live, which kicks off today. In fact, I'm headed over there in a while to cover the event, together with hackenslash reporter Alex Villafania and INQUIRER.net multimedia reporter Erika Tapalla. The champion team in RPC 2007 will receive P250, 000 in cash and another P250, 000 in kind. To Bozanian and Armada, good luck and may the best team win.

UPDATE: Editor's note: Made corrections. Hellgate: London is an action role-playing game, not an online first-person shooter. Thanks to all the readers who pointed out the error. By Alex Villafania, hackenslash Reporter INQUIRER.net HELLGATE: LONDON may have been launched in Singapore already, but Filipino gamers may have to wait a bit longer for it to be available here -- if at all. Philippine online game publisher IP e-Games remains mum over any plans to introduce the first-person shooter action role-playing game in the Philippines, despite lengthy negotiations with Singaporean game distributor Infocomm Asia Holdings. "No comment," was the latest official statement from IPVG CEO Enrique Gonzalez when asked by hackenslash. IPVG is the parent company of IP e-Games. Regardless, the company sent hackenslash the official statement of IAH on the Hellgate: London regional launch, which was held on Oct. 31 in Singapore. The game was also launched concurrently in the US while the Australian and European launches will be held on Nov. 1 and 2, respectively. Apart from IAH, the game will also be distributed by Hanbitsoft of Korea and Electronic Arts in the US. Hellgate: London was developed by Flagship Studios whose executives are former developers of Blizzard and whose most successful brainchild is the role-playing game Diablo. The game is primarily an online first-person shooter game action RPG but has similar elements taken from Diablo. The game has both single-player and multiplayer components. The setting is a post-apocalyptic London that has been invaded by creatures from Hell. The Knights Templars of the Crusades have to help modern military leaders battle the demons that are able to shrug off even the most modern weaponry. The surviving Knights Templars have to revive the use of magic to fight the demons.The setting is a post-apocalyptic London that has been invaded by creatures from Hell. The Knights Templars of the Crusades have to help modern military leaders battle the demons that are able to shrug off even the most modern weaponry. The surviving Knights Templars have to revive the use of magic to fight the demons. Hellgate: London will be a multiplayer online game, just like most of the games offered by IP e-Games. Incidentally, it will follow in the footsteps of WarRock, another modern first-person combat game already being distributed by rival firm Amped Games, a division of ABS-CBN Interactive. In a previous interview with hackenslash, IAH Deputy CEO David Ng said that they are "in the process of making arrangements" with IP e-Games. “But it will be in the Philippines,” Ng said.

CHECK out this Animax Fashion-Ability promo trailer from our partner Animax and find out how you can get the chance to make it big in the fashion industry. Go to www.hackenslash.net/fashion-ability for more details and to send your submissions. And visit iVDO for more video clips from INQUIRER.net and our partners.

By Agence France-Presse TOKYO, Japan--It could soon be game over for the Famicom, the vintage family computer that two decades ago set Japan's Nintendo on a path to become a global video game icon. Nintendo has decided to stop repairing the Famicom, the console that wowed the world with Super Mario Bros. and Dragon Quest, because stocks of spare parts are running out, company spokesman Ken Toyoda said. The family computer, which was sold as the Nintendo Entertainment System in the United States and Europe, made its world debut in Japan in 1983. Boasting far superior graphics to any other home video game console on the market at that time, it went on to sell almost 62 million units worldwide, and was followed by the Super Famicom, repairs of which will also be halted. "Some say it's sad Famicom is leaving and players are nostalgic, but Nintendo's saga has not ended. We want people to enjoy the Wii now," said the spokesman for the Kyoto-based firm, which began in 1889 making playing cards. Nintendo can hardly keep up with demand for the Wii, which is known for its innovative motion-sensitive controller and aimed at customers who normally would not play video games.