Granado Espada Philippines Gathering 2011

IAH Games has just announced that they will holding a Players Gathering for the Filipino gamers of their MMORPG Granado Espada on February 12, 2011 (1:30-4:00PM) at T.G.I. Friday's, Trinoma.

There will be an entrance fee of PhP350 which includes the Buffet Lunch, 7200 worth of Gpoints and 1 Lucky Dip where you can get a chance to win any of these prizes:

• Kurenai Sword
• Draognics Weapon of choice
• Asoka Card
• [Secret of Moonlight] Stance book
• [Innocentio] Stance book
• Renaissance Wine Glass (comes together with Dionysus’ Apostle medal)

The first 30 registrants will recieve a free limited edition GE Renaissance poster and a v6.3 installer.

Players can also purchase GE merchandise at the gathering:

• GE T-Shirts at PHP500
• GE Limited Signature Edition at PHP1,500 (Includes Full Color 80 Pages Game Manual, Keyboard Guide, Info-Map, 4CD Original Soundtrack, Emilia the Sage RNPC Card and G-points!)
• GE Renaissance Poster at PHP300
• GE Masquerade Handphone Wiper at PHP100
• GE Limited Edition Renaissance Wine Glass Set at PHP5,800 (Only 180 Pieces worldwide, Set of 2 Crystal Glasses, Each box comes with a numbered metal plate and an exclusive in-game medal 'Dionysus Apostle')
• 7,200 G-points iCash Cards at PHP350

source: http://ge.iahgames.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?id=1585

EA Arena

Last Sunday, Datablitz and Cyberzone recently held EA Arena, a gaming event at SM Annex, SM North. EA Arena offered freeplay of some of Electronic Arts' (EA) best selling games for different consoles (PS3, Xbox 360, Wii and PC) which includes NBA Jam and Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit, they also held the game launch of Dead Space 2, the sequel to the top rated Sci-Fi Horror game. There were booths from Razer, Cooling Master, Asus and Lenovo that showcased some of their latest products for gaming.

It's the first time I played the Dead Space game, and it was great, the suspense of the dark, creepy environment really intensified the gameplay experience, as well as having powerful weaponries. I'd probably buy a copy of Dead Space 2 and also the first Dead Space game this February.

You can check out the trailer to get the idea on how scary Dead Space 2 is:

X-Men First Class

I know a lot of you were disappointed with the 2009 movie X-Men Origins, but another X-Men is scheduled to be shown this year entitled X-Men: First Class which focus more on the origin of the mutant team.

X-Men: First Class is set during the 1960's where it will also focus on the relationship between Charles Xavier and Magneto along with the origin of their groups: the X-Men and the Brotherhood of Mutants.

There is still no trailers being released for the movie as of this moment, but there was an official image of the team's costume which resembles the original 1960's costume.

And here are the characters, from left to right:

• Erik Lehnsherr/Magneto (Michael Fassbender)
• Moira MacTaggert (Rose Byrne)
• Emma Frost (January Jones)
• Azazel (Jason Flemyng)
• Hank McCoy/Beast (Nicholas Hoult)
• Alex Summers/Havok (Lucas Till)
• Angel Salvadore (Zoe Kravitz)
• Raven Darkholme/Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence)
• Charles Xavier/Professor X (James McAvoy)

You would notice that only Beast is the only member in the movie that was the original member in the very first X-Men team (the 1960's comics if you were actually reading the X-Men comics).

I still have a mixed reaction for this movie, but let's hope that this would be better than the last movie X-Men movies.

X-Men: First Class will be directed by Matthew Vaughn and produced by Bryan Singer, the movie will be in theaters June 3, 2011

Aika Global Unleashes First Major Patch

Well it's been a long time since I post news and updates for MMO games, so it's time to dust off the MMO section :D

First off, a new major patch for Aika Global; which is published by Redbana Philippines, has arrived. It offers more dungeons, monsters, items and an increased level cap.

• The level cap in Aika has been increased from 60 to 70, giving players another round of race of the strongest.
• Players who reached level 61 will get 12 status points and 2 status points when you reached level 62.
• A new area, Termes, is now accessible for high level players.
• New monsters ranges from level 60 to 70 have begun lurking in the area, giving players more monsters to hunt.
• New equipments, weapons and armors for level 65 such as Honor gears are now available as well as level 64 Superior equipments.
• New skills for each class at levels 61, 65 and 69.

For more details on the update, you check out Aika Global's update page.

You can try the game by visiting their Official Website

Back for More Marvel Vs. Capcom 3 Updates

Just a few days left and Marvel Vs. Capcom 3 will be unleashed to your PlayStation 3 and Xbnox 360 consoles, but this doesn't stop Cacpcom to give us more updates on the character roster.
This time they've added the Sentinel (X-Men) for the Marvel side and Hsien-Ko (Darkstalkers) for the Capcom side.

Check out the character trailers to find out more on their trademark moves.

Sentinel Trailer



Hsien-Ko Trailer

D15guise

Disguise: Ateneo Cosplay Event

January 29, 2011 10am-4PM

Ateneo de Manila High School, High School Serendra

Entrance Fee: PhP70

details: Facebook Page

source: Alodia Gosienfiao's Facebook Page

Behold The Next Generation Portable

The rumors are finally over, Sony has now unveiled their successor to their portable console the PlayStation Portable. Codenamed "NGP" or Next Generation Portable was announced at a press conference in Tokyo last night, it was scheduled to make its debut at the end of 2011.

Now let's take a look on the NGP's key features*:

• Multi-touch 5-inch organic light emitting display (OLED) as the front display
• Multi-touch pad on the rear of the device
• Dual analog sticks
• Two cameras (front and rear)
• Software titles on small, dedicated flash memory-based cards
• Three motion sensors, gyroscope, accelerometer and electronic compass
• Wi-Fi and 3G network connectivity
• PlayStation Network access, including ““LiveArea™”, “Near” and “Activity” log features Trophy Support
• NGP will be able to play PSP titles, minis, PS one classics, video and comics from the PlayStation Store.

And here are the technical specs* of the NGP:

CPU	ARM® Cortex™-A9 core (4 core)
GPU	SGX543MP4+
External Dimensions	Approx. 182.0 x 18.6 x 83.5mm (width x height x depth) (tentative, excludes largest projection)
Screen (Touch screen)	5 inches (16:9), 960 x 544, Approx. 16 million colors, OLED Multi touch screen (capacitive type)
Rear touch pad	Multi touch pad (capacitive type)
Cameras	Front camera, Rear camera
Sound	Built-in stereo speakers Built-in microphone
Sensors	Six-axis motion sensing system (three-axis gyroscope, three-axis accelerometer), Three-axis electronic compass
Location	Built-in GPS Wi-Fi location service support
Keys / Switches	PS button Power button Directional buttons (Up/Down/Right/Left) Action buttons (Triangle, Circle, Cross, Square) Shoulder buttons (Right/Left) Right stick, Left stick START button, SELECT button Volume buttons (+/-)
Wireless communications	Mobile network connectivity (3G) IEEE 802.11b/g/n (n = 1×1) (Wi-Fi) (Infrastructure mode/Ad-hoc mode) Bluetooth® 2.1+EDR （A2DP/AVRCP/HSP）

And these are the game lineups* that were mentioned on the press conference (titles are not final):

• Killzone
• Uncharted
• WipEout
• LittleBigPlanet
• Call of Duty
• Resistance
• Little Deviants
• Hot Shots Golf
• Reality Fighters
• Gravity Daze
• Smart As
• Broken
• Hustle Kings

*note: These were taken from the Official PlayStation Blog

You can check the videos for the demo of some games as well as some footage from the press conference (videos from Game On and Gamespot):

From the looks of it, Sony has ditched the 3D feature that Nintendo was going to offer with their 3DS, although Sony was hailed as the "Champion of 3D" for the 3D features in their home theater products, so it's surprising that they never added this feature. And with the lack of a UMD drive, the NGP is going all out for digital downloads and also promises backward compatibility, where you can play PSP, PSN, PS2 and PS1 games. Another absent from the press con was the PSP Phone, there were leaked images and videos of the said device but Sony is still mum about it.

And finally the pricing, there are still no announcement on the final pricing of the NGP, some speculate that it will be priced at around $300-350, but there's a chance that they will adjust the price to compete with the Nintendo 3DS $250 price tag.

Hopefully more questions can be answered in the following weeks and probably on E3 this coming June. So let's wait and see.

sources:

Back2Gaming

Kotaku

Engadget

All New Thundercats

I just found this link from Facebook and it shows the very first image of the upcoming Thundercats cartoons, this was taken from a London Toy Fair.

From the looks of it, the new series is now very anime-inspired, a big change from the classic version. There was also a Trailer in the said convention that shows the promotional ad along with interviews from the cast, it also showed the character designs of the Kittens, Snarf and Mumm-Ra, which was said were almost identical to original design.

There were no announcements of a scheduled release for the cartoons as well as a toyline release.

For comparison, here's an image of the Thundercats from the Wildstorm comic version:

source: http://www.bleedingcool.com/2011/01/25/the-new-thundercats-cartoon-first-pic/

*edited: Just added another screenshot of the new Thundercats