I have never been this enamored with product packaging since the MacBook, but people do tell me that Amazon really does amazing things with their Kindle hardware line. I’ve never owned one before, till now. This was given to me as a token for speaking in the recent PRSP Congress (everyone agrees that this 2012 PR Congress was something else!). Before the Kindle, I had a Sony eReader and I have to admit although these two ebook readers do the same thing, there’s something about the Kindle that just makes books more appealing to read. No more used textbooks that pile up in the library.
XPLAY.PH sells NBA2K13 at the following prices:
PS3 PHP 2,595
XBOX 360 PHP 2,495
PC PHP 1,995
PSP PHP 1,895
Just a friendly PSA from the good guys of NBA 2K13 — with the game being released this week in the Philippines for all platforms, it needs to be noted that if you’re going to be playing this on the PC, XBOX 360 or Playstation 3, you absolutely should get your copy from a local vendor as the in-game items are region-locked.
I’m not a huge sports gamer on the console and PC (my brother is) but I can understand the huge frustration when you bring home a disk from another region expecting to be able to access the online features and DLC’s — and you can’t because they’re blocked from South East Asia.
So, do yourself a favor and buy original from a local vendor. If you’re planning on ordering this from Steam (like its predecessors), it isn’t available.
On another note, if you’re willing to spend a bit more for freebies, check out the Dynasty Edition which gives you the following additional items:
Full sized basketball from Spalding and Art of Basketball
2K Sports Ink’d Earbuds from Skullcandy
2K13 DLC: All-Star add-on content package sponsored by Sprite
2K13 controller skin from Sklnlt for XBOX 360 or PS3
When Denise contacted us and asked if we wanted to review a bag, we obviously had to ask what made this particular bag special. Like its competitor Pacsafe, these bags from Travelon are equipped with some anti-theft countermeasures that Rico and I decided to test.
With all this talk about high end smartphones, Nokia is plowing the entry-level mass market with its Internet-enabled affordable feature phones. Today, Nokia seems to be focusing on this market by churning out touch-screen feature phones that go below the PHP 4,100.00 (USD $99.00) mark. The Nokia Asha 309 is evidence to this.
The Nokia Asha 309 is primarily a WiFi phone (for mobile data it comes with 2G browsing only which in this day and age is obsolete) that comes with 32GB microSD card support. It comes with smartphone-like features such as the 3.0″ touch screen, multiple home screens similar to Android and yes — RADIO. It comes with a Twitter and Facebook client as well as a dedicated YouTube client. This is for the netizen who wants the bare essentials on a feature phone.
On another note, it has to be said that Nokia also updated their Nokia Xpress Browser which is now a lot faster and allegedly at par with the smartphone browsing experience. Also, Nokia seems to have a long term partnership with EA as their phones are stocked with mobile games. In this case, 40 of them.
Hey it’s me Jayvee. I’m still here. It’s been more than a week since my last update. Blame it on the handful of new game launches the past few days. If you’re on the PC and looking for new titles to play, here’s a compilation of some of the free (and not so free) games that are worth dipping your mouse and keyboard into. I actually won’t include Borderlands 2, Guild Wars 2 and the new WoW expansion as these are already no-brainer titles that you must pick up if you enjoy the genre — Borderlands 2 is an RPG-action first person shooter that is already claiming the title for biggest game sold this 2012. It outsold its precursor. You can pick up a copy in Datablitz. Guild Wars 2 is of similar interest, being a skill-oriented MMO that appeals to gamers who have absolutely no time to play World of Warcraft. Two good things about it — no monthly fees and the game doesn’t penalize you for not playing often. Then of course there’s Mists of Pandaria which comes out today!
See, that whole paragraph was dedicated to games I haven’t recommended. Let’s do this!
Planetside 2
Screenshot above. If you’re into stuff like Battlefield 2, meet the original title that started massive scale combat. Planetside 2’s title is such because it really makes you feel like you’re in a huge planet where several mini-battles are happening in different areas of the map. Although still in beta, you can try requesting for an invite. The game will be free to play online when it launches.
Mechwarrior Online
It’s been a long time waiting, but you can now check out Mechwarrior Online in its beta form. If you were a fan of the original Mechwarrior series of games from way way back, the franchise continues in a free-to-play online skirmish. You can reserve your pilot name and get into the beta here.
FTL
FTL is finally out of invite-only and for USD $9.99 on Steam you can get what I dub as the “darling indie game of the year.” If you like the grit space opera feel of Joss Whedon’s Firefly and absolutely love Star Trek, FTL brings the desire to command your own rickety starship to life. To me, FTL is the Left 4 Dead of the space simulator genre, where you always barely make it alive to the next jump point. Rerouting power, killing fires, dealing with boarding parties … all in a day’s work for an alliance space captain. And yes, you will die. A lot.
Torchlight II
It’s finally out — if you enjoyed Diablo III but after a while suffered from attrition of repetitive grinding, well guess what? Torchlight II absolutely delivers a better experience in bringing in end-game content even just early on. Rares and uniques at level 3? Most definitely! I classify Torchlight II as somewhat similar to Guild Wars II in the sense that the game doesn’t make you work too hard to feel like you’re doing end-game content as the item drops are insane and the spells all look rather powerful even during the early levels of play. There is a bit of a hardcore element to it since Runic decided to not allow you to completely re-roll your skills (you can only re-roll the last 3 skill points you bought). Runic also opened the game up to support 3rd party modding tools so expect the shelf life of Torchlight II to go on for a couple of years. Also, 6 player multiplayer and LAN support. Yes folks, this game supports offline LAN play, just like the good ‘ol days. It’s USD $19.99 on Steam.
Black Mesa
The original Half Life re-invented for the modern day computer. This game is an absolute must acquire. It’s fan made, endorsed by Valve and enhances on the original Half Life experience from the 90’s. Best of all, it’s free.
Half Life was an important landmark in the gaming industry because it took first person story-telling to a new level with scripted events, making your typical shooter more than just about blowing things up. The new and re-imagined Half Life runs on the Source engine which Valve uses for its games such as Left 4 Dead and Counterstrike.
