Zynga's Empires & Allies Review

This morning I woke up to tend to my citizens need in Cityville when I came across the in-game ad Empires & Allies. The word 'Empire' always turns me on and a quick check showed a favourable rating on its Facebook page. So what the heck I clicked the "Allow Permission" button.

After producing a few games ending with '-Ville', Empires & Allies (E&A) is the latest addition to a fleet of Zynga's simple, repetitive but addictive games. Despite the lack of the traditional suffix, the game feels like an Empireville where traditional concepts remain, such as building stuff, harvesting them after a set amount of time and share your achievement on your Facebook wall and newsfeed for your buddies to see.

The island where you start your destiny as a glorious leader.

Zoom in a bit. And hey those coins look so familiar. Must... click... coins...

Your intimidation is so... [Clean Edit]

The game puts you in the storyline of how your little island town just got bombed by the appropriately named Dark Empire, and you as the leader are now on a warpath of vengeance to defeat all the Dark Empire's armies, island by island. A good plot and puts you in the mood to play but in-game storyline isn't new to Facebook apps. However you do experience something new: Battle.

Looks like a cute Pokemon battle on a Nintendo.

Traditionally most Facebook games use texts to display the battle progress on and make your mind does all the work imagining how your wicked sick 500 armed mafioso just whooped another mafia called Master Street Thug "LoveFrodo69" Level 235. But in E&A, you'll be served with an interactive new screen showing your army charging towards the enemy army. Endlessly. And you'll be able to click on whatever target you want them to shoot until one side loses everything.

Say what?

And here comes the con. If you don't like tending farms or had added applications with "-Ville" at the back and left it after a few days, this is not your cup of tea. Some similar concepts may turn off some players who will say "Oh no not another building, harvesting and wall spamming game". Unless you are willing to tend to your farm in Farmville then jump to Cityville then E&A the go back to Farmville when your energy had recharged. Speaking of energy, the battles in E&A use energy so sometimes your trigger happy finger may stop when the menu pops up telling you to ask your friends to give you Energy, or just buy them. It's a good game nonetheless, and uh... add me up!

Pros:

• Clean and beautiful graphic.
• Battles are entertaining.
• Wall posts only display to friends playing E&A.

Cons:

• Same gameplay concept from many Facebook farm/city building games.
• Energy usage in battle sucks out the fun.
• The "Immunity" feature stops you from attacking your friends for hours.

There's room for improvement Zynga! Play now by clicking here.

Awesome! But why does she reminds me of someone...

Oh.

10 Awkward Songs to be Played Near Graveyards

My work involves going home late occasionally. And passing by a few graveyards is a must, occasionally. Since it's usually close to midnight I just blast my car's sound system because it's less annoying with less people on the road. But there are a few songs I don't recommend playing loudly when passing by any graveyards:

1. Linkin Park - Waiting for the End
Oh the irony and morbidity. It's like you're too emo to live and can't wait to join the grave folks. "Waiting for the end to come, wishing I have strength to stand, this is not what I have planned, it's outta my control..."


2. Linkin Park - In the End
More irony. The lyrics "...in the end, it doesn't even matter" makes whatever you're doing now as pointless. Because you'll end up dead anyways. Depressing much.


3. The Lonely Island feat. Akon - I Just Had Sex
Seriously? Do you have to announce it to the dead? "I just had sexxx and it felt so good"


4. P.O.D. - Alive
We shouldn't be showing off. "I~~~ I feel so ALIVE! For the very first time! And I think I could fly!"


5. Black Eyed Peas - The Time
"I've~~~ had the time of life~~~ and I never felt this way before..." Awkward moment for the living and the dead.


6. Avril Lavigne - What the Hell
"All my life I've been good but now... ooohhhhh I'm thinking what the hell". Indeed.

7. Jay Sean - Down
"Baby are you down down down down down down?" Yes they are. 6 feet under.


8. Jay Sean - 2012
We don't have to remind the dead the overrated year of THE END. And we don't have to announce our party about it to them. "Gonna party like it's the end of the world!" What a hedonistic generation we have become.


9. Ganjaguru - Overload
The very bass from this music is sure to stir the slumber of those under the ground. Get ready to see shuffling dead people.



10. ???
[][][][]???[][][]???[][][]??[]??? Some scholars predicted that the end of the world falls on the fifth day of the week with the sun rising from the West. Click the "Expand" button (1st button from your right) on the YouTube player to watch full screen.

Dream Within A Dream

Best read while listening to this [OPTIONAL]


Dear blog.

I've ALMOST managed to control myself having a dream within a dream. This time I went four levels deep and I failed to wake up in time.

Not joking.

Thanks to the movie Inception some people might have tried this dream within a dream concept. In the movie we have a gang of dream infiltrators who "went deeper" into someone's dream by putting him or her to sleep to think it's just a dream if things get messed up. Then they infiltrate that dream and ask another subject to sleep again to access into another dream to be infiltrated. It sounds so complicated it's cool.

What happened?

It was very blue, could be early morning. I was standing amongst the ruins of an apartment complex with a few other armed people scouring the place. Something was really wrong here and I was on a mission to do something important. As I walked along the ledge I stopped and everyone started shouting or shooting. Then came plant/alien/tentacles hybrid creatures terrorizing the place. Phuck this I'm waking up. So much for playing Aliens vs Predator and watching Species.

I was at work and realized I was needed at another location at 3:30pm. I was dead late because it was already 3:30pm when I started driving my car. I was driving was ridiculously fast. By the time I was 80% near my destination, my tachymeter watch showed that it was already 3:50pm (it's a 3 km drive). I was going to be late. Then I got the kick. Today is June 2nd, still Gawai holiday. And why did it take me 20 minutes to drive 3 km?! This must be a dream. Then I woke up.

When I woke up I was still late. I looked at my watch and I was late for another task somewhere else. As I rushed (again) to the destination I looked at my watch. HANG ON. I don't own a tachymeter wristwatch! And my generic wristwatch was permanently dead last Monday. Today is June 2nd, Thursday. This must be a dream. So I woke up.

A sigh of relief. I woke up and I was still on my bed. Logic, compared to waking up and suddenly finding yourself with important tasks you didn't remember accepting. So I updated my Facebook status saying:

Had 4 levels of dream today.
1st Post apocalyptic aliens/plants/tentacles invasion.
2nd Late going to somewhere and woke up when I remembered it's Gawai holidays.
3rd Late again and woke up when I realized I don't own a tachymeter watch that told me I'm late.
4th

WAIT. I can't remember the 4th one. Why is my memory a blur? How did I end up typing with my laptop's keyboard when I was typing the status on my iPhone a few seconds ago? Oh look my dream is collapsing. Then I woke up.

This time for real. I woke up at 9:22AM. I was not late for anything because it was still the holidays. No alien tentacles thingy. No tachymeter watch. And my old watch is still dead. My Facebook too remained unchanged. This is the world as how I remembered when I left it.

How to Enter Multilevel Dreams?

It's rare but feasible. Work hard the whole day. Either you sweat it out or you squeeze your brains out. Drink warm water before you sleep. Non-alcohol or non-caffeinated. A mug would do. Then when you sleep, you'll face three possibilities:

1. You go into deep sleep. All you remember is just blackness.
2. You go into minimum 2 levels. What happens after that is purely your will to wake up.
3. I'm no neurologist but you might:

• Feel a 'tug' on you feet, forcing you to wake up. Your body's natural 'kick' alarm.
• You feel like falling, or dream about doing work. You'll wake up tired.
• Isn't that DiCaprio? And why is Ken Watanabe shuffling in my dream?
• You wake up late and miss your ride to work/campus.

On a side note you'll switch dreams when you are almost killed, when something decisive is about to happen, or when you realized it's a dream. Having "totems" or things to help you check if it's a dream is impossible. You'll only have logic to beat or get out of a dream. And time doesn't slow down in dreams. What felt like an hour of dreams, you'll wake up realizing it's been 2 hours. That's why "Mmmm just one more minute" ends up "Holy shrimp! It's 12pm!".

DISCLAIMER: I'm not responsible if you get killed and ends up in a limbo or unconstructed dreamspace.

More about dreams here.

Selamat Gawai Dayak 2011

Selamat Ari Gawai. Gayu guru gerai nyamai. Bulih duit bulih ringgit. Lantang senang. Kaya raya nguan menoa. Oooh haa!

Gawai is a harvest festival celebrated in Sarawak mid-year. The festival, along side Sabahan's harvest festival of Pesta Kaamatan, is celebrated by the Dayaks (from Iban to Bidayuhs). Like Raya and Chinese New Year we can see a massive movement of families going back to their villages and longhouses for reunion, ngabang (house visit) and other festivities. If you're making a ngabang make sure you try the pansoh manok (chicken in a bamboo) or if you can drink, go for the tuak (rice wine). But drink responsibly yo! Go easy on the langkau!

K4L Reformat

Kampua 4 Life just got a facelift. The old 2009 theme was... getting old. So here it is the theme which hopefully will be used for 2011-2012. More High-Definition and cleaner. Let this post be the dividing point between the new and old era. Itadakimasu!