tempting to say i see in all i see

Remembrance Day – also known as Poppy Day, Armistice Day (the event it commemorates) or Veterans Day – is a day to commemorate the sacrifices of members of the armed forces and of civilians in times of war, specifically since the First World War. It is observed on 11 November to recall the end of World War I on that date in 1918. (Major hostilities of World War I were formally ended at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918 with the German signing of the Armistice.)

The day was specifically dedicated by King George V, on 7 November 1919, to the observance of members of the armed forces who were killed during war; this was possibly done upon the suggestion of Edward George Honey to Wellesley Tudor Pole, who established two ceremonial periods of remembrance based on events in 1917.

******

They went with songs to the battle, they were young.

Straight of limb, true of eyes, steady and aglow.

They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted,

They fell with their faces to the foe.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:

Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.

At the going down of the sun and in the morning,

We will remember them.

Lest we forget …

On the last Friday of August, someone called and left me a message to ring him back while I was in a meeting. I took a look at the message the receptionist left for me and was puzzled.

It was a number from Sydney. My usual Sydney contacts were fund managers. I rarely receive a call from them and more often than not it will be me that does the calling. Curious, I rang the number back but no one picked up. So I left a message for them to call me back.

I got back to work and saw the message still pinned to my “to do” board and got curious again. I did what any inquisitive mind of this day and age to find answers – I googled it.

The search results that came back was an executive search firm. Heart thumping, my interest was piqued even more. I began to wonder what could they possibly look for in me, someone with barely a year’s experience under my belt. Then, another thought came into my mind. How the heck did they find me?!

I took me a better part of the morning to figure out while doing some mundane monotonous robotic work. I went to my LinkedIn profile to confirm my suspicion. There it was on the right hand side of the screen a notification stating that my profile was viewed a few times in the last week or so. I hurriedly clicked and saw a few names from the same firm! I thought to myself then, this thing actually works. Tiff was right! (thanks tiffy~)

I decided to give them another ring to find out what was in store for me. The person on the line told me that my details was passed to them by someone in the industry. He then asked me if I’m willing to move or whether I’m happy to stay on in my current company.

I replied him saying that I would be interested in moving on should the right opportunity come by and I asked him whther it was a Sydney based job as his form is based in Sydney. I was relief to hear that it would be a Melbourne based job as the cost and trouble of relocating is high indeed. We discussed abit on what I was looking for and my skill sets for awhile and he said he would forward me a few PDs for me to view.

When I finally received the PDs I was shocked when The Company was revealed to me. I never thought it would be a huge company as the impression given to me by him was of a mid tier business looking to grow. I contacted him again and he managed to get me into an assessment center for The Company the very next day.

The assessment center was very intense. A numerical test and verbal test followed by a group task and presentation has drained me completely. By the time I started on my written test my head was already spinning around in circles. After the written test I had an I interview with one of the many managers that turned up. What an intense way to end a Friday.

I kept self analysing my performance during the assessment centre for the whole weekend and decided even if I did not get the job it would be a very good experience for me anyway.

The week went out without any news and I soon forgot about it as I was swamped with work. The guy from The Firm gave me a call towards the end of the week telling me that The Company was keen to bring me on board and asked for references.

It took me a good long while to get my references in order and another few more days for them to get back to me telling me that everything is in order save to decide which business unit to place me in. Then we had to wait another few more days for the head office to make the decision to unfreeze the headcount. The waiting I had to endure over the past month or so almost drove me to insanity. I’ve had many sleepless nights too going through the many various scenarios on the reasons for the delays.

Then, without warning the long awaited phone call came. Pure joy. I was given a verbal offer of the job the very next morning after the meeting regarding staff headcount. However, the waiting game is still very well and alive. The marathon was on its last lap. Waited I must and so I did. So close yet so far.

I went through a very long weekend waiting in anticipation for the documents to be prepared. I refused to have a premature celebration until I’ve officially signed the documents for fear of jinxing it. I walked into the foyer this afternoon and took the lift up to reception and signed the document.

Two weeks from now I would be working in Mercer and taking on more responsibilities. The amount of challenge I would face in my new job is staggering. Sometimes I wonder whether I’m capable enough to take on this new voyage I’m about to undertake. So far I’ve been able to overcome all challenges life has thrown at me and grew wiser from it. Challenges and obstacles in life serves to teach us lessons, to test us, to push our potential to its limits. So I say bring it on! After all, life wouldn’t be exciting without challenges isn’t it?

Mercer Melbourne - Yes you can actually fly through the square.

What a busy three weeks it had been. Cleaning, tidying and moving. It’s no joke to be moving heavy pieces of furniture down four flights of stairs. It’s also not funny to be carrying heavy boxes down the stairs into the car and climb back up for even more boxes!

It’s intriguing the amount of stuff and thingamajigs a person can collect over a short period of time. The amount of sentiment a person can have on their possessions also serves to further add to the pile of bits and pieces one calls their own. I’m sure you can all agree with me that it is indeed really hard to throw away personal belongings. You’ve to be pretty ruthless to do so.

We often tell ourselves that we might need that certain something in the future and continue to keep them as you might never know when it could come in handy. Then again that certain event that you’ve been keeping the item for might never happen and all you’ve done is waste more precious storage space. On the other hand, how many times have we chucked something out only to realize a few months or years down the road, we find ourselves saying “I knew I shouldn’t have gotten rid of that“.

It is a very human thing to do to collect stuff. Take a look at history. People have been collecting things since the dawn of time. Many artifacts we see today in museums are a direct result of that. Take a moment and think about your own personal collections. Stamps, coins, jewelry, games, alcohol bottles, models… Sometimes people even collect things that are normally thrown away!

While some people collect items that are rare and priceless to display their wealth, most of our collections consists of oddities that has little or no value to anyone else besides the sentimental value we place on it. I would think that for most people, they collect items of personal historical and sentimental value as a link to the past and memories, to remind themselves of the past.

We often look back to the past with the lens of nostalgia, forgetting most of the bad things and only remembering to good bits. While working in a dialysis ward, I’ve met many war veterans telling me their war stories with fond memories and often neglecting the atrocities of war. They collect war memorabilia such as medals and photos to remind them of the romantic aspects of the past.

Then again, many collect simply because they have an interest in it. No more no less. I know a patient who is a bit “Train mad” as his wife calls him. He loves everything about trains. He loves the history, the ride and sound of the train chugging past. He has a huge collection of train models in his house. I have another colleague who is a Star Wars fanatic. He collects all things Star Wars. Heck, he even built his own storm trooper armor!

Sense of completion is another thing that drives people to collect. I read a lot of books. Usually, I would keep buying the same books (and read them of course) in the saga and the entire franchise just to complete the series. I used to play Magic: The Gathering when I was younger. That bloody game nearly drove me to financial ruin in the quest to complete the collection!

And so I stand in my garage looking at the towers of boxes in the corner amazed at the amount of stuff I’ve collected in less than a decade I’ve been in Melbourne and yet at the same time horrified at the insurmountable challenge of reorganizing everything again.

Le sigh~~

/Start Emo Mode

When I first migrated to Melbourne over six years ago, I came not knowing anyone. The only person I know of is one that I just met over a dinner between two families, mine and my dad’s good friend’s.

Throughout Year 12, I met many great people of various backgrounds and ideology and form strong bonds with a few. But then that all came to an end when our VCE results were out and we were flung all over Australia, and some back to their home countries because they couldn’t get into the university they wanted to.

So I was back to square one in University. I met Chris during my first year in a tutorial. He in turn introduce me to Denise and in turn to the other members of our usual group of friends that we call FNL. Through the years it grew and last year it started fragmenting.

Chris went back to be with his fiancee (my cousin, what a strange twist of fate). Aliaa return to satisfy government bond among other things leaving poor Amir behind. Now, XW is going back for an interview with Prudential as they weren’t many job opportunities here in Melbourne at the moment. While she may not have made her mind regarding to work back there or here in Melbourne, we’re dreading the former.

Though we’ve known each other for almost five years now, I feel that it isn’t enough. I really regret not being able to talk to her more often, to get to know her more. It is said that man’s feelings are always purest and most glowing in the hour of meeting and of farewell. It is at the time of parting that we realise what we are about to lose. Why does it take a minute to say hello and forever to say goodbye?

It fills me with a heavy heart having to see our lovely little group that has grown over the years becoming smaller again. Of course with me being selfish, I really hope that she would come back here to work and screw the other job.

I’ve always had the dream that after a few years down the road, when we’re all married with a good job and our own kids, we would still meet every Friday night for dinner and social, just like one big family.

Unselfishly, I do hope that she finds the path that would be the best for her. A poem that I like from JRR Tolkien comes to mind:

The Road goes ever on and on

Down from the door where it began.

Now far ahead the Road has gone,

And I must follow, if I can,

Pursuing it with eager feet,

Until it joins some larger way

Where many paths and errands meet.

And whither then? I cannot say.

I wish you all the best XW!

/end Emo Mode

A long long time ago in a galaxy not far away, I used to own an Apple iPod. Not the fancy coloured touch screen ones those young ‘uns owns these days, but the ye olde black and white fat thick iPod which the iPod classic is modelled after. Back then not every Tom, Dick, Jane Doe and Grandmas know what an iPod is let alone own one. It felt unique and special to have one.

Sadly, it met it’s demise right after the one year warranty ended and I’ve never touched one since. Fast forward to today, I’ve started working and have the ability to purchase reasonably quality electronics. I’ve bought a dedicated sound card and 5.1 surround system for my PC and

I must say that quality sound does really brings new life and dimension to the games. I can hear every twig break and rustling leaves and I traverse Middle Earth. I can hear the pipes creak and subtle scurrying of creatures in the distant while exploring the creepy USG Ishimura in Deadspace.

Watching high definition 1080p Bluray movies with DTS 5.1 surround sound is another joy. Recently, my Nokia N95 8GB was dying. I caved in and gave Apple a second chance by replacing it with an iPhone 3GS 32gb. Its great to be rid of the sluggish performance that the N95 has been giving me for the past 2 years and I get and iPod to boot.

I used to use my N95 as a portable music player as well, although the interface wasn’t as good as the iPod. What made me search for an alternative was during an 8 hour flight, I realised I can’t use my N95 to listen to music! Thankfully newer phones have included a “Flight Mode” for us to use our smart-phones various other multimedia capabilities while traveling in the air.

Recently, I’ve ripped by The Fray CD into iTunes and by extension my iPhone, encoded in Apple’s Lossless format. Putting on my new Ultimate Ears SuperFi 5vi noise-isolating earphones with voice capability, I immediately noticed the difference in quality when listening to the lossless and lossy formats when played back to back.

Lossless data compression is a class of data compression algorithms that allows the exact original data to be reconstructed from the compressed data. The term lossless is in contrast to lossy data compression, which only allows an approximation of the original data to be reconstructed, in exchange for better compression rates.

Apple Lossless (ALAC) is an audio codec developed by Apple for lossless data compression of digital music. Apple Lossless data is stored within an MP4 container with the filename extension .m4a. It is not a variant of AAC, but uses linear prediction similar to other lossless codecs such as FLAC and Shorten. The only reason I’m using ALAC is because its the only lossless format that can be played on the iPod/iPhone as far as I know.

The songs that I used to rip are in 128kbps mp3s with some noticeable static/noise and occasionaly ‘poppings’. It annoyed me to no end for some reason. I think I might embark on a big project soon to convert my 6000+ songs library into lossless format. But first I need to track down those damn CDs.

Assignment: Competent
Exam: Competent

One subject down, 3 more subjects and a skill assessment to go. Boss is also pressuring me to complete all assessment and obtaine RG146 by June. I suppose the faster I get it over and done with, the more options will be open to me sooner.

Bring it on I say! Rawr!

Happiness is just outside my window
Would it crash blowing 80-miles an hour?
Or is happiness a little more like knocking
On your door, and you just let it in?

Happiness feels a lot like sorrow
Let it be, you can’t make it come or go
But you are gone- not for good but for now
Gone for now feels a lot like gone for good

Happiness is a firecracker sitting on my headboard
Happiness was never mine to hold
Careful child, light the fuse and get away
Cause happiness throws a shower of sparks

Happiness damn near destroys you
Breaks your faith to pieces on the floor
So you tell yourself, that’s probably enough for now
Happiness has a violent roar

Happiness is like the old man told me
Look for it, but you’ll never find it all
But let it go, live your life and leave it
Then one day, wake up and she’ll be home
Home, home, home

- Happiness, The Fray

Someone once told me:

Happiness is based on circumstances, contentment is eternal. Happiness is unpredictable. Chase after it and it destroys you as you will be chasing after things that will only be temporarily filling the emptiness inside you. You aren’t chasing eternal joy. You’re chasing something that will forever change as it will never satisfy you long enough.

In this song, it says that “Happiness feels a lot like sorrow. Let it be, you can’t make it come or go“. Sorrow comes without warning. No one goes looking for it and yet it comes. It is a very sad thing to experience but nevertheless it still comes unbidden.

Happiness works like this to a certain extent. Try and try as you may, it is insanely hard to find true happiness. It comes when it comes, not when you’re actively searching for it. Think for a moment. When one is sad and depress, that person would be more likely to search frantically for a way to get out of it. Happiness that is found in this way is just cheap thrills and only lasts temporarily.

True happiness is like falling in love, or being with someone you truly love or an unexpected good news. It is because that we aren’t actively searching for it, it comes to you. We should just live life to the fullest and not worry about whether we can find happiness for it is random. It will come to you when you least expect it.

It has been a long while since I last posted here. That goes to show how little time I have for some retrospective and reflection.

I’m a very passionate gamer. If I were to be given a choice between reading a book (or watching TV series) and playing a game, I would most probably pick gaming most of the time as I see the others as wasting time. Don’t get me wrong, I do love reading books, a lot. I have a bookshelf full of books that I’ve collected over the years. Almost all of them are of the fantasy genre and the others, a few fictions from the likes of Ann Rice and Tom Clancy.

Recently however, I started reflecting back on my relatively short life on this planet. Just yesterday at JB Hifi (an Australian retail chain selling games, movies, musics and electronics) I saw a few kids begging their parents to buy them games. I overheard a few teenagers contemplating which DVD to buy and calculating how many hours they’ve to work to get it. A few girls standing in front of the Nintendo DS display eyeing it with desire.

It wasn’t long ago that I was in their shoes, thinking the same things, having to rely on meagre allowance from parents or part time work pay to afford these goods. I remembered having to save for a year plus to buy a PlayStation 3, eight months each for a PlayStation Portable and a Nintendo DS. Further back into Year 12, I saved a year for an Apple iPod (the monochrome non-colour old school version which sadly lasted a year before it died).

I’ve been working for almost a year now. My income levels have vastly increased when compared to my high school and university years. I can easily afford these with my monthly salary although that would mean I have to forgo saving my disposable income for investments. I really do like the feeling of being able to afford things that I used to covet and still do.

Ever since my little brother was born, I stopped getting a lot of things from my parents. The Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES) was the first and last console I’ve ever gotten from my parents. The PlayStation and PlayStation 2 was for my brother (although I tend to hog it most of the time =p).

I had to score excellent results before I was given my very first hand phone, the Nokia 8310 whilst my brother got his just because he asked for it. Asking or begging may work for my brother but it never works for me. I never beg. It is disgraceful. It was then I learned the habit of saving and buying things for myself. Parents won’t get me that Gundam Model then fine, I save and bought it myself. Wont upgrade my computer for me? Fine, I saved and upgraded it myself.

After moving to Australia and getting used to the life here, I immediately sought work. Ever since then, I’ve been earning extra income to fuel my purchasing impulses and needs. While my friends may complain that they do not have enough cash to buy anything, I can because I worked for it. I don’t sit on my lazy arse hoping that it will drop from the sky. They always say I have everything I wanted and most of the time yes that is because I worked for it.

For the past year that I was looking for a house to purchase, I felt like a kid again. Many of the houses that I like were out of reach. Whats left were very old two bedroom houses or apartments which are depressing to live in. The ones that I’ve seen and really liked were all at least $800,000 and above.

Recently I saw a $1.7 million house which has every thing I wanted. Smart home living style, split level housing design with chic designer decor, home theater room, high tech electronics, glass staircase railings… Le Sigh. The people that came for the auction (houses are sold mostly via auctions here in Australia) came in Porsche, Ferrari, Mercedes and BMWs. Mind you, not all of them are old.

I felt like crap. Its just like raiding. For every hair tearing boss you down, another pubic hair ripping boss will come along and wtfbbqpwnzor you. Just as in real life, for every social class you climbed, someone will always outgun you.

Benjamin Franklin once said, “Ambition has its disappointments to sour us, but never the good fortune to satisfy us. Its appetite grows keener by indulgence and all we can gratify it with at present serves but
the more to inflame its insatiable desires.”

It is a never ending climb and I think I may be beginning to fall into the trap of having never enough. I fear this will be my downfall someday. Such is the human rat race.

In my desire to increase my income levels, I’ve started a course on Financial Planning to get my CFP designation. It is a very interesting course to take as I get to learn the various way to fine tune my own investment strategy and how to consolidate it. It is quite hard however and between the time spent doing my assignments and studying, there is hardly any free time left for my other endeavor.

My other free time is now being dominated by Lord of the Rings Online. Having read the Lord of the Rings book many times ever since I was twelve, I am a big fan of Tolkien’s work. Being able to live and breathe (albeit virtually) in Middle-earth is one of the greatest fan service I can ever get.

Turbine also did a fantastic job of bringing Middle-earth to life with an incredible amount of polish. Aside from some lore-bending and even some lore-breaking (Rune Keeper aka Sith Lord I’m looking at you) stuff, it is still very much Middle-earth.

I’ve just finished reading the Hobbit and am now reading the Silmarillion and Children of Hurin and I realised how much Turbine dug into Tolkien’s work to bring Lord of the Rings close to the lore. The burglar class is heavily inspired by Bilbo Baggins in The Hobbit (heck, Bilbo was included into Thorin’s Company because they needed a Burglar!).

The amount of back story and history Tolkien included in his work is staggering. Reading and playing the Lord of the Rings Online actually inspired me to resume writing again. I used to write a lot in the past and some of it can be found on this blog. I’ve started resume writing by writing a story from one of my character’s point of view, just to get some practice.

I realised that I lack the skills to describe locations and encounters effectively. I’ve even contemplated doing a short course in fiction writing and am still contemplating in fact. I love writing. I used to write pages of essays during English classes and while the teachers said it was good, they asked me to try and write shorter ones.

When I write, I tend to go on and on and on. But when I re-read what I wrote, it doesn’t flow as well as it is in my head. It wasn’t as engaging as I’d imagine it. I really want to be able to write well, and perhaps I may try that short course after all.

I’ve also been listening to Natasha St-Pier, a Canadian born singer who sings in French. It rekindled my desire to pick up French again and I’ve been trying to relearn it from my notes. I really regretted not taking up French earlier in my degree as an elective. I shouldn’t have tried to double major and instead pick on something that I really enjoy, like arts and languages.

Recently, Monster Hunter Freedom Unite has been released on the PlayStation Portable. I’ve played Monster Hunter Freedom and Monster Hunter Freedom 2 in the past and Unite is the summation of all the best parts of the first to Monster Hunters (I’m excluding all the Japanese release here).

My brother used to hate Monster Hunter because he can never get pass the first wyvern, the Yian Kut-ku (many many other people stopped playing too because of that due to the very steep learning curve). Recently, he gave it another go and managed to kill it. He was addicted for the first time.

My other friend, Nicky also gave it another go and after playing with me (he used to solo and didn’t like it), he was hooked as well. I guess having someone to teach the game will make the learning curve less steep. That and Monster Hunter is made for multiplayer! Which brings me to the clever little app, Ad-hoc Party on the PlayStation 3.

Ad-hoc Party is an upcoming PlayStation Network free game service for the PlayStation Portable handheld console which uses a LAN-connected PlayStation 3. The purpose of this software is to extend the PlayStation Portable’s adhoc game function using the PlayStation Network through the PlayStation 3’s built-in wi-fi.

The PSP to PSP ad hoc connection is replaced by a PSP to PS3 ad hoc connection to allow online gaming on a global scale through the PlayStation Network enabled PlayStation 3. It allows advanced online multiplayer functions on the PlayStation Portable such as voice chat and text chat. It is still currently in beta in Japan but we can still use it to play online and it works fantastically.

I’ve another two friends playing Monster Hunter and both of them have PlayStation 3 as well. What a coincidence. Soon we will be having more frequent gaming sessions that was never before possible. The wonders of technology.

Speaking of technology, I’m currently contemplating getting a new phone. My current phone is the Nokia N95 8GB and it is slow. SMS takes about 7-12s to open, battery life is dying, sluggish web browser and overall slow performance with the applications.

At the moment, I’m having a dilemma between Nokia N97, HTC Touch Pro 2 and the iPhone 3GS 32 GB. Both the N97 and Touch Pro 2 have a QWERTY keyboard whilst the iPhone does not. N97’s browser is still sluggish. iPhone’s browser does not support flash. Touch Pro 2 is running on windows mobile despite the sleek Touch Flo 3D interface.

Decisions decisions. That is enough rant for today. Having the Monday Blues now. Hate working on a Monday. Hate working on any day in fact. If not for the money, I wouldn’t be working. But hey, who would work if not for the money eh?

Today is the third day my parents are here. First two days was alright. They pretty much left me alone after our first conversation where I sort of told them off not to blame me for my siblings’ shortcomings.

They wanted to use my car today to go some around town and beyond to look at properties. Despite the annoyance and nagging factor, they’re still my parents. Being a good son (and to appease them so that they will leave me alone over the next few weeks), I agreed.

So I drove my aunt’s old car to work. My God what a world of difference. The steering is stiff, especially of the left side. There was no acceleration, brakes are abit dodgy, air-conditioner is dead, windshields are caked in dust, tiny mirrors (covered with dust) … It is really a hazard driving this old junk.

I arrived at work sweating. How i miss air-conditioning. I’m having a bit of a withdrawal symptoms. My poor baby. Driven around by strangers. Damn it.

On Tuesday the Lord of the Rings Online (LOTRO) server was down for the launch of Mines of Moria Volume 2: Book 7 – Leaves of Lorien content patch.

Whenever our beloved MMO’s server is down for maintenance or patch, we have the penchant to call it Real Life Day^TM. It is a day where we have no choice but to stay away from our virtual lives and do that something we’ve always been wanting to do.

Back when I was in uni, Real Life Day^TM (technically night) was used to catchup on my uni work, i.e. tutorial prep work, readings and general study. As you all know, being a student gives us the divine right to procrastinate and do every thing other than anything relating to our studies. For me, it was playing another game, watching TV/Anime/Movie and grinding GF reputation.

This time, when the LOTRO server was down for the new content patch, I decided to give my PS3 some loving (after grinding GF rep). I’ve managed to finish Tom Clancy’s HAWX (IMHO a very good game for a genre that is as rare as a dodo despite its flaws) and played a few multiplayer deathmatches.

With my desire for being a top gun satisfied, I searched for another game. Scanning through my library of PS3 games (some still factory sealed…need…more…time…), The Eye of Judgment caught my eye. Slotting the disc into the Big Black Monolith that is the PS3, i felt a shot of crack up my arm. The addiction is back.

Back when I was 8, my cousin introduced to me a little card game called Magic the Gathering. Magic the Gathering is the first example of the modern collectible card game genre and still thrives today, with an estimated six million players in over seventy countries. It can be played by two or more players each using a deck of printed cards. Each game represents a battle between powerful wizards, known as “planeswalkers”, who use the magical spells, items, and fantastic creatures depicted on individual Magic cards to defeat their opponents.

He taught me the game. I played. I liked it. Played somemore. I loved it. Played even more that day. I was hooked. Broke my piggy bank and bought some cards of him and so I have Arabian Nights, Antiquities and Legends expansion sets to construct my deck with.

And so began many many years of being addicted to the crack that is Magic the Gathering. Constantly starving myself during recess to save money for more cards, and it didn’t help much when I’ve got a girl friend as well. In 2002 at the age of 18 I lost most of my collection through theft at school and is left with only a handful of cards. It was then I’ve finally quit Magic the Gathering due to unfathomable grief.

And why the history lessons? Well, the Eye of Judgment is a joint venture between Sony (Designer and Publisher) and Wizards of the Coast (Printing, shipping and distribution; although according to my supplier, WotC recently lost the rights to print EoJ cards and hence Set 3 is very limited in supply. There are many conspiracy theories about WotC being afraid of the success of EoJ so they’re sabotaging it to keep it from becoming as popular as their precious Magic). Wizards of the Coast is the creator of the Magic the Gathering drug that has guzzled down my savings when I was young, and know I’m hooked again with the Eye of Judgment!

The Eye of Judgment is a turn-based card battle video game for the PlayStation 3 platform, which utilizes the PlayStation Eye camera peripheral. Through use of an included “9 Fields” table mat featuring 3×3 rectangular grid, and special trading cards encoded with CyberCode matrix code; players conquer a playfield by employing various creatures and spells, taking turns playing cards of their choice strategically on the mat, and performing actions through gestures that are captured through the PlayStation Eye camera. The first player to occupy five spaces (more than half the field) wins the match.

The main attraction of the game is its augmented reality feature. You summon creatures my placing the creature on the playfield. The camera then reads the card and translate it into a full 3D display on your TV screen. You can see your creatures duke it out and your spells causing havoc in real time on your TV screen. It is still a long way off before holographic arenas and cards that would burst to life as soon as they touched the play space is possible but hey, its a start.

You can play Eye of Judgment with the computer (5 different difficulties), you can duel another person on the same board (with each having their own physical deck of 30 cards), or you can jump online (Yay! no more camping the school canteen for opponents!).

When playing online, you must scan every card you want to use beforehand with the Eye. Multiple copies of the same card must be scanned at once, so it registers all of them (i.e. no scanning of one Uber Card of Doom^TM 3 times). Once your deck is registered, the computer (by computer I mean the PS3, but I will continue using the word ‘computer’ nevertheless) will randomly draw your cards for you during online play (i.e. you can’t secretly draw that I Win^TM card from your deck to tip the battle in your favor). The computer keeps track of every card in your deck and hand, ensuring that duels are played fairly.

The computer keeps track of every statistic, including each creature’s independent health, attack strength and bonuses as well as your mana reserves. Being able to relegate control the many mechanics allows the players to focus on strategy and the enjoyment of the game which is a very big plus.

And so, I sit here in the office, constantly thinking of deck strategies and impatiently waiting to get somemore boosters instead of doing something productive, i.e. the stuff I’m being paid a monthly wages to do >.>

_{Note: This is an identical post to the one on Mabushii.}