Storm of Sand

Saturday, November 3, 2012
Secret War Journal[3 November 2012]
Today, I just attended a gathering with my army friends that I had made during my initial enlistment period.
 I think it had been close to 4 months since I last met some of them. I would say that apart from the length of their hair, they hardly changed. Hahas!

Even though not all of us could make it for the gathering, there was still a good number of us who managed to make it. (Cannot blame anyone since it is truly very difficult to get everyone to be present for such a big number of people. I feel your pain, organiser!)

St. Games
For this cohesion gathering, we came to a video game cafe named St. Games @ the Cathay.

To be frank with you guys, this is my first time coming to this Cafe. My initial thoughts when I first reached the place was that the cafe looked as though it did not have enough space. In the past, you would not had required a lot of space to set up a cafe that allows customers to play video games. You probably just need to get a decent monitor and a couch for them to sit comfortably in.

Now, times had changed. Consoles now possess motion gaming capabilities. Technologies such as Xbox Kinect and Wii means that players need more space for us to move about. Thus, we certainly need more room for console gaming.

In addition, players are no longer satisfied with normal screen size. If I were to pay to play console games outside (rather than playing at home), I would expect the screen size to be much larger to improve my gaming experience. Sadly, I found the screen sizes in the cafe quite average, nothing special. It is not small, I would say it is decent but definitely not a plus point for gamers to come play instead of playing at home with their friends.

Another point to note would be the high charges for the usage of the cafe which one of my friend pointed out that it was not really value-for-money for short periods of gameplay. I cannot disagree on that.

In its defense, I really like their free flow of a great variety of drinks. :)
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Just Dance 4
One of the new games I played there was Just Dance 4! It is a Xbox Kinect game which support 4 players.

Comparing to Dance Central, I would say it supports more players? (I don't know about Dance Central 3 because I had not played that yet, hahas!) That is a plus point for Just Dance 4 because it is a in better footing for party games where 4 of us could play together in a dancing battle.

However, I soon realised thata lot of space is really required for a great gaming experience. For such a game, the room we were in was actually considered relatively small. (Dang, Kinect just have to need so much space!) There were moments when not all of us could be identified in the game as there was insufficient space for all of us  to stand in. Not to mention the hilarious moments when some of us swooped places in the game as they detected erroneously that the original player 2 was player 3 and vice versa. This could be a technical limitation of the Kinect though, not the game I believe.

Just Dance 4 lost in terms of its graphics. It is just too 2D (I believe it was the intention but sometimes I cannot stand it, hahas!) Dance Central's graphics are much pleasing to the eye, I would dare say.

"Men do not quit playing because they grow old; they grow old because they quit playing." - Oliver Wendell Holmes


After having fun playing in St. Games, the original plan to have dinner with them. However, I just found out that my grandmother had been admitted to a hospital. As a result, I left early to visit my grandmother.

As far as I know, she is still there but she is doing fine.

"Age is not a particularly interesting subject. Anyone can get old. All you have to do is live long enough." - Don Marquis