Selwyn Uy Blog

Street Fighter 4 for the iPhone, iPod touch, and the iPad just came out last March 10, 2010. In just a few days, it has already hit the top 10 best selling apps. While it has yet to beat Plants VS Zombies, it does indeed make a reputation for itself. The game itself is not for everyone but anybody who likes fighting games or has been reminiscing their arcade days should try this out.

Characters

The iPhone version of the game is a simplified version from the PS3 one. It just has 8 characters and 7 stages. The characters are:

1. Ryu
2. Ken
3. Guile
4. Blanka
5. Dhalsim
6. Chun-li
7. M. Bison
8. Abel

Sadly, I am missing my bosses from Street Fighter 2 like Balrog, Vega, and Sagat. The game simply jumps to M. Bison for the final boss.

The game features 4 levels of difficulty and several game modes like tournament, versus play over bluetooth, free sparring, and training. It comes with all the moves, special attacks and combos.

Graphics

The graphics of the game is amazing. It is one of the most beautiful designs I have seen on the iPhone. Here are some samples:

Sounds

The music and sounds are also wonderful. While the iPhone/iPoud Touch speakers can be a bit weak, it sounds better if you play it through earphones or when hooked up to external speakers.

Gameplay and Performance

This was where I was really hesitant. How can a game made for arcade controls work on a touch screen properly? How could a button smasher game work on a device with no buttons? It turns out that it works just fine. The design had simplified the controls to the simulated joystick and 4 on-screen buttons. There is one button for punch, another for kick, one for special attacks, and one for focus attacks. You can also customize the controls on where you want them placed on the screen as well as their opacity.

It was simplified but it works. The response is very fast and the movement is very fluid. I was able to play it on a 2nd gen iPod touch and it works just fine. The only dismay is the drain on the battery. I guess something has to give with all the performance, graphics, and sound.

Here is a short video from slide toPlay to demostrate:

Price

This is also where I had some gripe. At $10 on the appstore, it is a bit pricey. It is the most expensive game I have bought on the appstore to date but I did not regret it. I had fun playing it and I guess its worth it just for the nostalgia for me. The game performing well and giving hours of fun is just extra gravy. It is really a rare find on the appstore for a game that you can have fun that is action oriented and not some puzzle, trivia, or tower defense kind of game. I just wish there was more content for my $10.

Overall

It is a must-buy recommendation for anyone who likes fighting games and has enjoyed Street Fighter 2. This has none of the craziness that comes later with ridiculous million hadokens and almost flying characters. Beware of the 200mb download as it comes with a few movie previews of something called “Super Street Fighter 4″. Maybe a sequel…?

Anyway, I hope you found this article helpful. Feel free to share your own thoughts and comments.

Welcome to the second part of my tips and strategies guide to Cafe World. If you missed out reading the first one, you can find it here.

I’ve actually gotten tired of the game after some time as it gets repetitive but its good fun while it lasted. But that’s just me. Try it out, I’ve friends that have found this game utterly captivating even after a while. Without more delay, here are the tips:

STACK UP YOUR DISHES

You have limited counters depending on your level. Thus, you are limited to the kind of dishes you can serve. However, there is no limit to the quantity you can stack up on one counter of the same dish. So say that you have 4 counters. It is best that you keep cooking the same 4 kinds of dishes. Plan ahead if you want to change a dish being served so you can swap a new dish with an old dish that’s about to run out. You don’t want to delete either dishes on the counter or on the stove as its wasted coins and time. A common mistake is getting excited about the choices of dishes you can make and then ending up with no space on the counters to place ready dishes.

ADD NEIGHBORS AND GIFTS

You need neighbors to expand your cafe. Also, you can visit each neighbor everyday and get free coins and exp by tasting their dishes. Its irrelevant what dish and you just have to click accept for that free exp and coin. You can do this once per day. Also, remember to always send and receive free gifts. Its just free stuff for everyone. You will likely be getting gifts in return if you start giving too.

EXPANDING YOUR CAFE

As you level up and can serve more dishes, your cafe’s popularity should have grown too if you have been following my tips. It is now time to expand as customers that has to wait too long will leave your cafe and bring down your buzz rating.  You cannot ‘jump’ ahead in expanding and you can only upgrade to the next level of cafe.

Expanding will require neighbors and coins. You can also use cafe world cash but that’s real money and I don’t recommend it. Its easy enough to do with coins anyway. Here is a list of the requirements and sizes of cafe expansions.

MAXIMIZE STOVES AND COUNTER UTILIZATION

You always want to keep your stoves and counters busy. So plan ahead is the key to this game in almost every aspect. Make sure your stoves are always cooking and your counters filled with food. You can also make clicking easier as the commands can be queued. For example, you can buy all the dishes you want to cook first and then just click on each counter. You don’t have to wait for the progress bar to finish on one counter before clicking the next.

SAVE MONEY ON DECORATIONS AND ALL STOVES/COUNTERS WORK THE SAME

At the start, be frugal. Do not splurge on decorations until you really have extra coins. Save up your coins for ingredients, basic equipment and expanding your cafe. All tables, chairs, doors, stoves, counters work the same. The most expensive stove and the cheapest one work the same. You are just paying for looks. Avoid this if you want to progress up quickly.

DID YOU KNOW: You can save on cleaning up stoves by putting dirty stoves back into your inventory and then putting them back out? They will come out as clean. You don’t get the exp for cleaning up the stove though so its up to you if you want more exp or saving up on the coins.

CAFE POINTS TABLE

Each dish has its corresponding cafe points that you can make from preparing and serving it. Here is an list sorted according to total Cafe Points.

CHEF’S SPECIAL!

When you cook one dish often enough, you can get awarded with extra servings of the dish as a Chef’s Special. So it pays off to be consistent too. Since the priority should always still be planning what you cook around your playtime, it helps if you have a ’set’ of dishes you cook according to the cooking time.

Leave a comment, submit your ideas!

This is it for now. I hope you have enjoyed Cafe World and my guide has helped you play it much better. Feel free to give comments, say thanks, or add your own tips. I’d love to hear from you and I am sure others would benefit from our input too.

I finally gave in and bought Modern Warfare 2 despite the shortcomings of the game in its PC version. It is still the best first person multiplayer shooter after all.

So what can I say after 72 hours of game time? I’m pretty satisfied I must say.

Finding Games
As a casual gamer without any clans, IWNet has made it easy for me to find games. I can usually find a game in 2-5 mins. Some game types are easier to find players than others due to popularity of the particular game type (like Team Deathmatch).

If you want to play with friends, you can easily invite them to games you are in or create private matches.

Lag, Ping, and Latency
While some matches are really laggy, most games are honestly OK. It also depends on where you are and where the people you are playing with are. If you play in the timezone where most people in your area play, it should be better. I play Modern Warfare 2 in the Philippines.

Gameplay
The lack of console support and peek ability sucks. The game is really more of a console port rather than a PC intended design. But if you are the type that likes to play their shooters with a mouse and keyboard rather than a joypad, its a pretty good game.

The weapons are all amazing and mostly balanced. The perks and class customizations make it more interesting and personal.

Hackers
There are hackers in the game but they are not as bad as most make it. I am not a good player myself but I think people tend to call hacker when some player is just very skilled or lucky. In my 72 hours of play, I encountered only 2-3 hackers. If you do encounter one by chance, just leave the game and join another one. Its faster than crying on the Internet.

Single Player

Utterly amazing. No one disputes this. Its quite short but the game successfully lets you play the game. Where parts that it could have made it easier as a cut scene, it lets you as the player do the action. It makes you feel that you are a part of the world. The storyline picks up where Modern Warfare left off. So play the single player campaign of the 1st Modern Warfare before playing this.

Overall Verdict
Its an awesome game for the casual gamer. I feel for the pro gamers and the lack of support for big clans. So, if you are like me and just want a few easy rounds of fun after a day’s work, go grab your copy now.

What has long been awaited as the sequel to one of the most successful games in First Person Shooters (FPS), Modern Warfare 2 disappoints PC fans. The game is still very solid that it has a good single player campaign (albeit short–6 hours worth). It retains decent graphics, low system requirements, and great gameplay. However, thats really about it.

There already has been thousands of angry fans. Majority of Amazon buyers gave it a poor rating, there is an ongoing boycott petition, and the Internet and forums has been really buzzing with anger. Why? Here is a summary:

1. No dedicated server support. No mods.

2. Maximum of 9v9 multiplayer.

3. Short single-player campaign.

4. Steam registration and account activation required. (even for single player play)

5. Hacks available already within 24 hours of its release. (cannot be verified yet but likely genuine hack)

6. No game admins, no ability to choose servers, no ability to kick/ban hackers.

I was really looking forward to this game. As it stands, I might have to hold off from buying it. Check this interview for the full transcript of the news: PC Modern Warefare 2: it’s much worse than you thought

Anyway, here is a good video of this awesome game. I hope the game publisher changes their mind and listen to the gamers.

In another move to combat piracy, Microsoft had banned up to 1 million Xbox Live users. This had been done to users who have modified their Xbox consoles or have played games that were illegally downloaded/obtained.

“All consumers should know that piracy is illegal and that modifying their Xbox 360 console violates the Xbox Live terms of use, will void their warranty and result in a ban from Xbox Live,” Microsoft said in a statement Wednesday.

Once your console is banned, you lose all online-related functionalities and applications. You will also not be able to play any game off the hard drive. But the hard drive itself is intact and it will still work if you plug it into another non-banned Xbox.

While there is nothing wrong in promoting legal use of copyrighted products, the approach does seem to be an issue. Consoles are often sold in emerging markets in Asia already modified. Not all consumers know about it and are just sold to by the sales people. Also, a banned Xbox can also still be resold as a 2nd hand unit so buyers beware.

Ok, normally I am not the guy that play Facebook games but I wanted to give this game a try to see what the buzz was all about. I noticed my wife playing this religiously every evening and an officemate seemed addicted to it a few weeks back. Must be something here.

I will not go much into what this game is about as I expect most readers of my blog to be already familiar with it. For those that isn’t, Cafe World is essentially a SIMS-like kind of game where you are the chef and you have your own cafe to run. You cook, server, people food, earn money, expand your business, and learn more dishes. The game is still in BETA and is published by Zynga which has been reputable in producing good social games.

What some of you may not know yet is how to play this game effectively. As it is a real-time based game, you have to be careful not to be too addicted that you live your life in it. Here are some tips I would like to share from my own research on how you can play this game with maximum efficiency of your time and getting ahead quickly by working the game mechanics to your advantage.

What dish should I make?

Whenever you prepare a dish and succesffully cook it, you gain exp. You also gain exp when you clean the stove afterwards. Different dishes gives you different exp so the trick is to find the dish that gives the most exp for the least amount of time. The most efficient dish in my experience is the “Bacon Chesseburger”. What makes this dish efficient (time to prepare) is also what makes it a problem. Since the time to prepare is only 5 minutes, it means you have to always attend to it when its done. That can be tedious and time consuming. So the long and short of it is if you plan to sit in front of Cafe World for awhile, make alot of burgers, if not, then plan your dish to your playtime. There are so many dishes to choose from, and each with their own time to prepare, just choose a dish that takes the time you know when you can next be on. Say if you plan to play again 12 hours later,  choose a 12 hour dish. If you can’t be on for a day, choose a 1 day dish. You get the idea.

Here is a table for the dishes and their profit ratios courtesy of tomuse

Profit = total profit minus all expenses: Sells For – Cost – cleaning costs (15 coins)
P/S = profits per serving
Time = total cooking time in minutes
? = unknown;

Beware of Spoiled Food

Not only do you lose the cost of the ingredients, you also lose all the time spent in preparing the dish. You can also use this guide to determine which food you can best prepare so it will be ready and unspoiled when you get back to the game. Note that only food left on the stove will spoil. Any food you have placed on the counters will be fine.

(table courtesy of lightchan)

Cafe Layout

The layout is very important. You will want to have an efficient layout that will let you serve your customers quickly and clean up fast. There is a trick to this and here’s the good news: YOUR WAITERS DO NOT NEED TO WALK TO THE CUSTOMERS TABLE TO SERVE FOOD AND TO CLEAN UP. They will walk over if you let them but if you trap them behind stoves and counters, food will just magically appear on the customer’s table and will magically cleanup after they leave. The waiters however do need to be placed with access to the counters. See this image for the best example.

Buzz Rating and Closing the Cafe

On the upper right corner, you will see a buzz rating. This is important as its a measure of how popular your restaurant is. The max is 105 as of now and you need to keep this up. More customers means more money. You increase your buzz whenever a customer has been satisfactorily served. It lowers when customers don’t get served and leaves because they cannot wait anymore. Make sure you have enough tables, chairs, and food to serve them. When you run out of food, CLOSE THE CAFE. When you are cannot play anymore and is loggin out, CLOSE THE CAFE. By closing the cafe, you can protect your buzz rating as you will not have dissatisfied customers while you are away. To close the cafe, simply remove the doors. Put them back when you want to re-open for business. When closed, make sure the stoves are cooking something in preparation.

Check out the Part 2 post for more Cafe World Tips and Strategies.

Project Natal: Controller-Free Gaming

This is old news but for those who haven’t heard yet,  Microsoft announced last June 1, 2009 during E3 2009 that they are developing the next generation of console gaming. Code-named Project Natal, this will be on the Xbox 360. It features controller-free gaming. All you need is yourself. With motion sensors and cameras installed on your TV setup, Project Natal can detect hand and body gestures, facial expressions, and voice. The resulting experience is pretty amazing!

Check out this trailer:

There is no announcements yet on price or a release date but there are expectations for its release late 2010.