A journal I’ve written for a course I am taking in school named FIL250: Western Art History, is posted online.  Do have a read, especially if you are interested in storytelling in games because I made several references to film techniques used in modern games.  Site can be found here.

I came across this article while surfing the net today that just blew me away.

Asrock has successfully engineered a Nvidia SLI chipset to support ATI Crossfire - the N7AD-SLI.  They showed this at CeBIT 2009 according to Tom’s Hardware, where Asrock ran two 9600gt cards, then switched them out and replaced it with two HD4850.  Both worked flawlessly.

A while ago, Intel released the X58, a Core i7 chipset that could do the same thing.  But looking at the current costs of DDR3 RAM and the Intel Core i7 series of chips, it wasn’t very affordable to PC enthusiasts on a budget.  The N7AD-SLI supports DDR2 RAM and more cost-efficient LGA775 based processors.

Trusted Reviews looked at the board a while ago and noted that the Nvidia chipset used on the board - the Nvidia 740i SLI, wasn’t actually in existence - as confirmed by Nvidia PR in their article.  It seems Asrock has either found a secret chipset, or conjured one out of thin air.  Strange, but none the less intriguingly attractive to me.

I’m gonna get myself one of those when it appears in Singapore or Ebay, whichever comes first.

Ages since my last post.

I did some housekeeping on my blog, installed the new Akismet and Pierre’s Anti-spam Wordspew, and FINALLY, my blog is spam free.  The email messages coming into my inbox announcing the arrival of more and more spam was simply getting on my nerves, and I decided to get rid of it once and for all.

I’m not sure how much blogging I’ll be able to do due to work.  But I think this is a good place to sound out some of my troubles.  Have been neglecting my webspace for some time, and I think its time I rediscovered its use.

A month before Fallout 3 was released, the net was rampant with bitter skirmishes between two camps, the purists who wanted Fallout 3 out, and the optimists who were eager to see a new take on an old series.  I belonged to the latter.  Having played both Fallout 1 and 2 (I skipped Tactics for no particular reason), I held fond memories of my time adventuring across the wasteland, but also realistically realised that the old franchise had to catch up with modernity and that Bethestha, having seen what they were capable of in Oblivion, would be the right company to pull this off.

As expected the game opened fantastically, the entire tutorial sequence when you began as a baby all the way to the G.O.A.T. examination was a blast.  The game went on to open the players eyes to an expansive, albeit devastated, Washinton DC.  With a near impossible amount of locations to explore and quests to complete, the game seemed to meet my every expectation and more.

The tripping stone came at right at the end, with no warning, and no escape.  The game locked me in the last area with only two options, end the game alive, or end the game dead.  After I spent so much time tweaking and leveling my character, and with so many unfinished quests left, I was forced to exit and ditch this character forever.  This irritated me enough to make me return the favor to the DVD.

Don’t get me wrong, Fallout 3 is by no means a bad game.  But I don’t like to be told WHEN to stop playing, I really don’t.  Take my advice, don’t thread the path of the main storyline, and roam the wastelands exploring, I suspect you will have a better time than I did.

The abrupt end in this adventure did allow me to begin another: I picked up a copy of Tomb Raider: Underworld yesterday.  I’m gonna try it and post about my thoughts on that one in a while.  Ciao!
XM

The first and only (so far) of the Photoshop Xmasher tutorial series is up. In this first issue, I go through step by step teaching you how to create a professional looking and polished rounded rectangle sprite for use in your games. Click here to begin your journey as a Photoshop Jedi.

What do you get when Tower Defense meets Sh’mups? Pangaea has your answer. Play as the beautiful Xunea in her quest for the liberation of her floating home. Create endless combinations of towers and battle your foes with wit and reflexes.

Download Link
http://www.xmashed.com/games/Pangaea.rar

Screenshots

A game I’m working on right now. Basically a cross between tower defense and traditional shmups.
Here’s a 10 sec snippet from the game itself.

The games section of the site is functional. Comments are temporarily disabled in the games section because I intend to direct it to the forums at a later date (i.e. when the forums are up). For the moment, please download and enjoy the games.

Zhou Xuanming is currently a 3rd year student of the School of Art, Design and Media, Nanyang Technological University. He majors in Interactive Media and specialises in Electronic Games Design. Over his years of study in the University, he has acquired many skills in the fields of interactive design and the illustrative arts. He has also spent the last year interning at a company named Boomzap, designing and producing casual games for the commercial market.

This website is dedicated as a show reel of his best works thus far.