For whatever reason, I chose the ASUS-branded as if I had no other choice but to buy something from this year's SITEX event. The gaming mechanical keyboards look and feel cool but obviously, these kinds of keyboards can be as noisy as the traditional keyboards like those from IBM. The famous keyboards from IBM come from the ones with buckle spring mechanism and when used at work, they can be quite noisy most of the working time. To use those keyboards at home is one different story and question.
For this keyboard, it has six program functions. Function key 6 toggles Gaming Mode on or off while the first five are parts of Gaming Mode. When Gaming Mode is on, some of the keys will be disabled for smoother gaming like the Start Menu won't come up when you accidentally press the Windows key. It doesn't matter which genre of games you play on as the Windows key is one of the essential parts of the keyboard nowadays. To have a keyboard that doesn't have that is to buy the vintage one whose computers of the past don't happen to be using Windows anyway. Other features include the 6-key max mode or no limit mode like you can turn on or off the Anti-Ghosting. This is quite useful for some game genres when playing with gaming keyboards. Function Left and Right keys toggle the way the lights are lit and function up and down keys are for brightness or something.
Monday, November 27, 2017
Sony SRS-XB10 bluetooth speaker obtained
Using bluetooth speakers, you should be able to hook them up to your devices wirelessly although there may be delays just like the wireless connection equivalent for screen mirroring like the Chromecast technology for instance. Doing gaming with bluetooth speakers may or may not be a bad idea depending on the game genre you're playing. I currently have the technical problems for my Android tablet in which any cable hooked up to it may cause electornical interference with the touchscreen hardware as if it doesn't behave well. This may affect the way the games are being played on it.
One particular instance is that there is some kind of audio delay when playing rhythm games on smartphones/tablets hooked up to bluetooth speakers. The only way to predict will be visual prediction on incoming notes or something while the audio delay ruins the hearing prediction.
This series of bluetooth speakers as shown from this year's SITEX event has the ability to connect to other speakers wirelessly through the same technology as you use for the phones, tablets and other devices. This may be handy for parties or something and some of those speakers come with Party Chain feature which does whatever I just mentioned. This speaker on the other hand is a standalone in which you won't get the best experience unless you buy a pair. It cost $69 from the SITEX event and I guess that if you buy a pair, you will get twice the amount for better experience.
Perhaps, I can use this speaker for other mobile games although I may expect audio delay that some video editing is required.
One particular instance is that there is some kind of audio delay when playing rhythm games on smartphones/tablets hooked up to bluetooth speakers. The only way to predict will be visual prediction on incoming notes or something while the audio delay ruins the hearing prediction.
This series of bluetooth speakers as shown from this year's SITEX event has the ability to connect to other speakers wirelessly through the same technology as you use for the phones, tablets and other devices. This may be handy for parties or something and some of those speakers come with Party Chain feature which does whatever I just mentioned. This speaker on the other hand is a standalone in which you won't get the best experience unless you buy a pair. It cost $69 from the SITEX event and I guess that if you buy a pair, you will get twice the amount for better experience.
Perhaps, I can use this speaker for other mobile games although I may expect audio delay that some video editing is required.
Sunday, November 26, 2017
SITEX 2017 Day 4
It's the final day of the event at Singapore Expo this year and needless to say, I discovered more stuffs there and bought something from that event. Various stuffs included the band and DJ performance taking place at the venue, karaoke booths, NES/Famicom clone booth and even the home theater venue from another brand.
About the band and DJ performance taking place there, the performance was bound to start sometime at night there and you need various knowledge if you wanted to register for it. Second is the karaoke booths which I forgot to blog about where you can buy the karaoke machine home. It's not the laserdisc player that has the karaoke mode I'm referring to ever since I had ones in my childhood. Various laserdisc players have their internal karaoke scoring system while the external karaoke scoring addons are just the addons for the existing physical media players. These from this year's SITEX event are more or less the home equivalent to Joysound public karaoke center. There's the Joysound addon for game consoles but again, it's just an external karaoke addon for an existing system. I don't do the karaoke thing but it was an interesting discovery at the IT event. Next is the home theater booth from Devialet and I saw a giant turntable which is so suited for home entertainment in the living room although I don't know if you can fit the existing vinyl records but as the purpose suggests, that turntable there wasn't DJ-suited as it is quite large like a table with spinnable center.
Lastly is the NES/Famicom clone booth where I saw two consoles that looked like the NES Classic Edition and the Famicom with its cartridge slot but they were clones like always with the cartridges being the multi-game carts. Why would they get involved in IT events like this? This is some technology that could be suited in China or something and I already got my childhood wasted due to non-genuine systems and cartridges. I bet Nintendo won't accept something like this. The PC-Engine and its games I had played in my childhood were genuine and so is the Game Boy Color that I have although the games I played on that console weren't genuine as they were in the multi-game cart. Perhaps, I could have bought the NES Classic Edition if I wanted to but the problem is that I might end up leaving other games unplayed and it may be the same for SNES Classic Edition that recently came out this year. At least those systems are genuine, so are the games stored in them internally and the emulation is official and superior. The Famicom clone being shown at the booth had the higher sound pitch for some reason but its controllers had additional buttons for turbo-fire.
In the end, I bought the Sony-branded bluetooth speaker and the ASUS-branded gaming mechanical keyboard.
About the band and DJ performance taking place there, the performance was bound to start sometime at night there and you need various knowledge if you wanted to register for it. Second is the karaoke booths which I forgot to blog about where you can buy the karaoke machine home. It's not the laserdisc player that has the karaoke mode I'm referring to ever since I had ones in my childhood. Various laserdisc players have their internal karaoke scoring system while the external karaoke scoring addons are just the addons for the existing physical media players. These from this year's SITEX event are more or less the home equivalent to Joysound public karaoke center. There's the Joysound addon for game consoles but again, it's just an external karaoke addon for an existing system. I don't do the karaoke thing but it was an interesting discovery at the IT event. Next is the home theater booth from Devialet and I saw a giant turntable which is so suited for home entertainment in the living room although I don't know if you can fit the existing vinyl records but as the purpose suggests, that turntable there wasn't DJ-suited as it is quite large like a table with spinnable center.
Lastly is the NES/Famicom clone booth where I saw two consoles that looked like the NES Classic Edition and the Famicom with its cartridge slot but they were clones like always with the cartridges being the multi-game carts. Why would they get involved in IT events like this? This is some technology that could be suited in China or something and I already got my childhood wasted due to non-genuine systems and cartridges. I bet Nintendo won't accept something like this. The PC-Engine and its games I had played in my childhood were genuine and so is the Game Boy Color that I have although the games I played on that console weren't genuine as they were in the multi-game cart. Perhaps, I could have bought the NES Classic Edition if I wanted to but the problem is that I might end up leaving other games unplayed and it may be the same for SNES Classic Edition that recently came out this year. At least those systems are genuine, so are the games stored in them internally and the emulation is official and superior. The Famicom clone being shown at the booth had the higher sound pitch for some reason but its controllers had additional buttons for turbo-fire.
In the end, I bought the Sony-branded bluetooth speaker and the ASUS-branded gaming mechanical keyboard.
SITEX 2017 Day 3
This year, the event took place at Halls 7 & 8 of Singapore Expo which was kind of far away unlike the previous IT roadshows I attended there. The Daikin company seemed to be involved in the event with tons of new air-conditioners being shown there as seen in the commercial and they even had a truck parked near the event venue on the outside with electrical appliances hooked up. There were also cars inside the venue in one of the halls but that was beyond the scope and none of my interest to look at. Somehow, I had a some new recent gadgets for some reasons like a new phone, a new computer, etc. before the days of the big event.
Mining Rig
What the unusual looking computer does is to make use of multiple GPUs to generate passive income and provide a simple inroad into cryptocurrency. It's basically making use of Bitcoin technology which is not regulated in Singapore according to MAS. MAS is the local agency that governs something financial. Those managing the rigs are being paid and the Mining Rig Club is so famous enough that they get interviewed on various newspapers and TV channels. I don't know if this is a legal business or not as I'm not sure if they have the license to do this. Sure, they won't get known by the government or something but...
Samsung Booth
There is a tour of various Samsung booths and at the end, you can complete a survey to win a Galaxy S8 phone or something but the thing is, I recently had the a new phone by the name of Galaxy A8 which is incompatible with some of the devices shown there like the VR and the Dex Station.
The Dex Station by Samsung is similar to Windows 10 Continuum feature and the one for Ubuntu phones. Obviously, it is suited for business even more but who's going to use this kind of technology at work? Gaming-wise, those with simple controls are as compatible with Dex Station as the Android Set-Top-Boxes or Android TVs as you cannot use the keyboard with the device in Dex Station mode. Another interesting thing is the VDI in which you use Citrix, Amazon or VMWare cloud service. What this does is to stream whatever server that runs Windows Server containing Windows apps that can be run on your Android device via cloud. It's basically RemoteApp on the cloud but you're virtualizing the technology due to different architecture. It's similar to using Remote Desktop apps on your Android/IOS device to connect to your computer remotely but that is the local scope and not the cloud scope. There might be a previous story about getting X86 apps to run on Windows 10 S devices thanks to Citrix technology but I don't know if this is going to happen for real and plus, you're streaming those apps off the server through virtualization anyway. Needless to say, the Dex Station is compatible with Galaxy S8, S8+ and Galaxy Note 8.
NTUC Learning Hub
This one's going to be a good opportunity although it is missing the Windows Client side of courses and going through the Windows Server side is not a good start as those courses can be really hard. The same difficulty can go for networking and cyber security which I'm not good at. However, with the Post-Secondary account or whatever as I was told, there will be discounts for whatever courses you've chosen.
Dreamcore
A local company that started business late last year. What they do is to customize the computers and make them sellable to the customers provided that the company like this has the license to do so.
Gaming keyboards
This is what's bothering me with many more companies being interested in inventing mechanical gaming keyboards probably due to the price range or something as if those keyboards are affordable. Companies like Fujitsu, Rangers and even Valore which is part of Challenger had started inventing those keyboards. Question is, where am I supposed to fit the keyboard on the bedroom workstation desk? It's outnumbering if you ask me but at least this is something I can appreciate.
Mining Rig
What the unusual looking computer does is to make use of multiple GPUs to generate passive income and provide a simple inroad into cryptocurrency. It's basically making use of Bitcoin technology which is not regulated in Singapore according to MAS. MAS is the local agency that governs something financial. Those managing the rigs are being paid and the Mining Rig Club is so famous enough that they get interviewed on various newspapers and TV channels. I don't know if this is a legal business or not as I'm not sure if they have the license to do this. Sure, they won't get known by the government or something but...
Samsung Booth
There is a tour of various Samsung booths and at the end, you can complete a survey to win a Galaxy S8 phone or something but the thing is, I recently had the a new phone by the name of Galaxy A8 which is incompatible with some of the devices shown there like the VR and the Dex Station.
The Dex Station by Samsung is similar to Windows 10 Continuum feature and the one for Ubuntu phones. Obviously, it is suited for business even more but who's going to use this kind of technology at work? Gaming-wise, those with simple controls are as compatible with Dex Station as the Android Set-Top-Boxes or Android TVs as you cannot use the keyboard with the device in Dex Station mode. Another interesting thing is the VDI in which you use Citrix, Amazon or VMWare cloud service. What this does is to stream whatever server that runs Windows Server containing Windows apps that can be run on your Android device via cloud. It's basically RemoteApp on the cloud but you're virtualizing the technology due to different architecture. It's similar to using Remote Desktop apps on your Android/IOS device to connect to your computer remotely but that is the local scope and not the cloud scope. There might be a previous story about getting X86 apps to run on Windows 10 S devices thanks to Citrix technology but I don't know if this is going to happen for real and plus, you're streaming those apps off the server through virtualization anyway. Needless to say, the Dex Station is compatible with Galaxy S8, S8+ and Galaxy Note 8.
NTUC Learning Hub
This one's going to be a good opportunity although it is missing the Windows Client side of courses and going through the Windows Server side is not a good start as those courses can be really hard. The same difficulty can go for networking and cyber security which I'm not good at. However, with the Post-Secondary account or whatever as I was told, there will be discounts for whatever courses you've chosen.
Dreamcore
A local company that started business late last year. What they do is to customize the computers and make them sellable to the customers provided that the company like this has the license to do so.
Gaming keyboards
This is what's bothering me with many more companies being interested in inventing mechanical gaming keyboards probably due to the price range or something as if those keyboards are affordable. Companies like Fujitsu, Rangers and even Valore which is part of Challenger had started inventing those keyboards. Question is, where am I supposed to fit the keyboard on the bedroom workstation desk? It's outnumbering if you ask me but at least this is something I can appreciate.
Sunday, November 19, 2017
Superbeat XONIC for Switch
Originally, the game was released on Playstation Vita being getting the Playstation 4 and Xbox One releases. The Switch version is the next version to happen as this is the second portable console version next to the Playstation Vita version. It will have all the songs along with the songs that are previous DLCs for the previous console releases. One bonus celebration is that the new DLC-songs will be free for Switch users. The same DLC-songs will be available in Playstation 4 and Xbox One versions. I don't know if the Playstation Vita version will have those DLCs as well.
Basically, the game originated from the arcades as Beatcraft Cyclon although the home console versions are closely based on the Playstation Vita release and even the Switch version will follow as well. It's a similar story to how DJ Max Technika Q has similar rows of notes to DJ Max Technika Tune in which you get three rows of notes on each side instead of four rows as used in DJ Max Technika series in the arcades. Maybe the size of the device is more or less an important factor and it may be same for the upcoming Switch version of Superbeat XONIC.
The release date for the Switch version in the US will be sometime late this year although there was already a delay from the intended release date which was sometime a month ago.
Basically, the game originated from the arcades as Beatcraft Cyclon although the home console versions are closely based on the Playstation Vita release and even the Switch version will follow as well. It's a similar story to how DJ Max Technika Q has similar rows of notes to DJ Max Technika Tune in which you get three rows of notes on each side instead of four rows as used in DJ Max Technika series in the arcades. Maybe the size of the device is more or less an important factor and it may be same for the upcoming Switch version of Superbeat XONIC.
The release date for the Switch version in the US will be sometime late this year although there was already a delay from the intended release date which was sometime a month ago.
Beatmania IIDX 25 Cannon Ballers
OK, there may be positive impressions as well as the negative ones. One positive impression includes the change to the arcade hardware which no longer runs Windows XP Embedded along with the fact that it has better audio hardware and drivers. There's even the internal camera for top-down video recording of yourself playing the game like you're trying to show off the fingering or some kind but that is more or less an official addon for the machine unlike Maimai series where the entirely of you can be seen in the video playing the game although there's no official video capturing stuff of the game's screen. I'm not sure if the in-game audio will be recorded through the Stereo Mix or not just like Maimai series does although there won't be so much sound effects going on during the recording.
The location test took place 3 months ago but some trouble cropped up there that Konami had to pull back the machine off the arcades quickly probably due to some threat going on as stated on Twitter. The story according to Bemanistyle is that someone wanted to go to the arcades where the game was being location tested to harm the hell out of those people there. At least, he apologized but I don't know the reason on why did he do this.
My guesses for that person who made the threat were like:
Last thing is that the style name of Beatmania IIDX 25 refers to the illegal cross-country races organized in America in the 1970s. Illegal events are unforgivable and I bet that I had seen some before.
The game will be out sometime in December and with the new hardware, it should keep the series going like Gitadora does ever since 4 years ago. The others still have outdated arcade system to be frank like Jubeat, Pop'n Music, DDR, Sound Voltex, Reflec Beat, etc.
The location test took place 3 months ago but some trouble cropped up there that Konami had to pull back the machine off the arcades quickly probably due to some threat going on as stated on Twitter. The story according to Bemanistyle is that someone wanted to go to the arcades where the game was being location tested to harm the hell out of those people there. At least, he apologized but I don't know the reason on why did he do this.
My guesses for that person who made the threat were like:
- There were still nerds supporting the game or whatnot?
- Heavy obsession with Metal Gear/Castlevania/Silent Hill?
- It's probably due to something else
Last thing is that the style name of Beatmania IIDX 25 refers to the illegal cross-country races organized in America in the 1970s. Illegal events are unforgivable and I bet that I had seen some before.
The game will be out sometime in December and with the new hardware, it should keep the series going like Gitadora does ever since 4 years ago. The others still have outdated arcade system to be frank like Jubeat, Pop'n Music, DDR, Sound Voltex, Reflec Beat, etc.
Million Arthur Arcana Blood by Square Enix & Examu
As we probably know, Million Arthur Arcana Blood is more or less the forth game to come out on Nesica X Live 2 service in the arcades. It is the second major one besides King of Fighters XIV. There might be releases of other games on that service like Ultra Street Fighter IV and Blazblue Central Fiction but that doesn't count as they were originally released on the previous-gen arcade system so to Playstation 4 and Xbox One, they are one-generation behind as if they can be ported to their predecessor consoles.
Originally, the Million Arthur series started off as the card battle game on mobile devices and the first one happened to be released outside Japan although the later ones had some Asian releases. The series is so popular that it has other media contents like the short-animated spinoffs which can be viewed on Square Enix's official account or something and especially the upcoming spinoff arcade fighting game. Similar to Nitroplus Blasterz and Dengeki Bunko Fighting Climax, you can summon Knights through their corresponding commands in addition to using special and super moves belonging to the playable character. Some of the characters don't have the actual names and are therefore, named as the type of Arthurs. You'll rather want to go for the good type of Arthur although the Thief Arthur is somewhat one of the fan favorites.
There are several game modes so far like the Local Network Match, Online Match, Story Mode/Arcade Mode, Training Mode, Tutorial Mode and even the Friend Match which is something I don't know of. And since this is the first arcade-exclusive on Nesica X Live 2, it can be more a challenge for players going for Single-Player modes. I don't know if you'll get interrupted by other players jumping in during those modes or not.
From what I saw from Baba Game Center Mikado's official YouTube channel, the interface of Nesica X Live 2 game selection screen has some elements similar to the Steam game page. There may be videos and screenshots to preview of course. I'm not sure if Steam TV Mode or Steam OS has similar stuff like that like you can see videos and screenshots of whatever game you're looking at. Right now, the game still has yet to be released and hence, the location test progress according to the latest update. Normally, during game location testing, the game is still in prototype form and video filming and phototaking of those games are not allowed. Not even video capture is also allowed as well but somehow, that arcade center has the rights to show the location test version in action. There are other gameplay videos of the game prior to the release date in Square Enix's official YouTube channel. Even the opening video from that channel has a confirmation that Team Arcana of Examu is the actual developers of the game. Before that video existed, I already had a guess that Examu might have developed it with Square Enix being the publisher probably due to the fact that the game has the word, Arcana, in the game title and it's a fighting game. Other fun facts included the assets and elements taken from other Examu games as well like Nitroplus Blasterz, Arcana Heart, etc.
The graphics are more or less better and on par with Arc System Works fighting games with 3D backgrounds and 2D sprites although the overall mixture makes them one generation behind like the game could have been suited for Playstation 3 and Vita releases. Blazblue Cross Tag Battle is also guilty of having previous generation era graphical assets but from the recent character reveal video from Arc System Works' official YouTube channel, the Distortion Drive/Super background is changed. Like Arcana Heart 3 Love Max, pressing ABC activates something similar to Extend Force which changes background.
The release date for the game will be 21 November in Japan.
Originally, the Million Arthur series started off as the card battle game on mobile devices and the first one happened to be released outside Japan although the later ones had some Asian releases. The series is so popular that it has other media contents like the short-animated spinoffs which can be viewed on Square Enix's official account or something and especially the upcoming spinoff arcade fighting game. Similar to Nitroplus Blasterz and Dengeki Bunko Fighting Climax, you can summon Knights through their corresponding commands in addition to using special and super moves belonging to the playable character. Some of the characters don't have the actual names and are therefore, named as the type of Arthurs. You'll rather want to go for the good type of Arthur although the Thief Arthur is somewhat one of the fan favorites.
There are several game modes so far like the Local Network Match, Online Match, Story Mode/Arcade Mode, Training Mode, Tutorial Mode and even the Friend Match which is something I don't know of. And since this is the first arcade-exclusive on Nesica X Live 2, it can be more a challenge for players going for Single-Player modes. I don't know if you'll get interrupted by other players jumping in during those modes or not.
From what I saw from Baba Game Center Mikado's official YouTube channel, the interface of Nesica X Live 2 game selection screen has some elements similar to the Steam game page. There may be videos and screenshots to preview of course. I'm not sure if Steam TV Mode or Steam OS has similar stuff like that like you can see videos and screenshots of whatever game you're looking at. Right now, the game still has yet to be released and hence, the location test progress according to the latest update. Normally, during game location testing, the game is still in prototype form and video filming and phototaking of those games are not allowed. Not even video capture is also allowed as well but somehow, that arcade center has the rights to show the location test version in action. There are other gameplay videos of the game prior to the release date in Square Enix's official YouTube channel. Even the opening video from that channel has a confirmation that Team Arcana of Examu is the actual developers of the game. Before that video existed, I already had a guess that Examu might have developed it with Square Enix being the publisher probably due to the fact that the game has the word, Arcana, in the game title and it's a fighting game. Other fun facts included the assets and elements taken from other Examu games as well like Nitroplus Blasterz, Arcana Heart, etc.
The graphics are more or less better and on par with Arc System Works fighting games with 3D backgrounds and 2D sprites although the overall mixture makes them one generation behind like the game could have been suited for Playstation 3 and Vita releases. Blazblue Cross Tag Battle is also guilty of having previous generation era graphical assets but from the recent character reveal video from Arc System Works' official YouTube channel, the Distortion Drive/Super background is changed. Like Arcana Heart 3 Love Max, pressing ABC activates something similar to Extend Force which changes background.
The release date for the game will be 21 November in Japan.
Monday, November 6, 2017
Sound Voltex Gameplay Report - November 3
I guess that was enough for the tracks from Sound Voltex III as I have a more current policy in seeking more decent music than before. Most of the music will be electronical kind, the kind of music that is played in nightclubs and it may be the same for Beatmania IIDX. Weird-ass ones, no, I'm not gonna waste anymore credits on those as some of the music genres are epic mistakes in the present time.
One interesting thing is that NOMA, one of the third-party DJ/producers for Bemani games, had terminated the contract with Konami that his songs would have to be taken down completely so that he would have the full rights to them as if Konami no longer holds the copyright to those songs. It would be funny if the other DJ/producers would do the same in favor of other music games. I guess that I was messed with by weird-ass tracks and especially for those produced by IOSYS, Cool & Create, etc. The professional DJ/producers had a good time producing songs for rhythm games but it seemed that certain of those like Naoki Maeda, NOMA, etc. had to part with Konami in favor of producing music for other rhythm games which might seem to be a good direction.
Then, I eventually attempted the ones from Sound Voltex IV and I got a triple A for one of the Level 12 tracks in Exhaust difficulty through Sound Voltex IV standard of course.
In the past time that I played Sound Voltex again, I made a big mistake in drawing out summer-themed character Appeal Cards and certain of those were outright disgusting from what I saw. Maybe I should focus more on attempting songs because grinding on games at the arcades is seriously expensive. I don't know which one is more dangerous to be frank like getting hundreds/thousands of runs in the same arcade game or maybe spending too much real money on premium currency for mobile games.
Needless to say on the day I went to the arcades at Bugis+, some of the machines were moved or whatnot and I couldn't see the Groove Coaster machines as they were moved out or some kind but I had some event to attend at night after this trip.
One interesting thing is that NOMA, one of the third-party DJ/producers for Bemani games, had terminated the contract with Konami that his songs would have to be taken down completely so that he would have the full rights to them as if Konami no longer holds the copyright to those songs. It would be funny if the other DJ/producers would do the same in favor of other music games. I guess that I was messed with by weird-ass tracks and especially for those produced by IOSYS, Cool & Create, etc. The professional DJ/producers had a good time producing songs for rhythm games but it seemed that certain of those like Naoki Maeda, NOMA, etc. had to part with Konami in favor of producing music for other rhythm games which might seem to be a good direction.
Then, I eventually attempted the ones from Sound Voltex IV and I got a triple A for one of the Level 12 tracks in Exhaust difficulty through Sound Voltex IV standard of course.
In the past time that I played Sound Voltex again, I made a big mistake in drawing out summer-themed character Appeal Cards and certain of those were outright disgusting from what I saw. Maybe I should focus more on attempting songs because grinding on games at the arcades is seriously expensive. I don't know which one is more dangerous to be frank like getting hundreds/thousands of runs in the same arcade game or maybe spending too much real money on premium currency for mobile games.
Needless to say on the day I went to the arcades at Bugis+, some of the machines were moved or whatnot and I couldn't see the Groove Coaster machines as they were moved out or some kind but I had some event to attend at night after this trip.
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