Out of curiosity, I bought a copy of Heroes of The Pacific. It's an aerial combat simulator game set in the Pacific Theater of Operations during World War 2.
Or to be more precise, "simulator". Not even close. It's an arcade shooter, not a simulator.
I love it though. Historically inaccurate, difficult controls, crap joystick support, but I love it. It's so much fun.
What I do like about it is the graphics, which is great. The plane models look very, very good. Ground features are well done, with good detail level on fround objects like airfields, parked planes and anti-aircraft guns.
I also like the fact that I can play this thing by just using a mouse. It's a little wonky though, and I don't like the fact that I can't seem to roll the plane I'm flying. I can only turn left/right. No yawing and no rolling. Which prevents me from pulling some of my favourite air combat manuevers (barrel rolls, yo-yos, etc).
I like the very long campaign. I like most of all the fact that the game is very simple and a relative no-brainer while being reasonably action packed.
The greatest idea would probably be if someone took the graphics engine and used it to make a proper WW2 flight sim. The engine is great. Good detail without loss of frame rates. So everything looks pretty and fast at the same time.
The last mission I played was at Midway where I have to bomb the Japanese cruiser Mikuma. Unfortunately, I screwed up when I forgot to attach bombs to my Wildcat. Duh.
Speaking of cat, our cat Ning will be one year old soon. I speculate that she was born sometime in February 2005. She's very healthy and slightly spoilt. And slightly crazed. Especially when there are house lizards around.
And speaking of cats again, Kenny Sia wrote a great post about Kuching. A really good and quite accurate post.
Ah yes, Kuching and it's people. One thing about Kuchingites is that we tend to be fiercely proud of this little city of ours. Outsiders might find the unusually fierce loyalty rather unsettling.
But, that's normal for us. What can I say, Kuchingites love their town. And why shouldn't we?
One of the things that I sometimes hear from visitors is that Kuching is....well, dull as a table lamp. Well,..... they're right.
It IS dull as a table lamp, if you're talking about entertainment and nightlife. There isn't much. Don't come to Kuching for nightlife. Unless you like karaokes.
Kuching isn't shiny and energetic like some other places in Malaysia. It isn't the most modern place in the world either. Some visitors might feel like it's a little backwards looking in places. It isn't the most well organized city on the planet. Some might feel that the city is kind of haphazard in places.
That's why it's so great over here. The charm of Kuching town (I still prefer this term to Kuching City) is that it isn't any of those things. Kuching is nice not inspite of it's old schoolness and general lack of contempary character, but because of it. If Kuching ever gains the size and character of KL with it's skyscrapers, billions of people (and cars), sprawling suburbia (this is beginning to happen, actually) and shopping malls the size of the pyramids of Giza, then we should just change it's name. It just wouldn't feel "right" if that ole small town feel is gone.
That's Kuching alright. A city that doesn't quite feel like one, yet.
So, if a visitor is looking for somewhere tranquil and languid (and safe) to relax and have some peace and quiet, Kuching is the right place to be. Don't come expecting excitement and glitz and glamour and things like that. You won't find it and Kuching will suck ass.
Go to Singapore instead.
Finally, a colleague of mine has an interesting insight to Kuching. She's from Ipoh and has worked and live all over the world. She feels that in comparison to all the places she's been, Kuching is a great place to bring up children and start a family.
That's a good way to describe it actually.
No comments:
Post a Comment