Game Review : .hack//G.U. Series

Finally got to finish this series. Ever since it's release starting from the first volume, I've been wondering how the makers were gonna bring the whole story to. This was important since the first .hack game series before has already been quite wraped up. It turned out they made a whole new story and environment, but still having much corelations to the previous games.

The game itself is set up in the revised MMORPG "the world" called "The World R:2". With this, almost everything changed including the job roles in the game. But how it's connected to the previous game was kinda blurred in the beginning. To understand the whole game itself, it is better to watch the anime .hack//roots which serves as a prequel the the whole story arc in the .hack//G.U games. But even not wacthing it wouldn't be much of a problem since it just adds more knowledge to playing the game.

The protagonist here is Haseo. A adept rogue beginner player in the World who at his first encounter gets PK'd by PK'ers. Luckily he gets saved by Ovan. Then he is ask to join Ovan on the quest to find the key of Twilight together with his guild the Twilight Brigade. By the course of events, his friend Shino gets PK'ed by a mysterious PK'er named Tri-Edge. Due to this tragic event, Haseo than embarks on a journey as a PKK'er to seek revenge on Tri-Edge who has taken his beloved friend away. It is also after this that many mysterious things happen in the world and Haseo ends up joing the mysterious guild called G.U. and together with the members, investigate the many weird events that happen throughout the world.

I guess that's enough as a teaser. Anyway, for the whole game series itself, the development really did make a good job on making me intrigued on who the real villain was. This was caused by the deep intrigue and scheme surrounding the whole stroy. It was not until the end of the second volume that I got to know the real mastermind of the whole plot. This indeed make me as a player really eager to finish of the whole game to get the big picture of the whole storyline.

About the gamplay, well....I guess much of it is standard RPG for you. Compared to the previous .hack game series, the developers did make some improvements in the graphics and the gamplay. But one things that made me a bit dissapointed is the absecence of the double voice dub which enables us to swicth the voice played from English and Japanese and vice versa. This feature was available in the previous games and it was a pity that they omiited this feature in the G.U. series.

Overall, the whole series does offer us a great story. even after finishing the main storyline, there are still loads of side quests that you can finish, with many of them being very very hard compared to the quests of the main stroyline. So I guess it'ld be a while till we can finish of the game completely. For this game, I believe a score of 4 out of 5 stars would be good.

And the story continues. . . .

Fuuuhhhh....akhirnya.....masa perjuangan selama 4,5 tahun terbayarkan sudah dengan adanya wisuda kemarin. Sungguh, rasanya senang dan gembira setalah akhirnya gelar sarjana ekonomi secara resmi berhasil kita sandang. Namun demikian, hal ini bukanlah akhir dari segalanya. Malah bisa dikatakan merupakan awal dari sebuah perjuangan dan fase hidup yang lebih berat dan menantang.

Mengenai berpisahnya kita dengan teman2 kuliah kita merupakan hal yang pasti. Sedih dan berat memang berpisah, tapi itulah hidup dimana kita bertemu untuk kemudian berpisah kembali. Saya tidak akan mengangkat dilematika seputar hal ini tetapi yang lebih seru adalah mengenai hal apakah yang akan kita lakukan selepas kuliah?

Kalo ngikuti garis normal, rata2 sih seusai kuliah ya nyari kerja, ngga cowok dan cewek. Kalo yang beruntung, malah ketika masih kuliah pun ada yang udah merintis kerja secara mandiri. Dan kalo dicari lainnya, beberapa orang menempuh lagi kuliah jenjang S2, entah di dalam atau luar negeri.

Tapi terlepas dari segala pilihan yang kita ambil seusai kuliah S1, tentunya kita telah melewati salah satu fase yang bisa dikatakan paling seru, menantang dan juga mengharu biru kehidupan kita. Segala hal yang kita dapat dan rasakan selama itu akan membentuk dan memantapkan pola pikir dan kepirbadian kita sebelum kita terjun dalam medan masyarakat yang riil. Kenapa saya katakan riil adalah karena kehidupan kampus cenderung menawarkan idealisme dan semangat yang walopun bagus,tetapi bagi sebagian besar orang tidak mengetahui caranya menerapkan dan meleburkan hal2 tersebut dalam masyarakat. Hasil dari hal ini adalah terjadinya semacam lag antara apa yang terjadi di kampus dengan di masyarakat, baik itu untuk pelajaran yangkita terima di kuliah maupun tuk hal lainnya yang bersifat lebih abstrak.

So...the point is that, walopun kita telah lulus, namun kita tetap harus membuktikan bahwa kita layak dan sepantasnya untuk berada di masyarakat yang riil dan yang seringkali bertindak irasional sehingga dapat memberikan kontribusi nyata baginya. Kita tidak lagi hidup di dunia awang-awang yang penuh keindahan idealisme dan perjuangan muda, tetapi kita telah menginjak dunia dimana idealisme dan perjuangan selama di kampus itu benar-benar dipertaruhkan nasib kelanjutannya, apakah terus berkembang atau justru layu sebelum berkembang.

Akhir kata. . . semoga kita-kita yang baru lulus bisa hidup penuh bahagia dan tidak terbawa arus kegilaan dan kesemrawutan yang telah melanda sebagian besar masyarakat negeri ini. . . amiiinnnn.

Movie Review : Nagabonar jadi 2

Finally, I'm back making reviews of movies again after a while. This time, I started out with an Indonesian movie called Nagabonar jadi 2. This movie is a direct sequel of the movie Nagabonar released in the 80s with Dedy Miswar as the main actor. The sequel takes us a years ahead form the first movie, telling us about Nagabonar and hisson, Bonaga.

Well, it's not usual for me to watch Indonesian movies. Its not that I hate them, but honestly, most of them suck. With themes just around horror and love, the stories really don't offer anything special and deep. But this movie is different. It does indeed conveys many moral messages. Not to mention the many comedic scenes around it.

This movie is all about the old Nagabonar visiting his son Bonaga in jakarta. There, he experiences many differences in various aspects concerning his views and perspectives with his son. But the main matter his about Bonaga trying to convince his father about letting him to build a palm coconut harvesting field near their family cemetry, something which Nagabonar misintprented as Bonaga trying to destroy the cemetry.

It did took Bonaga various efforts to convince his dad that wasn't the case, including asking his friend Monita, who also was his love interest to help him out. During the course of things, Nagabonar also did help his son on confessing his son on his love towards Monita, something Bonaga cannot do because of his awkwardness on doing so.

Besides the love story of Bonaga and abaout their familiy cemetry threatened to be wiped away, the whole movie is more about how Nagabonar is trying to understand the different views and developments that have happened during his time in the independence wars and now in the peacefull times. Luckily he managed to meet Umar, a bajay driver who throughout almost the entire movie acts as his chauffeur somewhat, driving him all around Jakarta, especially to places that have a historical value and meaning.

In the end, Nagabonar gives up and lets his son to do whatever he pleases with the family cemetry. But Bonaga already realizes how things shouldn't be this way and finally decides to forfeit the business deal leading to the wiping out of his family cemetry. For Nagabonar, he realizes that he should give way to the young people and that many things have changes in the hearts of people that he still cannot comprehend till the very end.

Eventhough the movie doesn't have a somewhat clear ending, but I guess it's fine. Afterall, the entire movie is filled with satires that reminds us on how far our hearts have differed to the people in the past. How we don't have the courage to clearly express our feelings and so on. It would be much more wonderfull if other Indonesian films were filled with such good messages. Too bad...they only think about trivial and profital movies. Overall, I think this film deserves a 4.5 star out of 5 ^^.

Forever Nights

Capek...capek....capek....tapi senang kok.Lho...kok bisa, hai...soalnya bareng ma temen temen sih.

Maklum...capek begadang. Habisnya...temen2 ku moro2 grudukan nang malang kabeh. Dan tentunya harus digilir juga kapan harus ketemu siapa dan sebagainya. Namun demikian, tentunya harus kunikmati. Kapan lagi bisa ketemu temen2, apalagi bentar lagi berangkat ke Australia.

Awalnya si Adhi datang tuk nginep. As expected, jadinya si nandar iutan juga. Nothing much than playing Playstation and exchanging interesting files. Kemudian giliran si fahmi. Berhubung ni anak cuma seminggu di Indonesia sebelum balik kul ke Malaysia, harus lebih banyak ketemu. Kebetulan pula aku juga harus ngambil file2 drama yang aku titip ke dia.

Tentunya aku begadang ma anak ini. Untungya pula mas bond sempet mampir tuk njenguk istrinya so we did have some quality time together after so long. even though short, tapi rasanya sungguh nikmat bisa kumpul kembali. Guyon dan nggudoi konco2.Lha....mau kapan lagi coz kita dah saling berpencar kerja. Bahkan beberapa ada yang dah merit segala.

Ternyata masih belum selesai. Gilira si adhi ngajak ke surabaya nemenin dia ke PTC liat pameran mainan. So...mendadaklah aku ke surabaya. Malamnya, ke PTC. N ternyata...lumayan asik pamerannya. Yang terutama sekali bikin asik dan menggiurkan adalah dijualnya gunpla2 dengan harga diskon. Wuaaaaaaaaa......asssiiikkkk!!Kapan lagi bisa.

Sayangnya aku ngga bisa langsung beli. Teringat aku di PTC ada satu hal penting lainnya yang harus kucari yakni nyari toko yang ngejual album artis jepang. Aslinya sih ketemu. Sayangnya harus pesen, huaaaaaa.Padahal aku dah sengaja nguras ATMku tuk beli jika ada. Jadinya uangnya kepake tuk beli gunpla deh ujungnya....

Masih belum selesai eh besoknya si arif datang pula ke surabaya. Sayangnya baru ketemu barengan sorenya pas kembali ke Malang. Zannen desu ne. Namun demikian, lumayanlah bagiku, jadi ada temen seperjalanan pulang di kereta sorenya. Kalo ditotal, dengan segitu banyak pertemuan dengan temen2 selama seminggu itu, jadi pengen keterusan.

Sayangnya ngga bisa. Jadi berpikir kapan bisa lagi ketemu grudukan rame2?Waktu 4-5 tahun kuliah sungguh ngga kerasa. Dan waktu ini akan semakin cepat habis dalam beberapa hari kedepan sampai wisuda karena setelah itu semua pada kerja dan kerja. So...I guess I'm gonna have to spend the last times here with my remaining friends more often before going to aussie.

Just my one hope and prayer is that shall we meet again succesfully and triumphant in the future and not forgetting the moments and memories we've had the past years...