I’m no stranger to Facebook games. But willingly pay for virtual items this was a first time. Following the great tradition of Playfish games, Restaurant City is cute as a button but the style is more refine and the game play seems more sophisticated.

The game type is Time Management. Players oversee their restaurant business. The restaurant started small with just the player and another employee. Overtime players are rewarded with bigger space and more employees as players gain higher levels.

The in-game micro-economy is well thought of. Players started with enough fundings to get a taste of buying items in the game. At the beginning, the profits “coins” made from restaurant business is slow. It would take a long time until coins are accumulated enough for a nice item in the shop.

I was complaining to my sister how I can’t get most of the items with the coins I earned. She suggested I purchase some coins. “Just $5 will get you a lot of stuff.” That sounded like an approval to spend money on something silly like this. So I put $5 in, and the rest was history.

Look at my fancy restaurant “Piggie Chow’. It’s all decked up with pretty flower and eye catching restaurant signs. Step into the dinning area, you’ll see furniture hand picked by me and layout arranged in a way the restaurant runs most efficiently.

This is a really fun game. I hope I don’t spend too much money on it.

O-M-G! Check out that credits I earned!

I’m currently in full swing addiction to PackRat. The game play is high in retention and low on learning curve. Just when I thought I did all the tricks there was in the game. A fellow Facebook friend let me into something she learned about the game and bamm, I’m right back to playing nonstop.

The game’s reward system also is well-balanced. I get rewarded frequently in modest amount, and in rare occasions I hit a jackpot like this. I could not believe my eyes when that happened.

Shortly after Erich reported his company’s legendary 9-hour all-staff meeting marathon, the company I work for scheduled Tuesday our first quarterly meeting of the year. We were promised food (the unhealthy kind), drinks (2 alcoholic ones and unlimited soda and water), and 2-hour free play at Game Works.

The real meeting was kept under 2 hour. We were (or at least I was) entertained by customer story shared by support team, hat tossing to new employees, cash and reward giveaways, short video montage of popular games from studio and people behind it.

Then Game Works time!

The game started as I submerged from stormy ocean. The rendering job on water and fire were simply stunning. I thought I was watching a theatrical intro. A game tip popped out then I realized I was already in the game play.

Way back when Bioshock was debuted at the 2006 E3, I was blown away by the game images. The game environment was dark and gorgeously decorated with rich art-deco settings. And the plot involved a deserted underwater city, utterly violent and twisted survivors, eerie little girl, and her protectors. Sounded like a kick ass game to me!

Bioshock certainly lives up to its hype. The play experience was so creepy I actually wasn’t in the mood to appreciate the details and aesthetic efforts put into the artifacts and environmental design.

My game progress has being quite slow. Mostly because I took too may breaks whenever I got freaked out by the ghostly surroundings or after taking down a savage attacker.

A full orchestra performing music from video games we spent many sleepless nights. That is one event I couldn’t afford to miss. On Saturday, I attended “PLAY! A video game symphony” at Benaroya Hall, performed by Seattle Symphony.

For me, the chance of listening to my favorite video games’ soundtracks being orchestrated in a musical hall was the ultimate treats. The excitements from game plays, the memories, and friendship developed over gaming, game soundtracks reminisced these fond moments.

The program covered a good range of titles from classic games such as Super Mario Bros, Sonic the Hedgehog to more recent Battlefield 1942, World of Warcraft, and Halo. I would be lying if I deny I came largely for Halo.

Halo’s original composer Martin O’Donnell was in the audience. He stood up to accept a good 30-second applause from the audience before the music began. My emotion was high as the chores started Halo’s vocal.

It was good as I had expected. However, I think it could be better. That night I searched You Tube for “PLAY!” footages taken at other locations. Last year’s performance at Stockholm seemed up a notch. I also found a clip of Guitar Hero III performed at Norway’s “PLAY!”. That was pretty entertaining as well.

A company Guitar Hero III tournament was held day before the Thanksgiving weekend. I entered for Medium Level competition and went all the way to semi-final. Not a bad way to kick off the Holiday.

2 more experience points, I’ll be a Grade 2 Sergeant in the competitive world of Halo 3.

And how about that Hard level in Guitar Hero II? That last added keynote is killing me. I practiced night after night on the technique sliding figures between different keys in increasing speed. Most of the time the feeling was defeated. When my wrist got too sore or I can no longer concentrate, I switched to Halo. But…those shinning Achievement badgers…I must have them.

Between saving the world and elevating my world-class rock star status, I am not making much time for blogging or anything else.

This is a screenshot of my desktop wallpaper, mind to give a wild guess what’s my latest obsession?

Oh yes, that would be the recently released Halo 3.

The screenshot was taken at “Halo 3: Believe” site by Akqa. The site is worth checking out for the stunning recreation work of battle scenes in Halo. Create screenshots similar to this one as you navigate through the battlefield.

Ok, back to the game.

After some efforts signing in to 360 Live, a few seconds later…

The familiar choir type opening music; Bungie and Halo 3 logos morphing and appearing in the game intro sequences; Camera moves to a familiar face of shinny helmet shield and camouflaged green combat suit covered with scratches from numerous battles with alien races. That, is our world savoir master chef, oh yes, let’s roll.

That’s a recap of my game play experience as I was holding the controller and waiting to play Halo 3 for the first time. I am still working on campaign and so far Bungie has done well keeping old timers like myself happy.

Anyone who had played the previous Halo series will find no surprise in the general game plays. Playing the basic campaign mode has being a catwalk so far. I can’t wait to finish the campaign and move on to more exciting slayer plays.

Tab attended this year’s SIGGRAPHY and brought back some exciting news and trends in the computer graphic world. She ran a lunch brownbag to share some of the noticeable short films playing in this year’s electronic theater.

Of all the short films we sampled, my personal favorite is CodeHunter by MTV (animation created by Axis Animation). One of the game artists said there’s a CodeHunter game in the making. It’s a shame most games based on hit tv shows or movies don’t live up to its original creations.

If you are interested, the complete playlist is available on YouTube.

As a bonus, Tab did a quick demo on “PLASMA PONG”. It’s classic pong with a twist of techno music, interactive screen saver, and physics. I enjoyed the music so much I downloaded a version to my Mac.

We had our little Wii Sports bash. Of the sport categories, playing boxing was less intuitive. Punch and direction didn’t always reflect players’ actual motion. As the result, everybody just went crazy throwing punches and hoping some of them will hit. It was most entertaining watching boxing nonetheless.

Jason tried out Red Steel only to find the game was a disappointment. A seemingly promising game offers users the opportunity to experience Wii controls in shooting and slashing actions somehow turned sore. Regardless of a pretty big learning curve, we also had to endure sized-up cheesy story and not very flattering game graphics.