The inaugural Youth Olympic Games, or YOG for short, is running in Singapore this year from 14th to 26th August.

As part of the worldwide promotion to create buzz around the event, the Singapore Youth Olympic Games Organising Committee (SYOGOC), together with the Infocomm Development Authority (IDA), is creating a virtual world called Singapore 2010 Odyssey.

Said RADM(NS) Ronnie Tay, Chief Executive Officer of IDA at the official launch on Saturday 6th March: “The Singapore 2010 Odyssey is a unique virtual world platform offering many possibilities for learning, social networking and entertainment, as it reaches out to the youths from all over the world in a fun and interactive way. The development of the 3D virtual world is testimony to Singapore’s infocomm capabilities in innovatively harnessing digital media technologies to support major events like the Singapore 2010 Youth Olympic Games.”

Find the Odyssey at www.singapore2010.sg/o

Of course, what’s more important is the content of this virtual world. I had a preview of the world last Wednesday at a media/blogger session (the news was embargoed till today) but to see how it really was working out, I decided to give it a real life test.

Singapore will get the much-awaited Sony Playstation 3 “slim” game console here next month at a price of S$512, said Sony yesterday on the sidelines of the Games Convention Asia (GCA).

The slimmer version of the PS3 was first announced last month. As you’d see from the pictures, it is a much prettier version than its fatter sibling that first went on sale in 2006.

Unfortunately, it’s not that cheap. I think the price-cut original PS3 is now an even more attractive proposition.

Meanwhile, for gamers on the go, Sony says the PSP Go will also go on sale here in Singapore on October 1 for S$412.

The Licence2Play gaming and electronics fair at Suntec this weekend from 22nd to 24th May may have been touted as the 1st consumer electronics fair offering wholesale prices to the public (no trade buyers and wholesalers allowed), but as a gamer I was far more interested in the gaming than gadgets.

After all, we already have tons of different IT shows already every quarter like Comex, Sitex, and IT Show, and we’ve grown used to cheap electronic fairs — it is part of our Singaporean geek psyche. This show is also a lot smaller than the previous IT Show, occupying only part of floor 6(Hall 603) on Suntec, whereas IT Show covered 5 floors.

Gadgets aside, however, the gaming aspect of the show is rather fun. It may not as big and established as Games Convention Asia — Licence2Play, set up by SPH subsidiary Sphere Exhibits, is running for the first time this year — but the atmosphere at the fair when I was there yesterday afternoon was buzzing, and there looked to be a roster of fun events running throughout the three days.

Gamers at the World of Warcraft Arena

Cryptic Studios – the makers of City Of Heroes – is back with Champions Online, an MMOG where your hero is a superhero. I managed to get onto the beta and have played for a few hours. So far, the game looks pretty cool.

Unlike COH, you don’t have to stick to a class – like a tank or a dps type – you can choose from a whole range of skillsets from fire to ice to dual swords to pure might to sorcery and more.

You will probably have a base skillset, say like ice, but there is nothing to stop you from choosing secondary skills from might and more. Each hero also gets to choose a travel power – from super jump to flight to teleport and more.

What is really interesting however is the likelihood that this game will be a cross-platform MMOG. The PC version is scheduled to launch June 14 and there are signs that an Xbox LIVE version is on the way.

Thank you for the memories, 3D Realms

Woke up to a nice Saturday morning and found out from all the online buzz that my dream is well and truly over – Duke Nukem Forever is going to be Duke Nukem For-Never.

Sorry for that joke, but the irony’s hard to avoid. After telling fans of the first-person shooter that the game will be out “when it’s done” in the past 12 years – yes, that’s nearly as old as some of you Counter-strike junkies – 3D Realms said yesterday (United States time) that it is shutting its doors.

Reports say the economy’s downward spiral has forced it to lay off all its staff.

What that means is that the followup to the seminal Duke Nukem 3D, the first shooter to bring us the greatest, funniest and most politically incorrect gameplay in a PC game, is probably shot up in flames as well.

First it was Dawn Of War 2, and now it is Empire Total War. War is out in the open, but the battle it seems is against piracy.

ETW is the second game I have reviewed this month that also needs a Steam log-in, and therefore Internet access, to activate and play the game, even if you are just up against the computer AI.

This is a big problem for users who do not have regular broadband access as it can take several hours just to update the first round of patches, and that’s on my 100 Mbps line. After you activate the game for the first time via Steam, you can choose to run the game in “offline” mode which then lets you run the game without Net access but you will still need to have the game updated to the latest patch for this to run. In other words, you cannot quite play a Steam-enabled game without Net access.

The good thing about Steam is that it handles all your game patches automatically so your game is always updated to the latest patches. Steam is also a form of anti-piracy tool since you always have to log-in before you start the game. The really cool thing about Steam however is that you all the games you have purchased, whether as a direct download or from retail shops, can be downloaded into any other PC although you can only play on one at a time.                

There has been some discussion lately about Dawn Of War 2 and how it is sucky becoz we have to install Steam to play the single player campaigns even. Here’s something I wrote recently on this issue.
IT JUST does not make sense that a single-player PC game, which you play on your own, would require you to have an Internet connection for you to play against the computer.

However, that is exactly the case with the just-released Dawn Of War 2 (DOW2).

As I was tearing the shrinkwrap off the box of this THQ-published title, I was surprised to see these words in red: Internet Connection Required.

Yes. you heard it right. Even if you are playing a single player campaign or a 1vs1 skirmish against the computer. You need to first launch Steam and log in to Steam for the game to even launch. And this is not just for initial activation, but for subsequent plays. So when I tried to run the game without logging into Steam, nothing happens at all. The game doesn’t even launch. I log into Steam and the game loads.

It’s quite obvious what these guys are trying to do – they are trying to fight piracy. But they end up alienating the users. I have played RTS since the first Dune 2, and I have never had to go online to fight against the computer. In fact, I have never played a PC game that requires me to do this, unless it is an MMOG like World Of Warcraft.

I understand that piracy is really killing the PC business, but in an environment where console games are outselling PC games (revenues for console games are about 8x more than PC games worldwide) and beating the shit out of them, you don’t want to make you legitimate PC gamers angry.

And what about selling to the countries without much of a Net penetration? Or have they given up on these countries altogether?

Update: Some forumers are asking if this will work if Steam is running in offline mode. I will try that tonight. Another issue is whether you need to have a Windows Live account logged-in to play. Will also test that tonight. But having played this game for about 6 hours, I do like it a lot.

Razer Mamba

I managed to get my hands on the prototype of the new 2.4 GHz wireless mouse that has set a new record at 5600 dpi speeds, beating the new Logitech G9x’s 5000 dpi by a whisker.

The Razer Mamba is developed right here in Singapore at the labs of the US gaming peripherals maker. It has amazing responsiveness for a gaming mouse with only 1 ms latency (gaming mice suffers from lag because the mouse has to transmit data from the mouse to the receiver connected to the PC)

You see the gap at the top of the wheel? That’s where you can plug in the USB charger cable and use it like a wired mouse. So you don’t have to scream your head off while waiting hours for your wireless mice to charge on its dock. Plus, it charges the mouse battery while you are using it in wired mode.

My conclusion: It felt just like a bloody good wired mouse to me!

Updated: Forgot to mention the retail price is US$129 and it will be available Q1 this year in Singapore (likely to be sooner than later)

Read my complete review in next week’s Digital Life.