Funan Walkthrough

Today my classmates and I walked around Funan. It has been a long time since I last went there and boy has it changed. Microsoft's support for gaming in Singapore has made gaming a lot more mainstream. It's quite sad that the mainstream audience has been swept away by the Xbox, the "Ah Beng" gamers blinded by the Playstation and geeks held down by their PCs. These stereotypes are so apparent here in Singapore and this has to change! People need to be more open to other consoles in order for the gaming industry to grow. If Sony isn't innovating, why should we support their monopoly?? If Nintendo doesn't make any deep, thought-inducing games, why should we buy their kiddy products?? If Microsoft only caters to the hardcore audience, why should we purchase their console?? Eventually, supply will exceed demand and someone WILL fall. I'd rather a mainstream developer fall than a creative indie developer.

Anyway, aside from all that, I got to see how Singapore is slowly, but surely, becoming more gamer friendly. Although you won't see US Playstations popping up anytime soon, at least we are seeing a constant stream of US Playstation titles hitting our stores. Nintendo is also well represented by Maxsoft which officially distributes Nintendo products like the DS lite (and soon, the Wii) here in Singapore. The highlight of the trip? The Playstation 3 at Gamescore. Well...... actually it was more like an anti-climax. The graphics aren't THAT great. In fact, my friends didn't even notice that Genji: Days of the Blade was running on PS3 hardware till I pointed out to them. I find Gears of War a lot more polished, stylish and graphically similar.

It was still interesting to see the PS3 in action up close though.