Wonder what movies made it big last year? Wonder no more!

Hit “jump” to see the list of movies that scored big in the box office last 2008.

Top Box Office Hits of 2008 (Gross)

For the complete list, head on over here

‘Til Next Post,

GM T

After the long and detailed 2008 year end review, now I’d like to share with you some of the most memorable and most popular posts here at my blog for the past year.

2008 has been one heck of a ride and the blog has never been better. Thanks to all of you, of course, my dear readers. Without your support, diligence and visits, gmtristan.com would never experience the kind of growth that it has right now. Being human, there have been hits and there have been “misses”. One can never be perfect, yet we always strive to be better by giving more value to others in what we do.

To do that, just remember to do the what’s moral and what’s right… and do a damn good job at it. Now, let’s click the “read more” link before I reach for a hankie and get teary-eyed…

The Top 10 posts were ranked by the number of “page views” or visits. I did this by consulting my Google Analytics page, a blogger’s online “swiss army knife”, if you will. Most of the posts relate to a certain keyword. This is a blogger’s goal, to get his (or her) keyword on top of the search engine ranks.

Without further ado;

10. Grand Chase – When we announced this game, a lot of people were all excited. Grand Chase is a great game, sitting in the middle of an MMO and a casual game. You won’t regret playing it.

9. Mandy Lynn – one of my featured girls. This article has been on top of my charts for quite some time now. I guess that it has good page rank in both Google and Yahoo. Thanks to everyone who dropped by and took a look

8. Download RF Online Crimson Dawn – Besides directing readers and helping them to download the patch, this post has all the basic info about RF’s biggest patch for 2008.

7. RF Episode 2 Download and Install – after you download it, now what? Step-by-step guide on the install process. I’m sure this one helped newbies install the game.

6. Perfect World Open Beta – while more than a year old, Google still refers this page. I get a lot of hits from foreigners asking if they can play on the Philippine servers. Regrettably, the answer is no.

5. Download Ragnarok Valhalla – After the success of Valkyrie, we opened up Valhalla, the second Free-to-play pRO server.

4. Ragnarok Valkyrie – All the info you’ll need to get and install Valkyrie, pRO’s first F2P server into your system

3. Crazy Kart – one of the new releases for the Philippine MMO market, Crazy Kart took the gaming community by storm. Thanks to everyone who downloaded the installer and played. Seeya inside the game, dudes!

2. Ragnarok Online 3rd Class – a future content for Ragnarok, this is the job class after “Transcendence”. Take your characters to new heights and power never before experienced.

and finally… the number 1 article for 2008…

1. Maria Ozawa – one of the Internet’s most sought after babes. Seems that the SEO worked on this one. Maria’s always a winner wherever she lurks. Rawwrrr!

That’s it for now.

’til next post,

GM T

Let me just share with you the Top 10 search terms on Google and Yahoo by Filipinos. There’s a great difference between searches from the 2 search giants. For Google, the top search term was “lyrics” while Yahoo had “American Idol” as the top search term for last year.

The complete Top 10 list after the jump.

Google – Top 10 Philippine Search terms for 2008

1. Lyrics
2. Friendster
3. You
4. Games
5. Yahoo
6. Youtube
7. Love
8. Google
9. Mp3
10. Map

Yahoo – Top 10 Philippine Search Terms for 2008

1. American Idol 
2. Boracay 
3. Charice Pempengco 
4. Friendster 
5. High School Musical 3 
6. Jobs 
7. Mall of Asia 
8. Marian Rivera 
9. MV Princess of the Stars 
10. Olympics 2008 

I don’t know if it’s just me that noticed this, why would anyone search ”Google” on Google? Beats the heck out of me. You’re already on Google if you’re typing “Google” on the search field. Duh.

Well… I hope you’re all settled back in the office or school. Still have the holiday hangovers?

Tip – magbaon ng Ham para makatipid.

Cheers!

GM T

Sources:

• Google Zeitgeist
• Yahoo Philippines

This post was brought to you by – Geekzkrieg.com, the ultimate web magazine for geeks
 

Time to say goodbye to 2008 and welcome the new challenges of 2009. 2008 was a great year for the local gaming scene and even the worldwide gaming industry.

Here’s a Year-In-Review for the past year, 2008. Join me as we look back in the great year that was.

1st QUARTER 2008

JANUARY

For the local MMO scene, we got started by providing the download links for Crimson Dawn, RF Online’s biggest patch for 2008 as early as January. Crimson Dawn saw to the further growth of RF as a top favorite among Filipino MMO players. Crimson Dawn launched in February of 2008.

Meanwhile, we also said goodbye to Pangya, one of our casual games. Sadly, Pangya closed down on January 25. In the infotech scene, Netscape also said goodbye. After many years of battling IE, the curtains came down for the old browser that I grew up with in the early 90s. Meanwhile, the bad news continues as we we were all shocked by the death of actor Heath Ledger, his great performance in the Dark Knight will be unparalled in the years to come.

I also did a story on “Pilots” in MMORPGs. Piloting has grown recently in practice for Filipino MMO players and I wanted to look into this activity. While we’re at the gaming scene, my post on How To Start An Internet Cafe Business has been a great help to many budding entrepreneurs and it has maintained a good page rank in Google ever since.

To cap off January, I wrote some tips on Monetizing Your Blog and how to find great tools for gaming online.

To start off 2009, sizzling hot babes graced my pages for January - Olga Kurylenko (new Bond girl) Ruffa Mae Quinto , Shanella Strauss , and Sophie Monk

FEBRUARY

I started off Feb by featuring one of the most talented RO players in the country, Master Diwa (MD), MD is a musician, cosplayer and film maker and will end up making the score for Survivor Philippines and winning awards for 2008. Speaking of Ragnarok, the newest patch, Veins was now available for download. I also got to meet up with Happyslip, one of youtube’s rising Filipina stars. I was also busy for gaming events such as the Robinson’s event and our trip to Laoag.

As the month of hearts, I did some feature articles such as Romance in Online Games and also the Most Romantic Moments in Gaming video. In terms of MMO launches, we launched the much-anticipated Crimson Dawn patch for RF Online on Feb 26.

GM T Babes for the month of February were Marian Rivera , Katrina Halili , Maria Ozawa , and Mocha

MARCH

As summer fast approached, everything became frenetic. The movie scene was abuzz with hype for the coming Iron Man movie. Meanwhile, gaming lost another legend with the death of Gary Gygax, creator of Dungeons and Dragons.

Back to online gaming, we started off preparations for LIVE 2008 with the unveiling of the teaser site and posting the mechanics for the individual tournaments. Speaking of “sneak peeks”, Flyff also gets some buzz with the teasers for Version 11. RF and Perfect World got new servers and for events, I was off to Baguio and then spent the Holy Week back in Manila.

In sports, Pacquiao defeats Marquez in their rematch fight..

In summer, the temp rose. But these girls added to the scorching heat – Olivia Munn and Marissa Miller

2ND QUARTER

APRIL

The web and the blogosphere had new, innovative April Fool Jokes to start off the month. I finally laid my old mobile to rest and got a new Nokia N77, which I have to this day. FlyFF launched its new patch – version 11, I visit the gaming crib of LU writer Gi Garcia, Rica Paralejo visits LU HQ to feature me and pals for Rock Band, Perfect World launched Dusk Palace, and we get the biggest news off by announcing that the RWC 2008 will be held in our very own country!

Babes for April: Rica Parelejo (with GM T) , Girls Aloud and Hazel Ann Mendoza

MAY

It’s summer time! And I start it with an interview at Rock Ed Radio and then the whole LU gang goes to its annual summer party! Weee! Loads of fun.

Meanwhile, Cebu gets a Level Up Facelift as the city hosts our mural project. Great paintings! Thanks to the officials at Cebu city for supporting us. We also announce Crazy Kart, our newest online racing game and the hype is off.

Unfortunately, RF has some duping problems and we had to make the hard decision of doing a major rollback to protect the integrity of the game.

May GM T Girls were Jessica Alba and Precious Adona

JUNE

The Philippine movie industry lost another icon when Rudy Fernandez died due to cancer. I was also one of the first bloggers to feature Pinoy duo, MoyMoy Palaboy even before their stars shined. Moymoy Palaboy were players of RF Online, btw.

By mid-June we bagan Closed Beta for Crazy Kart and the response was very enthusiastic. Thanks to all the players who participated in my CBT contest and everyone who played in the CBT. We all had a blast.

Our Game Heroes website was also launched and we sent out a Call for Heroes to be featured at the site. Speaking of websites, the Level Up website gets a makeover too. Finally, we all wiped the drool off our faces when we saw a preview for Diablo 3. Man, those videos rocked and will be one of the best memories of 2008 for me.

In the NBA, the Celtics win the 2008 championship over Kobe and the LA Lakers. It’s like the good old rivalry days all over again!

To end June and the 2nd quarter, Eva Mendez , Laika Pangilinan and Brooke Burke graced the GM T Girls section.

3RD QUARTER

JULY

It’s off to Davao for me and my team for the Davao Cyber Expo event. During the same week, we revived the Level Up Rewards program. Now all those rewards points can be redeemed for in-game items and more.

We did the press conference for Crazy Kart, land aunched the Pinoy Jeep – the first Jeepney in a racing game, btw.

Of course, let’s not forget the July girls – Adriana Lima , Jo Garcia and Denise Milani

AUGUST

Time sure flies when you’re having fun. Level Up is now on our 6th year. What better way to celebrate this milestone by having a fun and wacky cosplay event at the office? Each department was given a country as a theme for cosplay, food and decorations. The Sales department brought home the bacon with their rendition of the Philippines. Gratz! That was fun!

I also decided to get a new look and uploaded a new theme (skin) for gmtristan.com. Goodbye to the old orange-and-black theme that I had for more than a year. Check out the evolution of my blog over the years.

Meanwhile, we posted the official rules for all the LIVE 2008 contests and side-events such as cosplay, national art and video making (filmfest). Kevin Codamon and yours truly also spearheaded the special Level Up gaming blog category for the Phil. Blog Award that month.

August GM T babes – Christine Mendoza , Valerie Concepcion , Kelly Hu and Alison Caroll (new Lara Croft)

SEPTEMBER

Starting off September, Perfect World gives their website a major facelift and Ragnarok starts selling MVP boss cards in the item mall.

My new pRO Brand Manager, Ryan Sacares, joins my brand management team and steers pRO to even greater heights. Ryan gets to work and sets off the new Midgard Congress to get the feedback of the community. As another milestone, I was assigned to lead and manage the entire Level Up MMORPG portfolio – RO, RF, PW and FlyFF. Waukster takes the reins of the Casual Games group (CK, Grand Chase, Be There, SRO) and advergaming. They immediately get to work and announce another new casual game – Grand Chase.

September is also my birthday month and special thanks to everyone who remembered. Appreciation and gratitude also goes to Waukster for featuring me in his blog for a birthday interview. Thanks, brother.

We also launch a new website – Level Up Music featuring both old and new Level Up songs done by famous local artists. Barrio was a big hit!

And let’s not forget, my Babes for September – Mariah Carey , Veronica Zemanova , Leah Dizon , Carrie Keagan and Hwang Mi Hee

4TH QUARTER

OCTOBER

It’s the last quarter storm! And it’s time for LIVE 2008!

During the first week of October,  RPC is down to its FINAL 8 to determine who will represent our country to fight in the coming RWC at LIVE. The Bozanian Beastfighers (Boza) came out on top as the Philippine Champions. Still at RO, and with a new team, we release the first official video trailer of Demise of Morroc featuring the PVP Battlegrounds. We also told everyone that Myung Jin Lee, the creator of Ragnarok, will be a special guest at LIVE 2008.

The entire Level Up team is down to the last stretch as we get ready for LIVE 2008 – our biggest gaming event yet for October 18 and 19. With competitors from more than 21 countries, all eyes were on us so we had to work double time and do the sprint.

Team Thailand – RWC Champions

Check out the highlights of LIVE 2008:

• Day 1 Updates
• Day 2 Updates
• Live 2008 Music Video
• Team Philippines loses to Thailand

Thailand came out as the RWC 2008 Champions edging out Korea. Too bad we lost… but there’s still the next RWC! And our boys gave it their all. Hats off to the Philippine team. We’re proud of you.

LIVE 2008 was truly an event of firsts, the Filharmonika Orchestra performed the theme of Ragnarok for the first time in a gaming event, it’s the first time that the RWC was held outside of Korea – and more. I’m proud to be a part of this historic event. Thanks to everyone who attended and supported the event – it would not have been succesful without you. Congrats to all winners of the tournaments, side-events and contests, too!

October’s gotta be our busiest month ever! Level Up CEO Jane Walker and yours truly announce 3 new games (at LIVE) that we acquired and are going to launch in 2009

• Rohan Online
• Emil Chronicles Online
• Hello Kitty Online

NOVEMBER

First, have a look at how Level Up celebrates the Halloween here.

After the successful LIVE 2008 event, there’s no rest for the wicked as we immediately drill down the details for the coming Ragnarok Server Merge, the 3 p2P servers will merge into NEW CHAOS with a new, cheaper subscription rate, tons of events and a lot of promos and discounts for the Ragnarok gamer. New Chaos was born on November 14, 2008.

Meanwhile, FlyFF gets new blood as we launched V12 – The Forsaken Tower.

I travel to Korea for the annual GStar 2008 game convention and get to see a lot of cool, new games. As always, the experience was a blast. The girls this year were hot, hot, hot!

The Girls of GStar 2008

The Rohan online presence also gets born via its official plurk page, teaser site and other SNS essentials. Rohan is clearly an anticipated title. Me and the rest of the gang are all excited about this game.

Finally, for November, allow me to present the Babes: Sunshine Rodriguez , Girls of GStar 2008 Part 1 , Girls of Gstar 2008 Part 2 , and Justene Jaro

DECEMBER

Ahh… 2008 is almost over. The year went through like a breeze.

Our Multimedia team led by Joey Allarilla and Kevin Codamon do MMO TV via the web in the Merry LU Christmas Video Feed. Here, we have our GMs and other guests chat and interact with the community. I do my regular Christmas shopping, finish up my gift list and start playing Left 4 Dead, one of the best games this year! Yeba! I love the zombie pop culture!

Meanwhile, me and my team are busy trying to prep up the Rohan CBT and plan for Q1 of 2009 for all the MMO brands. We’ve got a lot of surprises for everyone and we’re gonna announce it first thing in January.

===

Whew! That’s it folks!

That was a long one. I hope you all enjoyed last year. 2008 was a great and memorable year for me, my blog and the local gaming industry. Thanks to you, my dear readers, for continuing to visit and support gmtristan.com and all our Level Up games. Thanks also to all members of my team and the rest of the guys at Level Up for bearing with me and for helping out with the tons of projects, deadlines and the rest of the work. Props to you, guys!

I promise more kewl stuff, posts, vids, girls, games and gadgets for 2009!

May the coming year bring you health, success and prosperity.

I hope the gaming gods will be kind. May the drops be plentiful and may all the boss monsters fall at your blade!

Strength and Honor!

Mon Macutay (aka GM Tristan)

(c) 2009 www.gmtristan.com

As promised, here are photos of booth babes from the Gstar 2008 event here in Seoul, Korea.

I had a lot of meetings and activities and only managed to photograph a few of the babes. But don’t worry, I’ll get more on day 2 hopefully.

Enough about me, on to the babes…

GSTAR 2008 BOOTH BABES (copyright 2008 gmtristan.com)

Hope you enjoyed. I’ll be posting more photos about the event and more babes tomorrow. Stay tuned!

Gotta go…

GM T

>> Compare them to the 2007 Gstar Booth Babes

Ey peeps!

Great news! This week, we finally launched the official website of Level Up LIVE 2008. Point your browsers to

http://www.levelupgames.ph/live2008/

This year’s motiff for LIVE 2008 is an Olympic feel. And yes, the BIGGEST online gaming event just got better. I’d like to thank everyone who worked really hard to put together the site. Project Manager Alex Mena, of course (ever dependable), Sansan, Daqs and everyone at creatives. The individual Head Judges per game (the Community Managers), the game Brand Managers, ICT and Webdev, GPS, New Media, Events and everyone who pitched in. Thanks so much for a fantastic job!

Note that I have a new category for LIVE 2008.

In the meantime, try to visit the site this week. We will have an explosive announcement to make.

Cheers!

GM T

A couple of days ago, we unvieled the official teaser page of LIVE 2008. We’ve managed to embed a playlist with new videos culled from the GM T/Level Up Youtube Channel. Thanks to the efforts of our Creative team, Project Manager Alex M and webdev! Sweet!

This marks the beggining of yet another great tournament season for LIVE. I am still the overall tournament director and, together with the team, am very excited about the line up of tourneys and events for LIVE 2008.

Level Up! has always been, and always will be, about online games, tournaments, and you, the gamer!

And this year, you’ll experience a different Level Up! Live!
To celebrate the spirit of the Filipino Gamer, the biggest online gaming event, Live 2008, will host more heart-pounding tournaments which will bring honor and glory to a champion’s name! 2008 will be the year of the Level Up! Gamer!

Anyways, for the weekend, I’m off to Baguio today to do some field work on Internet Cafes there. I’ll be back on Sunday.

But Wait! There’s more! Want to win 200 Immortal Stones? Join the Perfect World Billboard blog contest today.

I’m currently heading early preparations for LIVE 2008. And yes, the Philippines’ BIGGEST and BEST online gaming event will be even bigger (and badder) this year.

Currently, the various head judges for the 5 tournaments for Ragnarok, Perfect World, RF Online, FlyFF and Freestyle are finalizing the new tournament rules and mechanics. We’re also busy laying out the foundations for the theme of this year’s Live. I can’t share it with you right now but I promise that you’ll hear it from me very soon.

Meanhwile, If you want to get the inside stuff on Live 2008, I suggest you add the LIVE friendster account to yours. The profile page is

http://profiles.friendster.com/leveluplive

and the e-mail is

live.levelup@gmail.com

I’ll wait for it, ok? Feel free to spread the word.

Meanwhile, check out the new LIVE 2007 event videos I uploaded to the Level Up Youtube Channel.

Mabuhay!

GM T

Hi all gamers!

I’m inviting to be with me and Level Up since we are part of the POGS (Philippine Online Gaming Summit) 2008 ReRoll event. This event will happen (all day) on Sunday, Jan 13, 2008 at the new Trinoma Mall in Quezon City.

We have lots of gimmicks in our booth. I’ll be there with some of my Brand Managers, Community Managers and GMs. So, I hope to seeya there as well.

Oh, did I say that I am giving away a brand new NINTENDO DS at the event? Hell, yeah! How to join after the jump…

MECHANICS

Eligibility

a. Everyone attending the event can join.

Duration and Schedule
a. The event will be on Sunday, January 13, 2008
b. The event will be a whole day affair
c. The raffle will be for that day only

General Conditions
a. To join, simply go to the registration booth and get a raffle passport.
b. The passport will have 3 stamp areas to be completed with 3 different tasks.
c. These tasks will be:
i. Registration (via pen and paper) at the registration table
ii. Play a Level Up! MMO that you have not played yet (RF, PW, RO or FlyFF) for 10 minutes.
iii. Play 1 game of Freestyle.
d. To complete the tasks, simply go to the game trial area and play your chosen game.
e. Once all the 3 tasks are completed, you can then go to the PICK-A-PRIZE area to try your luck to win instant goodies like poring dolls, button pins, RF dogtags or Level Up Gamer Sims
f. Drop the lower portion of your stub in the drop box.
g. Every hour or so, there will be random draw of winners of the consolation prizes throughout the day (see below). Winners will be posted at the Level Up! booth.
h. Before the end of the day, grand raffle winners will be drawn.
i. For PICK –A-PRIZE: You instantly win the prize indicated once you draw it. The number SHOULD be returned to the tambiolo.
j. For the GRAND RAFFLE – The winners will be randomly drawn and announced before the day ends. If you are not present during the announcement, your prize will be forfeited. Another entry will be drawn until all the prizes have been awarded.

Prizes
Day-Long Raffle
Poring Dolls (10 winners)
RF Jackets (5 winners)
Grand Raffle – Nintendo DS Lite (1 winner)
Consolation Prizes – 5 winners of P1,000 Level Up top-up card

I’ve scheduled this post to be automatically posted at 11:59PM tonight. This is my last post for the year.

And what a year it was! Thanks to all those who supported gmtristan.com in 2007. I had some ups and downs during my career and even while blogging. But the blog has helped me keep sane through all the months of hard work and stress. It’s an outlet to release some creativity in me and to help me share something I love with those with the same passion. I’m sure the Waukster shares the same sentiment. Hapy New Year, Carlo!
So, let’s raise our glasses for the coming New Year and bid adieu 2007! Here’s to more Girls, Games and Gadgets and more of gmtristan.com in 2008!

And since I can’t have real fireworks on the site, let’s make some noise with a video…

That, after the jump…

Happy New Year, everyone!

Cheers,

GM T