Flick Kick Field Goal (iPhone)
Feb 9th
This was free to celebrate the Super Bowl – hooray for the Saints! – and is one of the best freebies in a while. It’s basically Paper Toss Evolved, or something, where you, well, flick the screen to kick the ball over the field and into the goal. Hence, you know, the name.
Watch out for that wind!
It feels just right, it varies the angle and wind nicely, has a good number of game modes, OpenFeint integration and is very polished indeed. If you missed it for free, bad luck, but I don’t think you’ll regret buying it. A great little quick game – it’s almost worth a spot in the dock.
GT Racing: Motor Academy (iPhone)
Feb 9th
The framerate seems much better in the Career mode than in the quick races I did. I suspect that’s because I was racing against three cars instead of nine, or possibly because the game starts you off with slower cars than are available for quick races. Maybe a little of both. The pop up isn’t any better, mind you.
Montreal, I believe. Looks like everyone's on strike except for us racers.
I’ve found another minor complaint, though. The career races I’ve done so far have all been four laps, which is a little long. Two or three laps would have been a better fit for an iPhone game, I think. The AI cars always seem to be just behind me, too, so I’m a bit concerned that there’s some rubber-banding going on. That’s fine in an arcade racer, but it something a little more simulation-based it seems wrong.
Still, whatever complaints I have got do have to be weighed against the important thing: the cars feel good to drive. That’s what really counts and Gameloft have – somewhat to my surprise, I have to admit – nailed it.
Doodle Jump (iPhone)
Feb 9th
I died for your sins... well, screen shots.
This seems to be my “commercial break” game of the moment. As soon as, for example, Glee went to the ads, Doodle Jump came out. It’s a good thing that I’m not good enough to play for long. Didn’t get a new high score last night, but came close enough to get into my local top ten.
Let’s not mention the times that I got distracted while starting a game and fell to my death with a score of zero, eh?
Words With Friends (iPhone)
Feb 9th
Performance lately has been woeful, with it taking a couple of minutes or so to send turns. It hasn’t stopped me playing, but it’s been very annoying – and given the lack of turns coming in, I’m guessing other people are having problems, too.
Hail the power of the sea cow!
That and the “Performance improvements coming soon” message at the bottom of the screen. That also gave me a clue. I’m up there with Batman as the world’s greatest detective, me.
Bayonetta (360)
Feb 9th
It’s been too long. I’ve not played Bayonetta in a couple of weeks or so, but an hour spent with it last night reminded me of just how good it is.
I went through chapter six from beginning to end. I found huge monsters, protected an annoying child and didn’t have to sit through too many cut scenes. The flow of the combat is just right and even rubbish old me is able to build combos and feel like I’m actually fighting, not just mashing buttons.
I also can’t help be charmed by its silliness. I know some people have commented that they’re embarrassed to play it, because of the sexy cheese filling, but I have no such qualms.
Sexy Cheese Filling
It’s absurdly wonderful and a very, very special game indeed. I’m actually very glad that I can’t afford many console games these days, because there’s less chance of a game being left unplayed and I do want to give Bayonetta the time it deserves. I’ve only put in six hours so far and it’s not nearly enough.
(And, yes, I got another Stone medal at the end of the chapter – I’d managed to miss out one of the verses. Oh, and I died about a million times. Well, six or seven. Something like that.)
Sonic & SEGA All-Stars Racing Demo (360)
Feb 9th
It’s basically Sonic Kart, but with loads of Sega characters, from the iconic to the obscure, and a lovely drifting mechanic.
The framerate is horrible. Not ModNation horrible, but very bad indeed. They’ve said it’s early code and fixed in the final release, though, and I trust them.
I also think they probably should have had it set on the easier difficulty by default, because I didn’t come better than fourth in the five races I played.
Apart from those two points, though, I really, really liked it. It’s colourful, full of characters I either love outright or have a nostalgic affection for and the drifting is lovely. I had a horrible day yesterday – surprise root canal surgery! – and then the sunny Sonic Seganess of the game put a smile right back on my face before bed.
I’m almost certain I’ll buy it at launch after that, if I possibly can.
Still, though, it’s another weapon-based racer, so anyone annoyed with the whole “get hit by an item and go from third to eighth in the final lap” mechanic that all these games feature should probably steer clear. Good thing there’s a demo to help you decide, eh?
GT Racing: Motor Academy (iPhone)
Feb 8th
First impressions of Gameloft’s new “serious” racer.
I got this for Laguna Seca, which thankfully is unlocked for quick racing from the start. (In fact, there are a good amount of cars and tracks unlocked in that mode at the beginning. I’m not sure if it’s all of them, but it’s a good selection.) I need Laguna Seca with me at all times, so I’ve been waiting for this game with baited breath.
First off, it’s a bit of a mess technically. It’s all a little “bitty” and sometimes hard to read at distance, not helped by some amazing (in a bad way) pop up. Opponents often seem to be floating above the track a bit. The framerate ducks and dives like a featherweight boxer, too. And either Laguna Seca is hillier in this version than in other games, or there’s some oddness with the view point, because you can definitely see less of the track ahead of you. (Possibly done on purpose to minimise the pop up?)
Yes, it has replays. I assume from the icon you can upload them to YouTube.
There’s all sorts of settings and driving aids. I turned stability management down to half and braking assist off entirely, stuck with the tilt controls and found a surprisingly good driving model. It’s not as simulation-based as I expected, but it’s no Ridge Racer and it’s really rather exciting and satisfying.
I didn’t get a good look at any opponent AI that may or may not exist, but there doesn’t seem to be any damage model at all.
After a few races of Laguna Seca in a couple of different cars I went into Career mode. If the game wasn’t an obvious rip-off of Gran Turismo before, it certainly is here.
I've rarely seen anything more blatant.
You have to pass tests to get your licence, then buy a car, all that malarky. I’ve only got by C licence and had a look at the available cars so far.
Based on half an hour or so, then, this is a horrible rip-off, fairly ugly and a technical mess, but seems to be saved by the amount of licensed content and a genuinely decent driving model. It’s definitely more than good enough for what I want – which, to remind you, is Laguna Seca in my pocket – but playing it when I’ve actually got my PSP with me would be idiocy.
One Button Bob (Web)
Feb 8th
I read Rock, Paper, Shotgun, despite not having a gaming PC. (I do have a PC, but its last upgrade was about four years ago now and it won’t play most modern games.) I read it because it’s written well enough to be interesting about games I don’t have much interest in, they often talk about games I can play on my consoles and because it links to interesting web-based games.
Which is where One Button Bob comes in.
I like its chunky looks.
It’s a nice, short platform game that you control using the left mouse button. What that button bodes changes depending on the screen. Sometimes it makes you walk, sometimes it makes you stop, sometimes it makes you jump, etc.
It’s a good little lunchtime distraction and I got to the end in somewhere between three hundred and four hundred clicks. I wish I’d remembered exactly how many, so you could have competed against me.
Terminator Salvation (iPhone)
Feb 8th
Excellent shooter. I’d played the demo a lot, then bought the game ages ago for 59p in a sale, but hadn’t got around to playing it.
Look! It's a real Terminator! Not Generic Enemy Robot #63.
Started it up yesterday afternoon, didn’t stop until I’d finished the game. So, yes, it’s short. I’m not sure how short, but at a guess it took three or four family guys to get to through. Maybe five. Over an hour, I reckon, but less than two. (These Family Guys were on the BBC, so no commercials.)
It’s got a nice cover mechanic, the licence helps the atmosphere enormously and there are even some decent vehicle levels. It’s very easy on Normal, yes, but I didn’t feel like that was a bad thing.
You get to ride a Terminator motorcycle over the Golden Gate bridge. Awesome.
The only bad point I can think of is the reliance on laser beams that turn on and off to slow things down. It’s a bit of a lame way to try and make the game a bit longer.
Still, I enjoyed my run through the game enormously and consider it to be 59p well spent.
I have to wonder why Gameloft took the “tilt to aim” option out of their more recent shooters. It’s definitely the best way to play and lack of that option in Modern Combat really hurts the game. Strange.
Doodle Jump (iPhone)
Feb 8th
I didn’t think I liked Doodle Jump, but I played it for hours over the weekend. Hours.
I'm going to die. I know it.
It started with a tweet. One of my friends posted their high score, so I responded with my high(er) score. They then beat that score and we went back and forth for a while until I got a 32K monster score that’s going to take some beating.
(Not that 32K is huge in the general scheme of things, but it’s a lot bigger than the scores we’d been getting before.)
I still don’t like tapping the screen to shoot, but you can mostly get away without doing that and playing for a long time has helped me realise how well-designed the random level generation actually is. It must take some skill to gradually make things harder without ever making it impossible.
I’m a convert.