A Gaming Diary
Archive for April, 2006
Animal Crossing: Wild World
Apr 16th
Big Top’s sick.
Wolfgang’s moved out.
Katie’s lost again and needs to get back to Vatican.
Elder Scrolls: Oblivion
Apr 16th
Some more Oblivion gates closed and a bit more of the main quest completed.
Not sure what else can happen in the main quest, but it can’t be finishing quite yet, so there must be a twist or two to come.
Football Manager Handheld
Apr 15th
Well, that’s better. I just turned it on for a game before bed, ended up having two. I changed my formation to 4-3-3 so I could play Kuffour in a position he’s more comfortable in and that one change seems to have worked magic. I won my next league match, 2-0 at home against Mansfield. Good result.
But the next game was even better. We were away to Swindon in the League Cup. They’re a division higher than us, so I didn’t hold out much home, but we scored twice in the first five minutes, then Walton came on as a second half sub and hammered one home in the eighty-forth minute, just to really kick Swindon when they were down. Excellent stuff.
And I’ve bought a chap called Lee Goodwin from Dagenham & Redbridge. He’s really just to cover the right side where I’m short on players, but I brought him on as a late sub in the Swindon game and he didn’t seem to do badly. Got a six and we kept a clean sheet, but probably not really much of test.
Football Manager Handheld
Apr 15th
Had this sitting next to me for a couple of days, but hadn’t dared start it up until this evening. Faffed around for ages and ages trying to decide who to manage, so in the end went for the random option. The game chose Torquay United for me. Suits me. I don’t feel ready for the Premiership quite yet. And I’ve just check the BBC web site and Torquay are bottom of the real League Two, so I can’t do any worse than reality.
Anyway, got two or three rubbish players on free transfers, just so I’d have some cover. Not that that made me feel much better when my two most expensive players picked up long term injuries in pre-season training. I took the fitness part of the training regime down to “light” after that and haven’t had anything more than an odd knock since.
I did well in my three pre-season friendlies – two wins and a draw. But the league’s proving to be a different matter. First match, lost 2-1 away at Wycombe, then lost 1-0 at home to Oxford. We’ve just picked up our first point of the season in our third match, away at Wrexham. Hopefully this will be the start of a good streak. Morale’s holding up okay at the moment, but a lot of players are merely satisfied and I’m sure it won’t take much to knock them down a bit. Goal for this season is survival, I think. Nothing more.
Oh, yes, and it’s very good. Works surprisingly well on the PSP.
Elder Scrolls: Oblivion
Apr 15th
Spent a few hours running around closing Oblivion gates. Not the most interesting part of the game, it has to be said. But they don’t take long. I’m really, really fast now, so I can out run just about everything. I don’t even sneak any more. I just charge through hammering my healing spell.
OutRun 2006 Coast 2 Coast
Apr 15th
Still trying the OutRun 2 continuous route on the PSP.
Still failing.
Elder Scrolls: Oblivion
Apr 15th
Argh!
It’s too hard to stop playing!
You want to do A, but to do that you need to do B, but on the way you get distracted by C, which leads to D, so then you go back and do B, but after that you find yourself doing E instead of A and then…
Elder Scrolls: Oblivion
Apr 14th
Played for about six straight hours today. I didn’t mean to… it’s just… you know… Oblivion.
Thing is, I wanted to do the main quest. But Martin wanted me to give up Axura’s Star to progress. Frankly, he’d have had to prise it from my cold, dead fingers. So I had to find another item of the same type.
Which took six hours. Okay, I got distracted a bit. Ruins to explore. Twins to reunite. Ghosts to kill. That kind of thing.
But I’ve got an item I can part with now and I’ve saved the game exactly where I was standing when I started today. Tomorrow we progress.
Animal Crossing: Wild World
Apr 14th
Deena’s sick again. I’m telling you, there’s something wrong with that bloody duck.
Yuka’s moved in. She’s a koala. Yes, I can recognise koalas now. I wasn’t always able to. The name’s a clue, too.
And I do feel sorry for everybody who hasn’t got Big Top living in their town.
Astropop Demo
Apr 14th
Block-moving puzzler.
Very boring for ages, then gets frantic and fun for about two minutes before death occurs.
And it looks bloody awful. I know graphics aren’t especially important in this type of game, but something about the look of the thing makes me clench my jaw.
And I hate “people being suspected of something they didn’t do” storylines. Sorry, that’s nothing to do with the game; I’m watching ER.
Anyway, Astropop. Full version will not be bought, I don’t think.
