A Gaming Diary
Archive for September, 2007
Sega Rally (PSP)
Sep 30th
I’ve made my way through a few championships now and my first impressions seem to be pretty much spot on.
I’m still not entirely sure how to maximise my speed around corners, especially in the Apline stages. I really think I need to play with sound on for a while, because the tyre sounds will probably give a little bit of extra feedback.
The PSP really has some great racing games. Ridge Racer, OutRun, TOCA and now this. (I still dream of a re-release of OutRun with a decentg framerate, though.)
Halo 3 (360)
Sep 29th
Today, I made my peace with level eight. It still wasn’t great, but by taking things more slowly I died less and didn’t get lost so much. It’s not up to the standards of the other levels and it’s much too long, but it’s not as bad as I thought.
Level nine, the final level, was just plain awesome. To both the extreme and the max.
And that was the end. I remembered to wait through the credits to see the final cutscene, and was very glad I did, as it explained something that confused me in the pre-credits cutscene.
Overall opinion of the single-player campaign? Well, I’m sure you can guess. It’s brilliant.
Then, of course, there’s multiplayer. I played three matches in Basic Training and actually won one of them. And not by a little. By a lot. The next match I came dead last in, but I had my moment of victory.
After that I decided to go back to the single player, with scoring turned on this time. I didn’t expect to see anyone, but someone on my friends list joined me. Not sure who they are, really, being a slightly random name, but we played through the first half of the first mission in complete silence and then they quit. Why I didn’t say anything, I don’t know. I’m regretting it now. But I was just confused at first at the fact that there was another player with me, which I hadn’t expected, and as the silence grew it became more difficult to break. I really want to try it with some talking friends sometime.
Clive Barker’s Jericho Demo (360)
Sep 29th
This is a squad-based FPS, which seems to be set in a crumbling castle or citadel of some sort populated by bondage-tinged horrors. It’s difficult to tell, as it’s just about the darkest game ever. Very atmospheric, but it’s really quite annoying. I took to using one character’s fire bomb move just to light the place up, rather than kill anything. Still, it’s good fun, if short.
If this came out in a February or a March I’d be cautiously interested, but post-Halo and pre-Orange Box and Mario Galaxy it’s really going to get lost. It’s on my “possibly pick up for under a tenner in the sales” list.
Sega Rally (PSP)
Sep 28th
I’ve just spent half my lunch hour going testing this out. At first it felt very odd, as the handling isn’t the same as the 360 version, leaning very slightly further towards the real world than that version. If it rates an eleven out of ten on the ridiculous-arcade-handling-meter on the 360 then it gets a nine on the PSP.
It also doesn’t seem to have the same track deformation technology as its big brother, but it’s still a great achievement. The framerate seems solid, the pop-up is limited to objects a very, very long way away and there are even some persistant objects that can get spread out over the track during the race, such as tyres, rocks and fenceposts. (Well, it is a Bugbear game, after all.)
I started off doing a few races in Quick Race mode, getting used things. I found that the d-pad works better than the nub and the wobbling bonnet-cam view is better than the default chase-cam view and was ready to get stuck in, so it was on to the first Championship. I won the first two races with ease, but the third and final race was on ice and snow and I only managed to finish third due to a terrible first lap.
Overall, I’m very happy with the game. I probably should have waited until this evening to play it, because now I’ll be itching to get back all afternoon while I’m working. Somehow web design has lost its allure.
Halo 3 (360)
Sep 28th
Last night I played a lot of single player and got up to the penultimate level, level eight.
Now, level eight is already infamous online with The Internet deeming it to be a rubbish level in an otherwise stunning game. In this case, The Internet is right. It’s bloody atrocious. Incredibly repetitive in the most annoying fashion, badly checkpointed, far too easy to get lost in, despite basically being a single corridor, and with dull and annnoying combat.
Last night I was thinking that it wasn’t up to Halo standards, but was still the standard of a decent FPS, but in the cold light of day I feel it may not even be that good. It’s like a bad FPS and Halo is a bad game while you’re playing it.
Shame, as all the levels preceeding it were incredible. Absolutely marvellous. So many great moments and all I could think while playing was “I can’t wait to play this again.” I’m itching to finish the game so I can play through it all again, but I’m not going to be looking forward to level eight, unless it somehow clicks when I try it again next time I play.
Halo 3 (360)
Sep 26th
I am loving this.
However, after playing the single player for an hour or so I accepted a game invite for some multiplayer fun, assuming the game had been saving my progress as I’d been going along.
It seems not.
Looks like I’ll have to restart, but I really don’t mind, given the fun I had first time round.
Geon Demo (360)
Sep 25th
I quite liked this. Felt a bit random, but an enjoyable waste of time nonetheless. Didn’t really click with me and I never noticed my opponent scoring, but it was fun enough.
Possibly, maybe 400 points of fun. Not 800 points of fun though, I’m afraid.
Sega Rally Demo (360)
Sep 25th
I’m playing this demo far too much, you know. I really don’t like how much I like this game, if you know what I mean. It’s starting to feel dangerous.
LocoRoco Cocoreccho (PS3)
Sep 25th
Yes, yesterday not only did I turn my PS3 on, but I actually played a game on it.
A game that cost me the princely sum of £1.99.
A game that I played for about fifteen minutes before turning off.
A fun, charming and cute fifteen minutes that I shall return to, mind, don’t get me wrong. Why on earth Sony are marketing this as an “interactive screensaver” I don’t know. It’s a game, pure and simple. Not a very big game, but the price of two quid is pretty spot on. More of this sort of thing, please.
Metal Slug Anthology (PSP)
Sep 22nd
I’ve had this a while, but keep forgetting the post about it, as I only play it for odd moments. I’ve only been playing the first game and not continuing. I’ve got to the second stage and to the top position on the leaderboard. Unfortunately, though your high score is saved with your general profile, the high score table for each game is only saved if you save the individual game. It’s a bit of pain and some sort of autosave wouldn’t go amiss.
Oh, and it looks very, very lovely indeed on the PSP and plays very well.
