A Gaming Diary
Archive for July, 2008
Korg DS-10 (DS)
Jul 30th
I borrowed a cable off someone in the office, used Windows Sound Recorder to record the output from the DS, then copied the resulting WAV file to my Mac and converted it to MP3 in iTunes. Lots of fun, that was. Why on earth doesn’t my iMac have a line-in socket? For pity’s sake, Apple. Sigh.
Anyway, I made a song called Jason and you can listen to it by clicking THIS LINK.
Animal Crossing: Wild World (DS)
Jul 30th
There’s a new resident in Venture! His name is Lobo and he’s a wolf. Difficult to tell before guys have unpacked, but he seems cool. He’s on the dudes’ side of the river, along with Frobert and Big Top, so I hope he fits in. Whenever ladies move in on that side of the river they never stay long.
Korg DS-10 (DS)
Jul 30th
Made my first “song” last night that I liked enough to keep. It’s called Ransom and it’s slow, with a lot of weird effects and suchlike. If I can find a cable and recording software to get music off the DS I may put it up for your pleasure.
Super Smash Bros Brawl (Wii)
Jul 30th
Finished Subspace Emissary mode last night. I don’t think I’ve unlocked all the characters doing that, though. I’m sure Wind Waker Link was meant to be the game, but maybe that was a filthy rumour. I also played some 1v1 brawls against the computer and designed my first stage. Turns out, having tunnels in Smash Bros game is a bad idea, so I’ve changed it a bit.
Korg DS-10 (DS)
Jul 29th
Back in about 1990, a friend of mine bought a second hand Roland SH-101 synth for £45. I was very jealous, despite the fact that I have no musical talent and wouldn’t have had a clue what to do with it.
Now, I’m never going to get an SH-101 (have you seen the prices these days?) but I do now have the Korg DS-10. Okay, so you tap away with the stylus instead of physically moving knobs and switches. And the sound quality isn’t as good. But, you know what? It’s £30 imported from Japan and it makes me feel good. It’s very limited in sequencing terms and seems to be designed as a live tool, but what you’ve got works very well and there’s lots of stuff to play around with. I don’t know the terms, I don’t know what I’m doing, I can only seem to make a horrible repeating racket, but it makes me happy.
It’s a toy, but it’s had a lot of thought put into it. It gives me a lovely feeling of being musical and creative even when I’m just making horrible noise. And, most of all, unlike homebrew music apps, it’s official. It’s an official Korg synth. This makes a world of difference to me, though I’m not sure why.
(It’s also all in English. Well, if you can call baffling acronyms and abbreviations English.)
Animal Crossing: Wild World (DS)
Jul 29th
So many weeds. So many that the town actually featured a huge corpse flower, which I didn’t know you get in Crossing and my wife had heard about but considered a myth.
My wife popped over from her new town of Arkham and we managed to pick them all. Saw all my old chums. Went over to Arkham to meet new people and see a couple of animals from my town of Venture who had moved in there.
Alfonso was very fussy about what he considered to be a rare fish, but at least I got a Kitchen Tile floor out of it.
It was nice to be back after so long, especially with my wife. Before we lived in the same country we used to play Animal Crossing over wifi all the time. We’d sit on the phone talking why pottering about in each other’s towns. Definitely helped us feel closer, so I have a strong emotional attachment to the game.
I’m not sure how long I’ll be playing it again for, but it is good to come back for visit. And it would be very nice to pay off my final loan some time, too.
PixelJunk Eden Demo (PS3)
Jul 27th
Well, that’s a surprise. Didn’t know what this was, but it appears to be a mix of LocoRoco, Wik and Flow. Or something. Some frustration when you get really high only to miss a jump and fall all the way back down to the bottom of the level, but otherwise it’s completely lovely once you get used to the controls.
I am most definitely interested in the full version now.
Super Stardust HD (PS3)
Jul 27th
Had to download a 255MB update before it would let me play it. I think it was just to add in trophy support – the PS3 equivalent of Achievements. Being rubbish at the game I didn’t actually manage to earn any. Well, it was part being rubbish and part the fact that I haven’t spent cash on the upgrade packs that add some extra game modes. Still, it’s a great shooter regardless of all that extra stuff.
Too Human Demo (360)
Jul 27th
Seems to be okay, but it’s hard to tell given the sheer amount of incredibly tedious cut scenes you have to sit through. I like killing robot monsters, I like getting new equipment, I like getting new skills. I don’t like having to sit around doing nothing and I don’t like that it’s so dark that it’s almost impossible to play on a sunny day.
Super Smash Bros Brawl (Wii)
Jul 27th
So, I picked this up in Tesco because it was on special offer.
Got home to find they’d left the security tag in it. Took about twenty minutes to get the box open and the disc out. They’re very well designed, those tags. Started up the Wii, only to find the hand cursor wouldn’t appear. After some fiddling I found the problem – my lovely cat had bitten through the cable. Oh yay. Got a couple of night lights set up in front of the TV and managed to get enough of a signal from them to start the game. Then it was just a question of turning on my Wavebird controller which is, thankfully, fully supported once you’re into the game. Pity you can’t control the Wii menu with one.
Played a lot on Friday night, then – once more using the night light trick – on Saturday. I must have played it a lot, because I unlocked something for playing for over ten hours at some point on Saturday afternoon.
Verdict? Well, it’s certainly addictive. Hours disappear like minutes when you play. There’s tons of great stuff to unlock – characters, trophies, stickers, music. etc. There’s an awful lot to it. A huge one player game mode that I’m still only half-way through. Lots of events and mini games. A “Classic” mode I’ve not even looked at yet. The normal multiplayer game, that is great fun to play in single player against AI. And a slowdown-ridden buy playable online mode. Then there’s the extra bits – arrange your trophies, use coins to get new trophies and stickers in a shooting mini-game, a stage builder and probably more I’m forgetting.
It’s a massive package and for the price you can get it for now, it’s a complete bargain.
