A Gaming Diary
360
Need For Speed: Most Wanted
Dec 17th
I still don’t know why I’m playing it.
There’s so many things wrong with it and yet it just remains fun.
Why? Why? Why?
Need For Speed: Most Wanted
Dec 15th
So I’d finally decided that I did like it despite it’s horrible, horrible graphical horribleness… and then it went and froze up on me at the exact moment a police chase ended. Obviously a software rather than a hardware problem, but it did lock up the whole Xbox.
Oh EA, how do you manage to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory like that, eh?
Wik: Fable of Souls
Dec 15th
Never heard of it until today, but it’s appeared on Live Arcade.
It’s a 2D platform game, where you swing around collecting grubs before the enemies kidnap them, all within a time limit.
A little brown and with graphics that are a little bit too small to see when sat back on the sofa – I believe it’s a PC port – but still good and playable and, um, bought. I had the points and they’re far too easy to spend. Still, should be something I’ll dip and out of for a good long time, so probably worth it.
Need For Speed: Most Wanted
Dec 11th
I can’t decide whether this is good but flawed, yet still fun or whether it’s utter rubbish, yet still fun.
Need For Speed: Most Wanted
Dec 11th
Hmm.
Hmm indeed.
See, Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit 2 was a fantastic game and people on forums and reviews have suggested that this was a return to form for the series. So I downloaded the demo and it seemed like great fun, except for having a horrific framerate. But on forums people said the full game didn’t suffer from the same issues and reviews didn’t mention it.
Which just goes to show that people are LIARS, because the framerate is rubbish. It doesn’t fluctuate too much, but it’s very low indeed. Well, if it’s not the framerate there’s something that makes the game look terribly bitty. It just doesn’t look smooth.
But I got used to that after an hour or so. Well, an hour and a half. I even almost got used to it.
The other odd thing is the colour scheme. It’s an autumnal look, giving everything a sepia tinge, which makes shortcuts and obstacles more difficult to spot than they should be. Very odd decision. I mean, it looks nice and fancy, but there’s something to be said for big bright colours, especially as it would help the actual driving.
So, is there anything good about the game at all?
Well, yes. The cut scenes are terrible, but amuse me greatly and are more entertaining than merely competent cut scenes would be. So that’s okay. And it’s structured nicely, with a certain amount of challenges to be done (in any order) before you can take on each boss. Excellently, you can either cruise round the city looking for the challenges or just bring up a quick menu and jump to any one you want. And there’s massive product placement for a brand that doesn’t even exist in this country, which is excellent.
Oh, yes, the driving/racing? It’s the very model of simple arcade handling. Pretty much spot on… except that, at least at this early stage, it lacks any sort of real character. It’s not like Project Gotham or OutRun 2, where the driving has some sort of soul to it, these cars just react like, well, old school video game cars, really. It’s not that the driving’s bad – it’s not – it’s just soulless. (Well, it is an EA game, I suppose.)
I mean it’s good, competent fun. But it hasn’t got my pulse racing yet and the graphical badness, in terms of smoothness and everything, take away some of fun. I’ll give it more time, but on first impressions, it’s looking like this isn’t anywhere near as good as Hot Pursuit 2.
Call Of Duty 2
Dec 11th
Well, I did that last level again and it still refused to believe I’d completed it. And it was still showing the Russian campaign as unplayed.
So I’ve deleted my save game and I’m going to have to start again. I think I can get away with doing the Russian cmapaign on Hardened difficulty, but everything else I’m going to have to do on Veteran.
I think the problem is that you can get to the main menus before you sign in to Live, so it got confused somehow. But it’s still very odd and not a little annoying. At least it’s good.
Call Of Duty 2
Dec 11th
GAH!
What the…?
I thought something was odd when I started playing today and it had reset the y-axis to univerted, but I played through to the end of The Battle of El Alamein. But it didn’t give me the achievement for completing it and then dumped me back to the start of the Russian campaign.
I turned off the console and turned it back on and my save game is completely knackered. It’s showing The Battle of El Alamein as uncompleted and apparently I’ve done none of the Russian campaign. The Russian campaign that took me many, many hours and which I have achievements for, to show I finished it on the hardest difficulty level.
Stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid bloody game.
Xbox 360
Dec 11th
Well, played a bit more of Call of Duty 2. Another level done. Had one tricky part, but apart from that was the easiest since the first training mission.
Then I tried out Gauntlet, but it really isn’t much fun in single player. At all.
And finally I rounded the session off with a game of Joust. Didn’t do too badly, but didn’t get near my high score. Oh well.
Call Of Duty 2
Dec 10th
Hooray! Thanks to some good advice from a chap on the rllmuk (no idea, frankly) forum I manged to get past the sticking point and managed to complete the Russian campaign. I’m quite proud of myself, even if it was little more than dogged persistence that got me through.
Done the first level of the first mission in the Brit campaign. It’s always nice to play a game with the word ‘wanker’ in it.
Geometry Wars 2
Dec 10th
So, there I was watching a DVD of The Jacket, which finished, so I reached over, grabbed my controller and leapt straight from there into a game of Geometry Wars 2, which is a nice thing to be able to do.
Didn’t get a new high score, but I probably got my second best score ever, I think. The trouble is, after about 100,000 it just seems to get stupid and there’s no way to survive beyond blind instinct and subconscious control. It just gets too much for the conscious brain, but it’s not easy to just let go and let the dark parts of the mind take over.
The zone has to be somewhere you find yourself in, not somewhere you can go and search out.
Grasshopper.
