A Gaming Diary
Mobile
Tower Bloxx
Apr 21st
I’ve got 10,568 people living in my city now, but it’s getting really tricky to find ways to get more in. I really need to think about how the layout rules work.
It’s a head-scratcher, planning this city.
Chu Chu Rocket Demo
Apr 20th
A mobile phone demo, that is. You can get it for free, with no hidden nastiness that I’ve noticed, by texting CHUCHU to 60030 if you’re in the UK, which will give you a link to the WAP site. So, er, that’s free apart from any WAP charges. Which is slightly different.
There’s not much of it, truth be told. Took me less than two minutes to do the three puzzle levels and the challenge level included in the demo. Really could have done with a bit more meat, maybe including some of the harder levels from the 100 included in the full game. The three “puzzles” in the demo are ridiculously trivial.
Ah well, I won’t buy it, at least not right now. But I might dig up my old GBA copy and shove it in my Micro tonight.
Oh, and you can play it for free online here.
Tower Bloxx
Apr 20th
I’ve now filled my city with towers and it has a population of 7,980 and is level 14/20.
I’ve been given a parade by my citizens… and been told that to get to the highest city level I need a population of 19,000.
This may take longer than I was expecting.
Tower Bloxx
Apr 20th
BAD THING: It’s bloody hard to play on a moving bus.
GOOD THING: My city building progress has slowed down a lot, which should help me get a few more precious minutes from that mode.
Tower Bloxx
Apr 19th
Decided to download this for my phone after reading this review. Took me bloody ages to find somewhere selling it, but found it on Yahoo! in the end. Seems to be a reasonable €3 and that doesn’t seem to involve signing up for anything nasty.
Anyway, I’ve had a go and it’s good fun. Another example of one-button gaming, like Skipping Stone, but with a more fleshed out main mode where you have to build a city. It gets complicated because bigger towers, as well as being harder to build, can only be placed near certain other towers, so city layout becomes a head-spinning challenge. Well, it is for me. I’ve laid out my city in a bad way, so I need to recover it. Luckily, you can overwrite old buildings.
Only concern for now is that after a few minutes of play I’ve got up to level 11 of 20, but I can always replay. And there’s the endless high score mode there, too.
It’s one of those games that seems stupidly easy when everything’s going okay, but then can turn into a disaster with one false move. Rhythm, you see.
Sonic The Hedgehog
Mar 29th
The music’s right, too. Which is very good. No sound effects, mind.
And I’ve got to the end of Green Hill Zone now, but the pathetically easy boss killed me. D’oh.
It really is a fantastic achievement this game and it looks absolutely wonderful. It’s just a pity that there’s a better version from fifteen years ago to compare it to.
Sonic The Hedgehog
Mar 29th
It’s come out on mobile phones now. A surprisingly faithful conversion. Controls aren’t as good as on a proper gaming device, obviously, but they’re far better than I expected them to be. (Using the K750i thumbstick.) It’s nice and fast, too, and seems to have the same level layouts as the Megadrive original, as far as I can remember.
Well, so far. I’ve not got past Green Hill Zone Act 2 yet. As I said, the controls are much better than expected, but aren’t perfect. Having to stop pressing right to press jump is a bit odd.
Monkey Ball Mini Golf
Mar 20th
A well-designed little mobile phone mini golf game with a Monkey Ball skin.
Just gone through the eighteen hole course once. Got a total of 2,410 points, which is probably rubbish. Some holes I ran out of bananas on, so didn’t get any points at all.
Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones
Mar 7th
Completed!
Total time spent playing was probably around an hour. That’s all right for £1.50, I reckon.
