A Gaming Diary
Archive for October, 2005
Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney
Oct 23rd
Was going to install Football Manager 2006, but somehow ended up switching the DS on instead. Started episode three, but almost as soon as I did the DS’s battery light went red. Played for a while, but got too worried about the thing dying and losing all my progress, so I saved the game and plugged it into the charger.
Damn battery-powered consoles.
Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney
Oct 23rd
Hooray!
Case two finished!
Not that there’s much real skill involved. It’s definitely ‘finished’ rather than ‘won’ or ‘solved’. Doesn’t stop it being highly entertaining.
It took forty-five minutes, by the way, the final section of episode two.
Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney
Oct 23rd
Another section of episode two.
Like I said last night, it’s brilliant. It makes me laugh out loud, you know, and not many games do that.
Go buy! Go buy! Go buy!
Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney
Oct 22nd
This game is brilliant.
I’ve just done the first day of episode two’s trial.
I’m sure it’s just as linear as episode one, but the game makes me feel like I am Phoenix Wright himself. There’s enough choice to allow me to make the odd mistake and maintain the illusion (yes, just like the investigation phase, I know I’m repeating myself), but it’s probably the presentation that really does it. Flashes and crashes and outstretched-arms, it’s got the dramatic stuff turned up to eleven and it works.
Some people are going to hate it. The kind of people who see the Civilization games as, well, games in the traditional sense, with rules and goals and statistics and formulas and who try to maximise their chances of winning. Phoenix Wright is for those of us who aren’t playing a strategy game when we play Civ, it’s for those of us who are building empires.
If you see a game’s ‘skin’ – and I’m not just talking graphics – as a coating above the important bits, then Phoenix Wright probably isn’t for you. But if the skin is important, if you can suspend disbelief and lose yourself in worlds and fill in the gaps in the stories with your own invention, then grab Phoenix Wright.
Earlier this evening I took a look under the hood, as it were, as I mentioned. Just out of curiousity. But much as I sometimes like engines, it’s the experience of driving that’s really important.
I don’t know if I explained that as well as I could have, but I hope you get the point.
Is a Nintendog a cute puppy or polygon wrapped around some simple AI rules? Is Advance Wars an abstract game of strategy or a life and death struggle between opposing armies? Is the princess on another level or in another castle? Is Phoenix Wright a linear adventure game with limited interaction and relatively easy puzzles… or is he a man stuggling to prove the innocence of his clients against terrible odds?
Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney
Oct 22nd
Right, I’ve done the pre-trial part of episode two.
Traditional point and click adventure type stuff, albeit with a streamlined interface. Rather like how Riveria on the GBA streamlined RPGs, actually. Lots of clicking on things in rooms and talking to people and moving between a few different locations through the use of a menu.
I’m not sure if it’s possible to miss any evidence, or whether the game doesn’t let you proceed until you’ve found what you’re meant to find. I suspect the latter, though if so there is a very nice illusion of free will and investigation.
Good stuff this. Not one to play in short bursts, though. At least not if you have a memory like mine.
Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney
Oct 22nd
Well, I tried episode one again as an experiment.
You can’t let things go. If you cycle through all the witness testimony you just get back to the beginning until you hit upon the right the thing to do.
Or you can do the wrong thing. You can introduce a passport into evidence when you should be using an answerphone tape and then you’ll piss off the judge a bit. (Or ‘lose a life’ as we used to say.) If you piss off the judge enough he finds the defendant GUILY and it’s game over.
So, yes, expectedly linear in the trial phase, with a definite right way of doing things. That’s not a bad thing, don’t get me wrong. I was just curious.
One day someone should get the licence to top ITV3 show The Practice or Living TV’s Shatnertastic (not to mention Spaderific) Boston Legal and have a proper court case simulation where you can mess up on one witness but pull it back with an epic closing. Featuring EyeToy compatibility and advanced juror AI… or something.
(No, it wouldn’t need a licence, but I like the idea of stealing-company-money-to-pay-off-gambling-debts and sexual-banter-with-(ex)-Lara-Croft mini games.)
Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney
Oct 22nd
Well, no, as it happens. So far I have no objection to this.
I’ve just played through the first case. A simple matter of defending an old childhood friend from a murder charge. A very short case. In fact, you might well call it a tutorial. It’d be interesting to see if it’s possible to cock up, or if it leads you to make the right choices.
Anyway, I don’t want to spoil it for you, so I won’t give any plot details.
::looks around::
Do you really want to know about the mechanics of the trial process? Well, in brief, the prosecuter makes a statement and adds evidence to your inventory. And then he calls a witness, who gives evidence. Then you cross-examine the witness by going back and forth through their statement. At any point you can press them further (which I didn’t try) or go to your inventory and bring in an item of evidence. So, say they say they saw the victim being killed at three o’clock, you can introduce a shop security video that shows the victim was still alive at four. That sort of thing. And sometimes the judge asks a question and you have to give a multiple choice answer.
I believe there’s a pre-trial bit to most episodes to, but I suspect that’ll be introduced when I start the next episode.
And it’s all touch screen controls, you can save any time and it’s got that manga/anime style that’s becoming an increasingly common part of DS games. Well, Ouendan, Trauma Center and this game all turned up in close proximity, so it seems like a trend to me.
Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow
Oct 22nd
I was trying to watch Elektra.
I was trying and failing.
But I paid nearly two quid for the rental, so I didn’t want to turn it off.
So what did I do?
Exactly.
Handheld consoles are great.
(Julius mode is odd, though. I’m just whipping my way through the castle with gay abandon and no real purpose.)
Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow
Oct 22nd
Julius Mode. It’s Dawn of Sorrow old school style.
Good stuff. Just jumping and whipping and slashing without any of those modern distractions like souls and potions and stuff.
I got stuck in a room under some of those icy blocks, though, so I turned it off.
I’m really not meant to be playing Castlevania still, need to play other games in the queue. But it’s just so good.
Final Fantasy I
Oct 21st
Not much today.
Just a quick boss battle. Actually, it wasn’t a quick boss battle. It took about fifteen minutes of two people attacking, one healing and one casting ice magic. Got a judgment staff from it, but I’ve not checked to see if it’s any good yet.
Why don’t you get experience points for these boss battles, anyway? Tch.
