A Gaming Diary
Archive for January, 2006
Midway Arcade Treasures 3
Jan 23rd
And then I remembered that this arrived from Play this morning, so I decided to play it.
The main game I bought it for is Rush 2049. I was a bit worried because everyone’s been saying it’s rubbish, but it turns out everyone’s wrong. The graphics haven’t aged very well and, yes, the handling is incredibly twitchy (especially on the default settings) but that’s not really important. The important thing is that the track design is as great as it ever was. I spent half an hour on one track, just searching for shortcuts, alternate routes and coins. (There are coins dotted around the track which disappear permanently when you collect them. I’m not sure if there’s any reason to collect beyond wanting to, but I want to.) I came last in every race and couldn’t find a way into a lot of the shortcuts I could see, but I had fun. Fun! Then I spent ten minutes in stunt mode and managed to miss every coin I tried to collect. Never mind. I’ll be back.
I then tried Hydro Thunder, because it’s meant to be the good game in the pack. And it’s surprisingly excellent. The first track is short and boring, but after that there are huge open tracks with lots of detail and the game bursts into life. It actually feels like racing on water, with the all the necessary bumpiness. I played it enough to unlock the Medium tracks and then quit out.
I get the feeling that either of those games would be worth the fiver I paid for the disc and there are a fair few more on there, too. (Though they’re probably rubbish.)
OutRun 2
Jan 23rd
So I played OutRun 2 instead, for the first time in ages. I went through the easiest route a couple of times, scraping in to the finish both times. I’ve lost a lot of skill.
Then i tried the hardest route and should have made it, but I completely mucked up the first corner of the final stage and ended up driving into barriers and skidding around for a good five seconds. So I only made it to the final corner before the time ran out. Gutted.
Still, it’s a glorious experience every time. I just wish the new version was coming to the 360, rather than the Xbox. I’m really noticing the softness of the low-res pictures these days, now I’m running my PC and 360 through the TV at higher resolutions. Never mind, though.
Incidentally, OutRun 2 is my favourite game of all time and my profile says I’ve only played for seventeen and a half hours in total. Add in the time played in the arcade and on my other Xbox and it’s still probably under twenty hours. I find that incredible, but it’s because every time I tunr it on it’s just for on, two or three runs through arcade mode, which takes no time at all.
DOA MIA
Jan 23rd
So I started up my old Xbox, wanting to play Dead or Alive: Ultimate to see how much I enjoyed it, to help decide if I want DoA 4 or not. But it wasn’t on my hard drive, which is odd as I definitely remember copying it there. So I looked for the box on the shelf and couldn’t find until, right at the bottom of the pile, hidden by the coffee table, I found it. But the disc wasn’t inside. So I got my old CD storage folder out because I went through a phase of storing my games in there. I found the DoA 3 disc, the DoA: Xtreme Beach Volleyball disc, but no DoA: Ultimate disc. Looked back at the box I’d found and it wasn’t the Ultimate box it was the Volleyball box. Gah.
So I can only assume I must’ve traded in DoA: Ultimate at some point and consequently deleted it from my Xbox’s hard drive, but I’ve got no memory of doing so. Most odd. And annoying.
SWAT 4 Demo
Jan 22nd
Oooh, now this was a surprise.
First off it looks lovely. I’m sure it doesn’t do as many clever things as FEAR but, to my mind, it may look even better. Secondly, it seems to mix things up a bit whenever you try a mission. At least, I found a hostage in a different place when I played the second time after get killed very quickly first time.
The only problem was that I didn’t really know what I was doing and thought I’d killed/arrested everyone, but the mission was still ongoing. I found a status screen and apparently I have to report on everybody’s status and pick up all the bad guys’ weapons. And I couldn’t be arsed to go back and do all that, so I quit out.
But it’s very tense and the interface makes ordering the squad around so simple that even I found it easy enough to find my way around. Now if I can remember to pick up weapons and things as I go next time then it’ll be ace.
I’m really very impressed indeed.
There’s an expansion out soon, which is what prompted me to download the demo of the game. I wonder if it’s on budget yet?
F.E.A.R.
Jan 22nd
Straight after installing I had to download a 122MB patch. Aren’t PCs great? Only took a few minutes download, though. I remember spending all day trying to download a 13MB patch for Carmegeddon. It took ages and it wasn’t until my third or fourth try that my net connection managed to stay up long enough for me to get it. Gah.
Oh, yes, anyway. FEAR. (Just put the full stops in mentally. I can’t be arsed to type them every time I write the name.) It’s great. It’s depressing to see so many settings on “medium” in the menus, but it runs nicely for the most part. Every now and again it’ll just die for no reason for a second or two, which is odd. But that only happened a couple of times in the hour I just played.
Anyway, so far there have been loads of fights against nasty men with guns and only one crate puzzle. So that’s okay. Thoroughly enjoyable. And, yes, it’s a bit spooky at times.
Animal Crossing: Wild World
Jan 22nd
I got stung by bees four times.
I didn’t catch a tuna.
Bah.
On the plus side, though, I did shoot down a couple more presents. The golden slingshot can’t be far away now.
Animal Crossing: Wild World
Jan 22nd
Well, I didn’t bother with turnips this week. I’m about more than making money, man.
At the moment I’m mostly about fruit trees. I’m going to wait a few days without picking any fruit so I can see which trees on the east side are fruit trees and which ones… aren’t. I’ll then cut the non-fruit ones down and replace them with nice pear, orange and peach trees. I’m thinking long term here, you see.
Anyway, today was Yay Day. In which the animals all said nice things to me – even Curt! – and I had to say nice things back. “Nice ears”, “cool trunk”, “shiny beak”, “nice arse”, that sort of thing. (Deena’s now proudly striding round Venture proclaiming that “nice arse” is her middle name.) The only animal not taking part was Frobert, who had the sickness and needed his medicine again. There’s something very wrong with that frog.
I’ve persuaded Curt to stay, which pleases me. Every town needs at least one grumpy resident. Nobody seems to be packed today, which is nice. I like getting new villagers, but I’m pretty happy with my neighbours right now.
Also completely rearranged my ground floor room… but I’m still not happy with it at all. Hmpf. Maybe I need to go for a whole new vibe, ditch the gaming/entertainment thing.
Star Wars: Empire At War Demo
Jan 22nd
Oh.
I wasn’t paying attention and just got wiped out by an AT-AT.
I wasn’t expecting that.
Xbox 360
Jan 21st
Robotron 2084 first, to check to see if the background can be removed. (I don’t think it can.)
Then a few levels of Wik, which is seriously draining for some reason. I’ve got on to levels with poisonous bugs now, which is really annoying because I have to, you know, be careful and stuff. Boo.
Then Geometry Wars 2. Hours of it. Well, about an hour of it. I got best score ever, which should be a cause for celebration, but it was only 6,000 short of the achievement-netting 250,000 mark, which put a damper on things. Just 6,000 more and I could have got some more sweet, sweet gamer points.
Star Wars: Empire At War Demo
Jan 21st
Yep, I’m going through the demos and free downloads this weekend.
Anyway, I did the incredibly long tutorial for this new RTS and it seems like it might actually be quite good.
It doesn’t seem to be doing anything too new and it doesn’t look all that great but it seems to play smoothly and, well, you can be the Empire and go round blowing up rebel bases and slaughtering Jawas. The galactic strategy Interface looks a bit fiddly for those of us not sitting with our noses against the monitor, though.
Anyway, I suppose I should actually try playing the game part of the demo at some point, but that tutorial wore me out.
Difficult to judge RTS games quickly, anyway, I suppose. Should probably wait for some reviews.
