A Gaming Diary
Archive for May, 2007
Pokemon Diamond (DS)
May 6th
Well, that’s the fourth gym done. No mention yet of being able to use traded Pokemon above level thirty though. I’ve now got a team of Pokemon I’ve caught myself.
Rainbow Islands (XBOX)
May 6th
There are people in this gaming subculture who think that some games, mainly fighting games, can’t be played with a pad, but require an arcade stick. I’ve never been convinced by this and I’m quite happy playing Street Fighter and its children with a standard controller.
However, there is one game that I can’t seem to play using a normal controller. As the title of this post might suggest, that game is Rainbow Islands. I tried the Taito Legends and the MAME version on my Xbox today and I couldn’t play either of them. Random jumping, rainbows flying everywhere, it wasn’t pretty. It’s because I need to use my thumb and not my fingers for the jumping and firing.
(Well, either that or I’m just rubbish these days. But that can’t be the explanation, can it?)
Spider-Man 2 (XBOX)
May 6th
As I’ve not got the shiny new Spider-Man 3, I decided to revisit this old thing.
The camera is rubbish, the graphics have dated horribly and it generally doesn’t feel nearly as good as I remember. Swinging around is still fun when it works properly, though, so I did some of that.
Jetpac Refeulled (360)
May 5th
Ah, now this is better than I thought it was. I may even put some time in and try to make my score slightly more respectable. I’m not bottom of my Friends Leaderboard, but I’m down there.
Lumines Live (360)
May 5th
I’d like slightly shorter games, I think. Playing for half an hour and not getting close to a high score isn’t much fun. Well, the playing part is fun, but I tend to get a little disgruntled when I die.
Earth Defence Force 2017 (360)
May 5th
Best played in half hour chunks. Bear that in mind.
It’s awesome.
Catan Demo (360)
May 5th
Hmm.
Well, the demo’s back up so I’ve given it a go.
I need to ponder any purchase decision carefully. On the plus side, it seems like a well-designed and engrossing board game. On the minus side, the interface is a bit rubbish and each game takes approximately eight days to play, which doesn’t really fit with how I use Live Arcade.
Also, I’d probably never dare play it online, so I have to base my decision on the single-player side of things. My gut is telling me to use the points, but my head’s telling me that I’d not give it enough time.
Tricky, very tricky.
Mutant Storm Reloaded (360)
May 5th
Sitting in my basement, wearing sunglasses in the gloom because my real glasses broke yesterday, playing Mutant Storm Reloaded instead of working on my novel. Well, not really “instead of”, more “after”.
Anyway, jumped in to Tally mode for the first time. Making things difficult for myself by starting each level on Black Belt and only turning the difficulty level down with the greatest reluctance. After nine levels I’ve already got a better score than half the people on my Friends Leaderboard, though.
TOCA Race Driver 3 Challenge (PSP)
May 4th
I really like having fewer games since my big PS3-funding clearout. I like the focus it gives my games collection. However, I didn’t trade in any handheld games, because they tend to be imports. I do have some UK handheld releases and I’m wondering which of those I could use as trade-in fodder now my gaming budget is approximately zero.
TOCA won’t be one of them. When I started it up I was all over the road and it’s taken me over half an hour of trying to even finish the race I was on when I last played this. And that was only in fourth place. However, despite a framerate that’s far worse than I remember, it really does have a handling model that makes driving a complete joy.
I really need to work out the best way to get rid of the import games I no longer need.
