A Gaming Diary
Archive for February, 2008
Sid Meier’s Pirates! (360)
Feb 16th
Elite, only top down. And set in the Pacific Ocean in the late seventeenth century, not in space. And with lots of mini games.
It’s very addictive.
Hitman: Blood Money (360)
Feb 16th
A thread on rllmuk inspired me to play this again. Stuck it on Rookie mode to see what difference it makes. The answer? A lot. For example, it’s perfectly possible to run into A Night At The Opera, shoot one target dead, shoot the other, then run back out of the level. Not a very elegant solution, but it works. I can’t imagine it would be so easy on Expert difficulty.
Poker Smash Demo (360)
Feb 14th
I quite liked this. It’s another tile-matching game, but uses poker hands. Traditional, but novel. Seemed fun.
Got ready to spend 400 points on it, only to discover that it’s 800. No sale.
Commanders: Attack of the Geos Demo (360)
Feb 14th
Stupid name, poor graphics, but it seems like there’s a decent strategy game there. I was rubbish at it and nearly failed the training level. I’ve not deleted the demo, but I don’t really plan on buying it.
Black (360)
Feb 14th
How I remember Black: A great FPS spoiled by unskippable cut scenes and a bizarre and horrible save system.
How Black felt this morning: An average FPS spoiled by unskippable cut scenes and the fact that it’s not The Club.
Unfair, that. I just kept wanting to play it like The Club. I wanted short bursts and a sprint button and most of all I wanted points. It just felt empty killing people without numbers appearing over their heads. Anyway, I’ll go back when I’m in a different mood.
The Club (360)
Feb 14th
Spent an hour or so on the Gondola in Sixty Seconds level. Managed to get to 18th on the leaderboard table, which wasn’t bad. Not sure where the bonus enemy is, though. He might be appearing as a regular enemy, for all I know, as I’ve not seen any guys running across the back of the level. I wish it would tell you how many enemies were on a level, so I’d know whether I’d got him or not.
Ghost Squad (Wii)
Feb 13th
First day with the Wii Zapper.
My accuracy was shot even after calibration, reloading was harder and I missed two bosses, but I somehow got my second best score ever.
Jury out so far.
The Club (360)
Feb 12th
I don’t normally go out of my way to get Achievements, but some for The Club sound interesting. This evening I went for the Efficiency Achievement, which involves killing all enemies on a level with fewer than fifty bullets.
Internet gossip has it that the “Veni, Vidi, Vici” level in Venice is the best one for this, so I tried it out. Only fourteen enemies, so with the pistol it should have been easy, and would have been had it not been for the fact that one of the enemies is a bonus enemy who runs quickly across the background of the screen. If you miss him, you don’t get another chance.
So, due to my poor aiming skills it took me a few goes to get the Achievement, but I got there in the end.
And then I decided to play the level some more to see how far up the leaderboards I could get. (On Reckless difficulty, as always. I’ll let you know if and when I up it to Insane.) Managed to get to twentieth before it as time for bed. Not too shabby.
Ghost Squad (Wii)
Feb 12th
Hmpf. Somebody’s been hot-linking to images on my site and it’s exceeded its bandwidth. So nobody’s going to be able to read this blog until next month. I’ll update anyway, though.
After a break last night because I took my wife to the pub, I played Ghost Squad this evening. Beat the first to bosses, but failed the third. Made up to 2nd Lieutenant Rank (oooh!) and unlocked a new costume.
