A Gaming Diary
Archive for November, 2008
Peggle (iPod)
Nov 14th
Turned this on for one level, ended up playing three. Not too bad, then.
The music is good and seems to be different for each level, but it’s not nearly as joyful as the Star Trigion music.
(Yes, I know it includes the actual honest-to-goodness Ode to Joy, but that’s used as a sound effect, not part of the musical soundtrack – and, quite frankly, Beethoven could learn a few things from Namco about how to write properly joyful music.)
Star Trigon (iPod)
Nov 14th
I didn’t play my own music on my iPod today, instead I decided to listen to the in-game music for the games I played.
And Star Trigon as well as being a very good game has some excellent, excellent music. Happy, bouncy tunes that make me smile. But, remember, this is coming from a man who bought a Mr Driller double soundtrack CD.
In fact, the presentation of the game is very Mr Driller indeed. Same style of graphics, same style of music, even shared characters.
Fallout 3 (360)
Nov 14th
A lengthy session last night. Although it felt like one amazing adventure at the time, in my memory it’s become somewhat disjointed.
Finally found Moira in a town of ghouls called Underworld and presented her with my mole rat findings. Got myself a a new companion, a ghoul named Charon. He’s very useful to have around and he seems to get on okay with Dogmeat. Had to lose some more karma to get him into my party, but, hey, after nuking an entire town everything else I do seems like kids stuff.
I’ve made the radio news now and even had some bounty hunters come after me. They were quickly dispatched and some decent kit on them. More, please!
Found some slavers, but a misunderstanding involving a land mine meant they attacked us and we killed them all before we got a chance to talk to them. Ah well. I may be evil, but I don’t think I’m evil enough to help out slavers.
I also wandered into a fight between some super mutants and Talon Company mercenaries. Both sides decided to try and kill us. Both sides died.
I’m getting to know how to find my way around DC now, sort of. I’ve walked down the tracks between Museum station and, er, the station that’s one stop down the tracks from there loads of times now. It’s atmospheric and, now I’ve cleaned it out, it’s safe, too.
(NOTE: I’m not using fast travel in this game yet. In Oblivion I found it to be something of a crutch and I think it diminished the atmosphere of the game. In Oblivion is was almost essential due to how many problems the game had with its streaming, but the engine’s a million times better in Fallout, so that’s not an issue.)
I’m level seven now, I believe. Been taking the small guns perk for the last few levels. I hope it’s useful.
Trackmania DS (DS)
Nov 14th
After months of nothing much I get two – two! – very much anticipated DS games in the same week. Castlevania is, based on the first couple of hours, a bit of a disappointment, but Trackmania?
Well, based on a quick go, it’s exactly what I wanted. I’ve only done straight races (actually time trials, really) so far, but I can say that the controls and game engine are spot on. The framerate is perfect (so far) and the car controls as it should in a Trackmania game. I’ve got gold medals on the ten races in the Stadium and Desert environments at Practice level. They weren’t very difficult, but they took enough retries to make me wonder if I’m not going to have a problem with the game’s difficulty at higher levels.
Fingers crossed that it won’t get too hard. Right now that’s the only potential problem I’m seeing with the game.
Star Trigon (iPod)
Nov 13th
One button arcade/puzzle game where you draw triangles in space. Done the beginner stages, seems fun. Quicker than I was expecting, so harder than I was expecting, so better than I was expecting.
Incredibly important information: It has Susumu from Mr. Driller in it.
Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia (DS)
Nov 13th
Hmm.
Hmm.
HMM.
I’m not sure about this. Maybe this is where there Castlevania meets diminishing returns. It seems to be half made up of changes I’m not sure I like (complicated glyph attack system, small level maps travelled to on a top-down, no-gameplay world map, more talking than normal) and the same old gameplay, but made a little bit harder by throwing a few too many enemies at you. (Including some highly annoying floating tentacled brain-suckers that don’t seem to have a name.)
That said, it’s Castlevania, so you can’t go very wrong. Maybe it’ll click at some point, maybe the level design will get more interesting – there have been far too many flat left-to-right trudges so far – and maybe the glyph system will seem less random.
Fingers crossed.
Peggle (iPod)
Nov 12th
Suffered from terrible “one-more-level” syndrome at lunchtime today, but finally managed to stop after I managed to lose a level.
Phew.
Left 4 Dead Demo (360)
Nov 12th
Puts you in a zombie film. A modern zombie film with running zombies, but a zombie film nonetheless.
The single player mode doesn’t seem to be up to much, but it’s designed to be an online title. I had one go online with some random people. I was pretty rubbish at actually hitting anything I tried to shoot at, but I rescued a dead teammate and saved someone else. And we won in the end, which was nice.
Nobody shot the car.
It’s all very exciting, mainly because that while the maps stay static, the zombies are placed differently every time.
Fallout 3 (360)
Nov 12th
Spent last night completely lost in Washington DC. I got stuck on some very hard mutants trying to find my way into the middle of town, so went back and tried to find another way through. All the roads seem to be blocked by collapsed buildings so I’m now miles from where I need to be, with no obvious way to get to where I need to be going. I may have to trek back to the Tepid sewers and go the way I first intending to go.
Still, it’s always fun, even when lost.
