A Gaming Diary
Archive for July, 2009
Draw Race (iPhone)
Jul 30th
It’s a top-down racing game… but with a twist. (Exclamation mark.) You, as the name implies, draw a path for your car with your finger, trying to get the speed right and take the best racing line. When you’ve drawn the required number of laps your car does its best to follow the line you’ve drawn. If you beat the blue car, hooray. If you don’t, try again.
My big, fat fingers aren’t really precise enough for the job, but I’m having great fun with it. Mainly because when you finish a race it compares your time to everyone else’s and tells you what percentage of people you’re better than. On one track I’m better than 56% of people, which is nice. I have, a couple of times, scraped a win and been better than 0% of people. When that happens I try again.
My only concern right now is that I’m unlocking all the tracks very, very quickly and I’m not sure that I’ll want to carry on playing once it’s just a question of racing the same old tracks over and over. I guess I’ll find out soon enough.
Regardless, for 59p you really should download this, just because it’s new, different and great fun, even if it might only be so for an hour or two.
I Dig It Lite (iPhone)
Jul 30th
People keep recommending this, so I thought I’d give it a go. The first bit of good news is that it’s got a very generous Lite version. So generous that I didn’t finish it after playing for half an hour or so. Unfortunately, at that point I died and it looked like I might have lost all my progress and would have to restart from scratch… which seemed awful at the time, but just writing this has made me want to go back and have another crack at it. Odd. I wasn’t planning to ever play it again.
Anyway, it reminds me of Miner Dig Deep, an Xbox 360 community game I played a while ago. You drill down into the ground to get rocks to sell, then return to the surface to sell them. With the money you make you can refuel, repair and upgrade your mining vehicle. Controls are a bit fussy, but not unplayably so.
The main problem I had was that on each trip down into the ground I was only getting enough rocks to repair and refuel and never seemed to have any money left for upgrades. I was starting to run out of rocks I could reach when I got careless and died. I’m worried that it’s possible to get into an unwinnable state. I’m not sure if I was missing something, if the full game has features to combat this that the Lite doesn’t or if it’s really possible to play for ages and then find you need to restart from the beginning.
I better go back and check sometime, really, rather than indulge in idle speculation that might make me look like a fool.
Words With Friends (iPhone)
Jul 30th
Sometimes, you don’t get much luck with your letters.
Ouch. Anyway, I’ve got about fifteen hundred games on the go at the moment and I’m having a wonderful time, even though I’ve just lost a game after winning my first six.
By the way, I will play some games that aren’t on the iPhone again sometime, I promise. I might even turn my 360 on sometime in the next few days. This site hasn’t turned into an iPhone-only blog. It’s just that at the moment I’m doing my daily Animal Crossing and then just enjoying my iPhone games. It’s partly because it’s new and exciting, partly because I’m catching up on a year’s worth of games, partly because it’s a lot easier to play games on a device I always have with me, partly because I can play while the TV’s on and, well, partly because the iPhone is home to some cracking games – that are either very cheap or free.
But it’s also because Words With Friends is as addictive as chocolate-coated crack that comes with a free Batman action figure.
Resident Evil 4 (iPhone)
Jul 30th
Still playing this, still enjoying it. Even when I die. Which happens a lot.
Although, thankfully, not on level four of the story. That’s a big boss fight. A gigantic boss fight, even. Hint, hint, yeah. I was too busy trying not to die to get a screen shot, but my concentration worked. Okay, so I did die once, but I beat the bugger the second time around. The rifle is an awesome weapon in this game.
I’ve not tried the fifth level yet, I’ve just been playing the new levels I’ve unlocked in Mercenaries mode. There’s one, Pincer Attack, that I’m finding quite hard. You’re just given a handgun and a shotgun – no rifle! – and there are enemies that come from multiple directions. I honestly can’t remember if I’ve completed it yet or not.
My Brute (iPhone)
Jul 30th
Here’s a picture of me defeating someone in a fight. Enjoy it, it doesn’t happen often.
I’m actually quite excited about this game, even though the way it encourages you to spam codes around means it’s a big festering pile of crap. Why? Well, since I started playing the web version I’ve been wanting a dog. Or a wolf. Or a bear. An animal companion, anyway.
Last night I leveled up and – guess what? – got a dog. Hooray!
Unfortunately, I leveled up after my last fight of the day, so I’ve not had a chance to see my pooch in action yet. I think I’ll call him Dexter. All pets get called Dexter these days, it seems to be a new law.
Space Invaders Infinity Gene (iPhone)
Jul 30th
I know why I’m not playing this as much as I feel I should be. It’s because it’s a much better game with the sound on and I mostly play my iPhone games with the sound either off or on the lowest volume setting. I love the main levels, but my favourite part of the game is generating levels from songs and trying to get through them.
I think that’s Dead Ringer For Love by Meat Loaf, but I’m not sure.
Confession time. I’ve never got through an entire song when I’ve been playing this game. Not one. I think I probably need to choose shorter songs… or get better at the game, I suppose.
Real Racing (iPhone)
Jul 30th
I’ve turned the braking assistance off. Completely.
This now means I do very well on tracks I know well, pretty well on tracks I’m somewhat familiar with and really, really badly on tracks I don’t know at all. The actual driving mechanics and controls I’m pretty comfortable with now, so it’s all about driving well. Which is how it should be, of course.
This really is a very, very good game. I’m not sure why I’m not playing it more than I am.
Resident Evil 4 (iPhone)
Jul 29th
Success! I played level three of the Mercenaries mode again, which gave me enough money to buy the rifle and a big stock of ammunition. Then I took it out and did the level pretty easily by finding safe spots and using the zoom.
I got surprised once or twice – just enough to make it fun! – and had to heal myself at one point, but it wasn’t too hard.
Look, I got my first S rank. Pretty good, eh?
I have to say, I am really, really enjoying this. I can see all the faults, but it’s just excellent fun. I think you should be cautious before buying it, because the controls and tiny, tiny arena-style levels will put people off, but don’t dismiss it out of hand.
Words With Friends (iPhone)
Jul 29th
Yes, I’ve been playing more of this since I last posted. A fair amount more. It’s very nice, being able to play a move or two, then ignore it for a while.
But why does it use the ringer volume, rather than the separate app volume? That’s quite annoying. I don’t want to turn off my ringer just so I don’t annoy people in the office.
