A Gaming Diary
Archive for April, 2010
Koan (iPhone)
Apr 28th
No idea what’s going on here, really. You move your black tile on to white tiles to earn points – the faster you move, the faster your time runs out, but the more points you score. Every now and again tiles of other colours pop up and give you extra points or reverse the colour of the board, or something.
I have no idea why I sometimes get thousands of points and sometimes almost none.
It all seems really rather random and if there’s any real strategy, I can’t see it. It is, however, bizarrely compelling, in a weird way. And, you know, it was free, which is always a bonus.
Words With Friends (iPhone)
Apr 28th
PUGS on a triple word score. Not bad, but not great.
This has all calmed down a bit, in that I’m playing fewer games. The people left playing, though, seem to be the hardcore, so I’m probably playing almost as many moves per day as I ever was.
It’s been an absolute bargain for 59p, that’s for sure.
Just Cause 2 (360)
Apr 27th
Absolutely brilliant. Still.
Even spending several minutes simply pushing the left stick forward to fly a helicopter fifteen kilometers wasn’t a paid, given that the scenery and the sunrise were so beautiful. (And I checked Twitter and played Words With Friends with my other hand.)
It’s a truly remarkable game in a lot of ways. It’s easy to overlook the scale and beauty of it, but they’re essential in making the game what it is. The rhythm of explosions, fast-paced getaways and then long, quiet rides through the air is a wonderful thing.
Aesthetically, I don’t think there’s much that comes close to it for me. I can see how people could be unmoved, but I still find it absolutely breathtaking on occasions.
And then you get to shoot people in the face, drive cars off cliffs, blow up fuel depots and generally cause huge amounts of wanton destruction.
It’s my type of game – huge, beautiful, open and with a mix of explosions and silence. Brilliant.
Angry Birds (iPhone)
Apr 27th
This is a tough level - don't forget the pigs at the bottom.
Didn’t play much on the old iPhone last night, but I did get some Angry Birds time in. I haven’t finished the new levels yet and they’re going to be very hard to get three stars on, from the looks of it. Not that that’s a bad thing, I don’t think. It’s great to have a new bird to play with, especially as getting the timing right for the boomerang move is pretty tough.
Angry Birds (iPhone)
Apr 26th
Look! New! Yay!
New levels!
New bird type!
Joy!
It’s really very impressive how the developers have supported this game since release. They’ve released more than enough content to justify a sequel, yet it’s all been free updates. I suppose they can afford to, given how much of a (deserved) success the game’s been.
Hipstamatic (iPhone)
Apr 26th
Pictures from the weekend.
My to do pile.
The back of Patience's head. Not sure why.
More knitting.
Patience puts pictures of me sleeping on the Internet all the time. I have turned the tables.
I tried to take a photo of a wasp. It flew away.
Original sketch by Ty Templeton for the Elseworlds 80 Page Giant cover that I've got on the bedroom wall.
Hmm. Looking back, maybe two of those were worth posting. I promise to do some quality control in future.
Ridge Racer Accelerated (iPhone)
Apr 26th
A new update appeared at the weekend. The biggest change is that it adds options for a virtual analogue stick or d-pad. I’ve tested out the analogue stick and it makes the game play more like a traditional Ridge Racer title. It’s certainly easier, but loses the seat-of-the-pants, pants-wetting, on-the-edge-of-control feel of the tilt controls. Nice to have, but, yes, hmm.
Look! A virtual analogue stick!
It also seems to have reintroduced some of the slowdown that was lost in the previous update, especially when boosting. Odd.
On the plus side, though, the track flybys at the beginning of races are now skippable, which is a huge improvement.
A mixed bag, then. Hopefully another performance improvement will be along before too long.
Just Cause 2 (360)
Apr 26th
I’ve now played Just Cause 2 for over eight hours. I’m at 12% completion and I’m yet to do the third story mission.
There’s an awful lot of game here.
When I’ve not just been randomly pissing about – which, to be honest, is most of the time – I’ve been doing faction missions and, when I can, unlocking new respawn locations. That’s probably the most important thing to do, really. It’s a huge map and if you die you can end up appearing miles from where you were.
It’s not just a big game, either – it’s a really bloody good one. I’m sure blowing up the same things with the same weapons should be getting dull, but it’s not. Whether it’s because it always happens slightly differently, or whether it’s just that I’m playing in quite short sessions days apart, I don’t know, but I’ve not even begun to get tired of it yet.
Skate 3 Demo (360)
Apr 26th
I didn’t get on with the demo of the first Skate game, but I had a good time watching my brother-in-law play the full game a few weeks ago, so decided to try the demo of the new version.
(That was a horrible sentence. Sorry.)
I liked this version a lot more, mainly because I managed to do all the tricks Jason Lee asked me to do in the training session. I then went into the demo area and played around, trying (and mostly failing) to jump around and grind and make my own awesome lines.
A few years ago I would have bought this game and spent eight hours at a time trying to nail lines I’d made up, but I don’t play games in that way these ways. Still, it’s been ages since I played a new, good skateboarding game, so when this gets cheap enough I might well pick it up.
Afterburner Climax Demo (360)
Apr 26th
I think I liked this. I think I liked it rather a lot.
However, it’s hard to tell, because it’s really fast and everything’s going PEW PEW PEW and ‘SPOLDE BOOM BANG all over the place and it’s pretty much impossible to blink, let alone think, so I’m not entirely sure.
It’s all very blue skies and very Sega and if I had eight hundred points I think I’d use them, but I’m not going to go out and get points just for this.
(Yet.)
