A Gaming Diary
Archive for September, 2010
Minecraft (Mac)
Sep 17th
My castle and its grounds are spreading out across the map.
My castle grounds at night.
This means I’m getting close to other people’s stuff. I try very, very hard not to destroy or change anything anyone else has made and build around anything I didn’t create myself.
I get too close, though – the equivalent of invading someone else’s personal space.
Signs work in multiplayer now.
See, I’ve preserved that excellent TIE Fighter, given credit and even created a viewing platform, but it’s stuck in a small walled area in amongst other bits and pieces I’ve built myself. I need to be more careful in future, definitely.
Street Fighter IV (iPhone)
Sep 17th
Yes, that's Edmond Honda, bitches. Fear his hundred-hand slap.
Last night Capcom updated Street Fighter IV again. Two new characters (E. Honda and Crimson Viper) and the option to spend some cash on new outfits for Ryu and Chun-Li. I’m very impressed with the support Capcom have given this game – so much so that I’ve actually tempted to reward them by buying the outfits. I probably won’t, though.
Zombie Infection (iPhone)
Sep 17th
When I got my iPhone – was it really only just over a year ago? – I thought 16GB would be plenty of space. What sort of idiot would pay so much extra for a 32GB model?
You can see where this is going.
I am constantly having to delete games and cut down the amount of music I carry around with me. Yesterday afternoon I spent 59p on Prince of Persia: Warrior Within, which weighs in at a whopping 554MB. Golly.
Zombie Infection is over 200MB in size, so it would be nice if I could delete it. However, I cannot delete it until I’ve either completed it or got to a really annoying bit.
So far, I’ve not done either. I’ve died too much – playing with the sound off makes it very easy for zombies to sneak up on you – and the mounted gun segments inexplicably fail to pay attention to my Invert Look setting, but I’m still enjoying it rather a lot.
Simba! No!
Not just because you get to kill zombie animals in a zoo, but that does help.
It’s utterly shameless, of course, in so very many ways, but it’s actually a decent game.
Pocket Frogs (iPhone)
Sep 17th
And now, a word from our sponsor -
I get it. It is a game for when your wife wants to use your iphone and play with the froggies because it is hella adorable and you can jump around lilypads. DUH.
Might as well jump.
So that’s what we’ve been doing. I’ve been masterminding breeding strategy, moving frogs between habitats, maintaining the catalogue, etc. and my wife has been making the frogs happy and jumping around looking for new frogs to breed with.
And that’s how to make a marriage work, kids!
Pocket Frogs (iPhone)
Sep 16th
You know how you get poorly sometimes, but you’re not really poorly, you just feel a bit rough and take the odd Sudafed and carry on as normal while feeling slightly crap? Yeah, that.
As such, I found it impossible to concentrate on real games last night, so just ended up playing Pocket Frogs.
It’s a free frog-breeding game and I don’t quite get it.
You have some frogs.
These are my frogs.
You tame the frogs by having them leap around from pad to pad eating flies. (You just click on the pad to jump there. You can’t die, there’s no time limit, you can’t go wrong.)
I am taming this frog.
You can jump on other frogs to breed with them (or breed frogs you own from a menu).
After a while your habitats get full up, so you see some frogs and breed some more.
That seems to be it. Some frogs are rarer than others, some require you to level-up achingly slowly before you can breed with them, you can send frogs to friends and pay real money for unnecessary extras, but, though charming and pretty, it all feels a bit empty.
There are Awards you can earn for performing certain tasks, but most of them are so involved that I won’t be bothering with them, and sometimes someone sends you a request for a certain type of frog they wish to eat or worship, but that doesn’t happen very often – and the chances of having the right frog seems to be slim.
I’m not quite sure what to make of it. It’s perfectly likable, but I just don’t really get it.
Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars (iPhone)
Sep 15th
Haven’t played this in ages, but it called out to me last night and I thought I’d give it a go.
I love stealing these trucks.
Didn’t do any missions, just mucked about getting used to the controls again, then stole an Ammunation truck and found a rocket launcher.
Hooray!
Of course, I blew myself up with it, but only when firing the last rocket. That’s better than normal.
Truly a fantastic game. According to my save file I’ve played over twenty hours of the game – and that’s after completing it on the DS!
Valkyria Chronicles 2 (PSP)
Sep 15th
First night mission – and very interesting it was, too.
It’s the first mission where I’ve noticed bonus enemies out of the way of the main action. In this case, a yellow-capped enemy was on a completely different map to the main action. (Enemies with yellow headgear give item bonuses when you kill them, I think.)
Possibly more interesting, though, was the sheer rubbishness of the enemy AI. I left my tank facing away from an enemy shocktrooper, its weak spot exposed and the stupid enemy didn’t even move during his turn. I hope this is just because I’m still in the very early stages and not an indication of what I can expect throughout the whole game.
Predators (iPhone)
Sep 14th
Look at me, I'm invisible!
Seems like a half-decent movie tie-in, based on twenty minutes or so. You run around slicing and dicing humans and when you’ve killed enough, it’s on the next level, which will probably give you a new weapon or teach you a new combo. (I do like removing heads for a trophy kill.) It’s all been very easy so far, but I’ve only just got a gun so the challenge will probably ramp up a bit. Even if the campaign doesn’t challenge, there’s always survival mode.
Minecraft (Mac)
Sep 14th
Lately, I’ve just been digging around under my castle.
A lot.
I dug this.
I think, in fact, that I’ve been digging a bit too much. I’ve got a huge network of tunnels and keep digging into and wrecking things I’ve already built, which I then have to repair. Then I have to divert my new passageway and normally end up hitting something else or flooding the whole area with lava.
I think it’s time for some more surface building.
Valkyria Chronicles 2 (PSP)
Sep 14th
I spent longer last night setting up groups than playing the game.
I kept the first group the same, but set up a second group of reserves who have an APC, rather than a tank.
Both vehicles are equipped with the same flamethrower turret, however.
It’s just a shame that the one mission I finally ended up doing gave me a preset APC and didn’t let me take my own vehicle.
