A Gaming Diary
360
Tomb Raider Anniversary (360)
Apr 30th
Hmm. If you’re going to release a game on the 360 that looks like an upscaled PS2 game, then surely it would be possible to get a stable framerate? No? Oh, okay then.
Anyway, despite looking significantly worse than Tomb Raider Legend, this seems to play nicely and does what it sets out to do – it feels like the original Tomb Raider, but with the controls and checkpointing that we except in this day and age. As such, I think I’m going to enjoy it when I sit down and play it properly.
Goozex is lovely, but I’ve got far too many games over the last few days.
Burnout Paradise (360)
Apr 29th
I traded this in over a year ago, then missed it greatly. Only now has it become cheap enough for me to get a new copy. I downloaded the 1.7 update during the day, so it was ready for me to go in the evening. It felt great to be back, it really did. I tried out the bikes – which I think I love – then jumped back into a car and did a few races. Won a few, then lost one after the AI shunted me down a side road going completely the wrong way.
I wish I understood Burning Routes better. I get the concept, but I’m never sure what the point of them is, or the exact difference between online and offline times are. I’m sure it’s very simple, but I’m not very bright.
Also, the moment it started up it gave me an Achievement called “Watt?” before I’d even started playing, so I need to go and check what that was about.
Trivial Pursuit (360)
Apr 29th
Got this to play with my wife. It beats the board game version we played last week handily, simply due to having questions from after 1983. Hooray! We played the Facts and Family mode, or whatever it’s called, which is a lovely variation on the normal game. You share a puck and any wedges you win become lives in a final face-off at the end of the game. Works very well indeed, especially as most questions only give you a few points towards getting a wedge. You can also bet on whether you think your opponent knows the answer to a question – get the bet right and you also get some points towards the wedge. Honestly, it makes sense when you play.
We originally played with the UK set-up, but found it was fairer to everybody if we selected the USA set-up. (My wife’s American and has only been living here about three years.) Unfortunately, it seems that you can only change this by going back to the dashboard and then reloading the game.
Still, it seems that for the eight quid we played, this is a great way to play Trivial Pursuit if you don’t have the room or inclination to get the board game out. We’re going to have to limit our games to try and stop question repetition, but hopefully there are enough to last us a little while.
Also, for those that care, it pumped Achievements out at us like they were going out of fashion.
GTA IV: The Lost and Damned (360)
Apr 21st
A few more missions done, which are tying a lot more into Niko’s storyline – and not always in ways I approve of.
Still BEST GAME EVER though.
GTA IV: The Lost and Damned (360)
Apr 20th
Did a couple more missions this morning. (Being on holiday for the win!) Had to deal with some traitors, which was easy enough, then had to go and deal with a drugs convoy at a toll booth. That took quite a few tries, as I wasn’t quite sure what I was doing or the best way to approach things. Once I worked out a strategy I did it with ease, though. I like that, actually. It’s not all just firing away blindly, I really needed a plan. And when that plan came together, I loved it.
GTA IV: The Lost and Damned (360)
Apr 19th
Didn’t get to play my big consoles long this morning, so rather than put on Valkyria Chronicles, I decided on some GTA. I finally managed to do the pipe bomb mission I’d been a little bit stuck on, which was nice.
The main reason I wanted to play, though, is that I’m finding it hard to stop thinking about GTA IV. Over the last few weeks, a thought has been nagging at me.
The thought: “GTA IV is better than Doom.”
Astounding, bizarre and even heretical, that thought. Doom has been my favourite game of all time (and thus the best game ever) for fifteen years now. Nothing’s ever come close to replacing it over the long term. But GTA IV has been nagging at me. Every time I play it it astonishes me. And maybe that astonishment is more about the world and the graphics engine and less about the core game, but so be it.
Doom is perfect, in its way. There’s no flab, nothing but pure, core brilliant game. GTA IV isn’t perfect. It’s got mess, loose ends, annoyances and oddities aplenty. But, but, but… maybe, sometimes, isn’t a glorious mess just, you know, better? I’ll take London, which has grown over centuries over any neat planned community. And maybe I’ll take Liberty City over a base on Mars.
I don’t know, but when it’s the middle of the night and the rain’s lashing down and the flames from a burned-out van are blowing in the wind, GTA IV seems to be making its case in the most eloquent manner.
Left 4 Dead (360)
Apr 18th
Pew pew! Last night I played Versus with friends for the first time. Very different experience from playing with random types. After a couple of levels where we got completely destroyed, I got more used to the tactics needed and we started working together better and actually won the last couple of rounds. An excellent experience all round and great fun – even if I didn’t get to be the tank.
I think my favourite thing is successfully vomiting on the survivors. It’s hard to do, but a good vomit makes me happy.
OutRun Online Arcade (360)
Apr 18th
A huge event in my OutRun life last night. I tried manual gears for the first time. Mainly to see if I could improve my Time Trial times with them. While they’re a lot easier to use than I was expecting, I’m finding it hard to recover when things go wrong. I might be able to improve my times with a bit of practice, but I’m some way behind that so far. It’s interesting, anyway – and I got an Achievement for using them.
Red Faction: Guerilla Demo (360)
Apr 17th
Played through two more times last night. It’s just great fun. The initial on-foot shooty section is great, the stompy walker section is great and the mounted gun section is great. It’s all great!
OutRun Online Arcade (360)
Apr 17th
Got a couple more Achievements yesterday. I thought they’d be hard, but I got the “get 1,000,000 points” one on my second try (TIP: put the difficulty of the game to Normal, it’s on Very Easy by default) and then got the “go at over 300kph for ten seconds” one randomly while trying time trials. I had been trying to get the “complete Time Attack in less than 4m30s” achievement, but I’m way, way off that. I think my best is about 4m38s or something. That’s a lot to try and catch up.
