A Gaming Diary
360
RC-AirSim Demo (360)
Mar 12th
Had a bit of fun playing with this remote controlled aircraft sim, but quit before it timed out on me. I can imagine it being a nice little toy to have on your 360 to wind down with, but I don’t think it’s for me.
Miner Dig Deep Demo (360)
Mar 12th
Played a few community games last night. Miner Dig Deep was probably the best. It’s a little hard to explain, reminding me slightly of both Boulderdash and ZAngband, but it seems fun enough and I’ll probably spend 200 points on it one day when I’m bored.
Crystal Defenders Demo (360)
Mar 12th
Technically, this is an appalling mess of a game. The framerate and controls don’t seem to have been upgraded over the protable versions, so it ends up looking horrible and feeling unresponsive.
Not sure that matters, though, as the core game is a simple but effective tower defense game. The trial ended after twenty waves, but I’m not sure if that means the game is different from the iPod version (which goes on past that) or whether that was just a trial limitation.
Good as it is, I’m reluctant to spend 800 points on a game I already have on my iPod (and isn’t Peggle).
Peggle (360)
Mar 12th
What is there to say about Peggle that hasn’t already been said?
It’s Peggle, it’s on the 360. More like the iPod than PC version – there’s no cursor, making longer shots quite a lot more difficult – but it’s just Peggle.
And it is, of course, excellent.
Pity the score I got on the first level was so rubbish. Not sure how that happened.
Vampire Rain (360)
Mar 12th
Played the first tutorials and the second proper mission last night.
You know what? I enjoyed it. It’s trial and error gameplay, sure, but I don’t mind that at all. It’s tense, scary and satisfying when you get it right.
I’m sure it’ll get far too hard soon and it’s not perfect – unskippable cut scenes, slightly dull graphics – but it’s not yet the stinker it’s meant to be.
Vampire Rain (360)
Mar 11th
I know this is rubbish. It got terrible reviews, after all. Nobody likes it.
But I’ve always wanted it, though I don’t know why. And for four quid I couldn’t say no.
Just did the first mission last night. Bizarrely, it comes before the first tutorial.
Oooooooookay.
Anyway, that first mission wasn’t bad. The cut scenes are terrible, the graphics functional, but there’s a hint of a good game in there. Let’s see how they ruin that potential…
GTA IV: The Lost and Damned (360)
Mar 11th
Hmm.
I say again, hmm.
Now, my love for GTA IV knows no bounds. It’s one of my favourite games of all time and I love it to pieces. It’s unfortunate then, that my first impressions of The Lost and Damned aren’t as good as I’d hoped they would be. I think it’s all teething troubles, getting used to all the new stuff, and that I’ll grow to love it. But last night I had a load of problems.
Missions would start without me wanting them too. I think I managed to walk into the mission start arrow outside the club house without seeing it a couple of times, because it was a very sunny, washed-out day which rendered the yellow arrow almost invisible.
One mission involved shooting moving bikers from a moving bike. Not too bad with an SMG, but I only had a sawn-off shotgun, which meant I had to get close and be accurate, which wasn’t especially easy. And once I seemed to fail the mission because my bike got destroyed. I guess I need to watch out for that. Broken bike equals failed mission? Did it warn me about that?
Then I decided to go play air hockey with one of my new chums. I took a car. When I got to where he was waiting he was on a bike and I couldn’t seem to get him to get into the car or follow me or anything. Okay, so I need to take a bike to these friend meetings from now on. Noted. But it wouldn’t let me cancel. I kept calling to cancel and just got his answer phone. Eventually he sent me a text message asking why I didn’t show up and gave me a thumbs down. Gah.
And I’m not sure I quite get the riding in formation thing. A badge appears on the road that I’m meant to ride inside, but as soon as I try and do that it disappears. Does that mean I did it right? Or does it mean that I’m doing it wrong? I don’t know.
And the huge firefights I got into were a pain due to the short range of my shotgun. Give me something better, please.
And why does it use the same save slots as vanilla GTA IV? Okay, so with a bit of care I won’t overwrite my Nico Bellic save, but I shouldn’t have to be careful, should I?
And I’ve not quite worked out which voice is mine in cut scenes. I can just about recognise myself, even though everyone looks about the same, but everyone sounds too similar.
And I tried some online multiplayer. It was rubbish.
And I keep getting my bike stuck in rubbish at the side of the road.
Still, I think things will get better. I’ll learn the rules of this particular game somehow, learn to recognise my own voice, get into the story, get better weapons, get used to the bike handling, all that.
Mirror’s Edge (360)
Mar 10th
Last night I tried this for a final time. It’s going back to Lovefilm today. When it’s good it’s very, very good, but it can be extremely annoying. The LB button (used to jump) isn’t as responsive as I’d like, I keep jumping to my death instead of wall running and – the final straw – I jumped into a pit and couldn’t find my way out. I couldn’t seem to jump to reach anything to hang on to.
Oh, and when I started the game last night, it hadn’t saved any of my progression in my previous session, so I had to do it all over again.
With longer sessions and less to play it would be a lot better, though. The annoyances wouldn’t be as great. If I can ever get a cheap copy that comes bundled with the DLC I’d be interested. I might give up on the 360 version and go with the PS3 version, though. I think L1 would be a lot nicer to use than LB, basically.
The Chronicles of Riddick: Dark Athena Demo (360)
Mar 9th
The other Vin Diesel game. I didn’t care much for the Xbox original, unlike most people, so this demo would have had to have been amazingly good to get me interested in the game. It wasn’t. I wandered around, took over some drones, shot some guards, then turned the game off because I was a bit bored.
Wheelman Demo (360)
Mar 9th
The first of the double bill of Vin Diesel demos. Only played the first mission in the demo and had a riotously entertaining time. Loved every second of it. It looks and feels a little cheap, but it was great fun. Shunting your car using the right analogue stick is a little bit of genius.
