A Gaming Diary
360
Fallout 3 (360)
Nov 10th
You know, I don’t think this game has a stupid subtitle? A sequel without a colon? What’s going on with the world, eh?
Anyway, I didn’t get on with the original two Fallout games, but I loved Oblivion. This game is an effective synthesis of the two. It feels exactly like a post-apocalyptic Oblivion, but the levelling and skills systems seem (from what I can remember) to have been taken wholesale from the Fallout games.
I did a lot of stuff and enjoyed myself thoroughly, but got a bit fed up with some fire ants that kept killing me. That quest was an effort – I probably should have left it for a few levels. Maybe level four isn’t the right time to be tackling it. My only decent weapons skill is Small Guns and my trusty pistol did very little damage to the ants, so I had to improvise with scavenged ammo and new guns. And mines. The main problem, though, was a lack of healing items. I got 500 bottle caps (the game’s currency) for being very naughty indeed, though, so maybe I should find someone selling medical supplies and stock up.
Tomb Raider Underworld Demo (360)
Nov 7th
Exactly what a Tomb Raider game should be.
I even got stuck and turned it off in annoyance.
Perfect.
Mirror’s Edge Demo (360)
Nov 7th
After a few weeks completely devoid of gaming while on holiday, I came back and downloaded some demos that I missed.
And this one is really good fun. When it all flows it’s just about the best thing ever, when you stumble it’s annoying, overall it’s probably a winner.
Feeding Frenzy 2 (360)
Oct 15th
My wife’s been playing a lot of this and asked if I’d like to play some multiplayer. So we played for an hour or so and had great fun. She was much, much better than me at first, but I got competitive in some of the events by the end. I also managed to get three Achievements, too. Excellent!
Mercenaries 2: World In Flames (360)
Oct 13th
So, the story got finished, but I’m still playing. I decided to go around destroying, killing and capturing all the little green icons on the map. Got lots of side-missions done this way, but unfortunately everyone now hates me. (I got an Achievement for that, though, at least.) I’m also using too many nukes. Need to kill a guy behind some boxes? Nuke! Need to take out a couple of APCs? Nuke!
Mercenaries 2: World In Flames (360)
Oct 11th
Hooray! Story completed!
The game gets buggier and buggier the further in you get, culminating in the final QTE-filled climax to the game not displaying properly, leaving me to watch to some rotating polygons and button prompts while trying to work out what was going on from the speech and sound effects.
How on earth you can program a game where the camera goes wrong during a cut scene I don’t know, but it happened.
I think a helicopter was meant to take off, or something, based on the “We’re going to crash!” dialogue, but all I could see throughout the entire thing were some bits of helicopter back and tail sitting on the ground. After the Mission Complete message came up my character magically appeared a few feet away from where he’d been standing before the scene began.
It’s a insult to peple who paid forty quid for the game it and should never, ever have been let out of the door in the state it’s in.
Yet I still love it to death, despite myself.
Beat’n Groovy Demo (360)
Oct 9th
Another stupid name. The game works okay, but the graphics and music are terrible – and there are only nine songs in the full game – so there’s no way on earth I’m paying any money for it.
Shadow Assault/Tenchu Demo (360)
Oct 9th
Stupid name, but not a terrible game from I played. Not a great one either, though. I had fun with the demo levels, but I can’t see myself ever paying 800 points for it. Maybe if I could work out which direction the spring traps would send an enemy it would be better.
Lego Indiana Jones (360)
Oct 9th
Finished off Raiders of the Lost Ark with the wife last night. It’s very good fun, but the perspective makes some jumps hard in co-op mode, where the camera can’t move around to the best angle for you.
Lego Indiana Jones (360)
Oct 7th
Just one level last night. At some point my wife and I switched characters and couldn’t work out how to change back. I’m Indy, she’s Marion, that’s how it is. Except last night. Tch.
