A Gaming Diary
360
The Club (360)
Feb 14th
Spent an hour or so on the Gondola in Sixty Seconds level. Managed to get to 18th on the leaderboard table, which wasn’t bad. Not sure where the bonus enemy is, though. He might be appearing as a regular enemy, for all I know, as I’ve not seen any guys running across the back of the level. I wish it would tell you how many enemies were on a level, so I’d know whether I’d got him or not.
The Club (360)
Feb 12th
I don’t normally go out of my way to get Achievements, but some for The Club sound interesting. This evening I went for the Efficiency Achievement, which involves killing all enemies on a level with fewer than fifty bullets.
Internet gossip has it that the “Veni, Vidi, Vici” level in Venice is the best one for this, so I tried it out. Only fourteen enemies, so with the pistol it should have been easy, and would have been had it not been for the fact that one of the enemies is a bonus enemy who runs quickly across the background of the screen. If you miss him, you don’t get another chance.
So, due to my poor aiming skills it took me a few goes to get the Achievement, but I got there in the end.
And then I decided to play the level some more to see how far up the leaderboards I could get. (On Reckless difficulty, as always. I’ll let you know if and when I up it to Insane.) Managed to get to twentieth before it as time for bed. Not too shabby.
The Club (360)
Feb 9th
Blimey! I’m number ten on the leaderboard for the “Run of the Mill” event on Reckless difficulty.
I’ve never been in the top ten before. Ever. On anything.
The Club (360)
Feb 9th
You know you’ve got something slightly special on your hands when it keeps you up until two in the morning and then gets you up at half seven because you’re itching to get back to it.
Horribly compulsive, that’s what it is.
This morning I went through the tournaments I’d not yet done. Just on Casual difficulty. I was only really playing to unlock everything.
Since then I’ve been testing out different characters and doing the first two levels on Reckless difficulty. On the second level – I can’t remember the name, but it’s a steel mill sprint – I’m currently seventeenth in the world. Not bad, eh?
(Okay it’s probably because all the real players are playing on Insane or Real difficulty, but let me have my moment of glory, please.)
It’s funny how wrong my first impressions of the game were, looking back. I’m so very glad I gave the demo a second chance.
The Club (360)
Feb 8th
Oh yes. Number 66 in the world for the first single event on Reckless difficulty. That’s just about the highest I’ve ever been on a leaderboard, ever.
The Club (360)
Feb 8th
This is excellent. Short bursts of shooty fun. I’m very much looking forward to unlocking everything and going for high scores.
And, as luck would have it, I checked a leaderboard and was 364th in the world, which meant I got two Achievements. Hooray for getting games on release day!
Burnout Paradise (360)
Feb 3rd
I’m half-way through my B licence now. I might have got further, but I keep just driving around aimlessly. Well, not quite aimlessly. There’s still one gas station I’ve not found and I’d really like to find it. I’ve no idea where it could be.
Just before turning off the game I got the Parallel Parking Achievement, which was surprisingly easy. Either that or I fluked it.
Burnout Paradise (360)
Feb 2nd
This is great, but I’m having trouble with the online side of things. I’ve not even tried to play online yet, but the leaderboards seem to take an age to update, I can’t seem to find world-wide boards (just friends only), I’ve had several “Can’t connect to Burnout Paradise server” messages and once the game just got stuck on a “Connecting to Burnout Paradise server” screen and I had to leap back to the dashboard and restart.
Other than that it’s almost all good. The only real problem with the single player mode is navigation. The only reason I ever lose a race is because I’ve taken a wrong turn, which is very easy to do at high speed. Also, I miss Crash mode. Showtime is fun (and I soundly beat SomethingWitty on one road), but it’s no substitute.
So, it’s a new Burnout, then. Which means having a whole host of complaints about things they’ve changed and EA’s servers. Give it a while and everyone will consider it a classic… just in name for the next Burnout out to come along and start the cycle over again.
Ace Combat 6 (360)
Feb 1st
Got this free and decided I should try it out before trading it in. I didn’t think I’d like it for two reasons. One, I don’t like games in which you fly planes. Two, I didn’t like the demo.
Still, I did the tutorial and the first mission (which is the demo mission), didn’t enjoy myself and turned off the 360. The problem is that I’m rubbish. I never feel like I’m in an exciting aerial dogfight, I just feel like I’m flailing around.
Rez HD (360)
Feb 1st
Hooray! My site’s back up after going down because the entire Internet decided to look at my fake album covers page and I used my entire monthly bandwidth limit in about twelve hours.
Anyway, over the last couple of days I’ve been playing Rez HD, which is one of the best games ever… in HD. It hasn’t lost any of its magic over the years.
I just need a headphone extension cable now, so I can play it straight into my brane.
