A Gaming Diary
360
Hardwoord Hearts
May 6th
Note: not demo.
I won a game.
I lost a game.
And then I stopped playing.
There’s nothing really to say about Hearts. It’s just a card game. Oh, I changed the cards to a different style, which makes the suits easier to see. That’s almost interesting.
Not that I normally bother with being interesting, not sure why I’m going on about it now.
Hardwoord Hearts Demo
May 5th
Well, Live Arcade suddenly sped up for me so I downloaded the trial version of Hardwood Hearts.
It does what it says on the tin. Took too long to get used to the graphics – distinguishing suits was hard, which is incredibly rubbish for a card game – but apart from that it was fine.
I’ll probably buy it at some point, though even 400 points seems a touch expensive.
FIFA World Cup Demo
May 5th
Played it twice. Didn’t come close to scoring either time. Bah.
Found myself liking it less the more I played, actually. Thought it seemed decent at first and then I just got frustrated with it.
I want an arcade footie game. Give me SWOS on Live Arcade, please.
Top Spin 2 Demo
May 5th
Something weird’s still going on with my connection to Live. When it’s downloading lists of downloads (Arcade, Marketplace) and sending messages, it’s horribly slow. Sometimes even timing out. Trying to download Live Arcade games doesn’t work. The downloads just come down the pipe in tiny scraps long, long seconds apart.
But when I download demos they absolutely fly. Basically max out my connection.
Very strange. They seem to have upgraded some servers and downgraded others. Or maybe switched some servers to Marketplace downloads from serving up menus and Arcade games. I dunno.
Anyway, Top Spin 2. Seemed okay, but then put me on the top of the screen. I hate tennis games that do that. It’s rubbish and shouldn’t be allowed. So I turned it off.
Smash TV
May 1st
Ha, nice one. When I started it I got a “disconnected from Xbox Live” message, followed by a “you must download an update to play this game or you will be disconnected from Live” message. But it couldn’t download the update, because it already had disconnected me from Live. So I had to ignore the message, continue on into the game, sign in to Xbox Live, which then prompted the download message again, but this time it could actually download the update, because I was connected. Did you get that?
Wandered through the first one and a half levels slamming the continue button every five seconds.
Got some achievements along the way, including the high score one. (Score doesn’t reset when you continue, making it rather pointless.)
Oddly, my Xbox Live Leaderboard score is completely different from the in-game score. No idea what’s going there.
Wik: Fable of Souls
May 1st
A couple of levels more.
It’s bloody exhausting and too much for me this evening.
Geometry Wars 2
May 1st
One of those days where every go is worse than the last.
And the first one wasn’t all that great.
I’m currently trying to download the Bankshot Billiards 2 demo, but Live is still slow as shite. Weird.
Zuma
May 1st
Got to level 8-4.
Better, but not good enough.
Xbox Live is being all slow and timing out when trying to get leaderboards and stuff.
Bah.
Zuma
May 1st
I can’t play it.
I’m so knackered from all the spring cleaning that I’ve been doing that I just can’t aim. Weird and annoying and I’m stuck on 8-2.
