A Gaming Diary
DS
Slitherlink (DS)
Mar 21st
My wife’s had this a while and has told me it’s great, but it took John Walker’s amazing review on Eurogamer to convince me to try it out.
It’s excellent, indeed, but I fear my brain may not be up to the later puzzles, given how much it’s already struggling.
Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin (DS)
Mar 11th
The Creature nearly got me.
Well, The Creature did get me. About twenty times, until I trekked back to the shop and got some potions.
Now he’s dead.
Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin (DS)
Mar 10th
Oh.
It’s got to hard again now. I got one of Castlevania’s trademark fake endings, then worked out how to avoid stopping at that point. Now I’ve got to go through lots more paitnings, only this time their far too hard.
It doesn’t help that I made a terrible mistake and sold half the really good stuff I was wearing and I didn’t notice until after I saved. I’m stuck miles into one painting, short on cash and out of potions. It’s not fun.
I may pretend the bad ending was the real ending and leave this now.
Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin (DS)
Mar 10th
After a long break I’ve come back to this refreshed and I’m finding it so much easier than I did before. Bosses have been dropping all over the place and I found a great new weapon called Nebula, that’s sort of a slow homing whip. Sort of.
I still hate Medusa Heads though. Oh yes I do.
Best Games Ever
Jan 26th
I did a top ten list last January, so I think I’ll do another.
10. (NE) Dragon Quest VIII (PS2)
I remember it annoying me when I played it. But I also remember loving it. And it gave me my single most satisfying gaming moment ever – killing the final boss after a 45-minute battle.
9. (NE) OutRun 2006: Coast 2 Coast (XBOX/PSP)
Not really a new entry as OutRun 2 was in the chart last year, at number five. I’m rating it lower this year because I never seem to play it. The Xbox version doesn’t work on the 360, so I never play it, and the PSP version, though lovely, is hampered slightly by the PSP’s analogue nub and a pretty rubbish framerate.
8. (7) World of Warcraft (PC)
It gave me some of my best gaming moments ever. (The trip to the contested area of Booty Bay to buy parrots with two friends! The first time we ganged up to invade Alliance territory!) However, I never got a character beyond level twenty-five and don’t really like teaming up with random strangers so it can’t be higher.
7. (9) Mr Driller: Drill Spirits (DS)
Best (English language) Mr Driller. Drill Land might take the spot if it was out in English. But it’s not. And there’s been no new Driller to challenge this in the last year.
6. (10) Animal Crossing: Wild World (DS)
I don’t play it as much as I used to. Probably been a couple of weeks or more since I last had a wander round Venture. But it lasted for hundreds of hours of play and helped cement my relationship with the woman who is now my wife. Thanks Nintendo!
5. (6) ICO (PS2)
Haunting, atmospheric, etc. And unlike Shadow of the Colossus I actually finished ICO.
4. (3) GTA: San Andreas (PS2)
Last year I said, “Best setting, best map, best features, best everything.” Still true when you’re talking about the GTA series, but Saints Row now exists and it does a lot of stuff an awful lot better than GTA does it. GTA IV is going to have to be something very special now.
3. (4) Mario 64 (N64)
Loved it then. Love it still. It was losing ground in my top tens, but the Virtual Console version has reinforced how much fun it still is, so it gains a place here.
2. (NE) Elder Scrolls: Oblivion (360/PC)
Morrowind was in this spot last year. Oblivion doesn’t do everything better, no. It feels a lot smaller, possibly down to the fast travel and quest markers. The land doesn’t have the strangeness of Morrowind. The levelling system isn’t as bad as many make out, but is ever-so-slightly broken. But in other ways it makes many, many improvements. At times it looks breathtakingly beautiful. The combat is much improved, especially the ranged combat. The stealth works brilliantly – so much so that it seemed almost everybody went for a stealth-based character when playing the game. It’s been over a hundred hours of glorious fun, with more to come.
1. (1) Doom (PC/360)
Genius that hasn’t aged in anything but graphics. Gameplay, level design, feel… it’s still all there. And the 360 version has the best controls since pre-Win95 PC keyboards. BEST. GAME. EVER.
Play, Want, Bin
Dec 4th
A fair amount has been going on this week.
PLAY
Oblivion (360) – I finished the downloadable Knights of the Nine quest. Quite short, rewards weren’t great and it wasn’t in the least bit difficult, but it was good fun and it was lovely to go and visit Cyrodiil again for a while. It’s one gorgeous game when it wants to be, is Oblivion. Pity about some of the voices being so damn quiet.
Guitar Hero (PS2) – Finished off Easy and started on Medium. The blue button kills me. When it comes along I completely forget which button is where and end up hitting red instead of green or yellow instead of red for ten or twenty seconds until I recover. Not good. It really is incredibly good fun, though.
Sonic Rivals (PSP) – A good modern Sonic game! Not a great one and it’s as much a ride as a game in many ways – but it’s a ride that works. Even the two boss fights I’ve seen so far have been okay. Sonic bosses I don’t detest? Something’s gone unexpectedly right here.
Capcom Collection Remixed (PSP) – Got this half-price when I bought Sonic. The inclusion of Strider blinded me to the fact that there are no other games here I really care about. That said, of the three I’ve tried so far, two have been hits. Strider is a classic piece of gaming and still incredibly fun. 1941 was a great surprise, much faster and more interesting than I was expecting. Pity about the controls when you flip the screen, though. The miss was Street Fighter, which is incredibly bad. I wasn’t expecting much, but it’s so much worse than I remember. I just can’t get my head around it at all.
Lumines II (PSP) – It’s very, very good. I got my best ever Lumines score – about 113,500 or so. (I know, I’m rubbish.)
Final Fantasy 3 (DS) – It looks nice. It’s Final Fantasy. It’s rock hard. I think I’m going to places I shouldn’t be going to, because I’m dying a lot. I’ll probably stick with it, if I get time.
Yoshi’s Island DS (DS) – Half-way through the first world and having a lot of fun with this one. I can see it getting tedious if taken too quickly, but I think if I do a level or two here and there it’ll remain fun for a good long time. I’m impressed with Artoon so far.
WANT
A Wii, of course. I’ve cancelled my pre-order for Red Steel and gone for Rayman instead, to add to Zelda and Monkey Ball. With Zelda being the big, sit-down-for-hours game on launch, I’m after quick distractions and controller lessons from my other games. I’m really hoping Gameplay get my Wii to me on Friday.
BIN
PSP Firmware Updates (PSP) – Every single time I put a new game into my PSP it tells me I have to install new firmware to play it. Which requires plugging the PSP into its charger. I’m excited when I get a new game! I just want to play it! Gah!
A Dualshock 2 (PS2) – Decided to play Shadow of the Colossus again. Started up the PS2 and the cursor on the menu was going crazy. Turned off, tried again, same thing. Tried an old original grey Dualshock, no response at all. Loaded up Guitar Hero with the guitar plugged in and everything was fine. Got grumpy. Spent ages looking for another Dualshock 2. Not in the controller bin. Not in the cables bin. Not in the misc bin. Not in the cupboard above the fridge where the old consoles live. Not in the mainly-Nintendo cables drawer in the kitchen. Finally I remembered to look in the wine cupboard by the sink in the kitchen, where I, indeed, found one. Must remember that it’s only the mostly-wine cupboard. Anyway, that controller worked, so I threw away the broken Dualshock 2 and settled down to play…
Shadow of the Colossus (PS2) – Oh dear. I don’t know why, but I really couldn’t get into this. I loaded my saved game and went after the ninth colossus, who kept killing me. In the end, though I knew what to do, I gave up. I just couldn’t avoid his attacks. Decided to start a new game, but couldn’t work out what to do to kill the first colossus, so gave up on the game entirely. Just couldn’t click with it. Odd, as last time I played I loved it.
Sonic The Hedgehog Genesis (GBA) – By rights, the person who decided to release this should face criminal charges. I’d read everything about this online and it was still worse than I expected.
Pokemon Ranger (DS)
Nov 2nd
Well, I have now played Pokemon Ranger and from first impressions it seems to be an object lesson in how not to take a franchise to the DS.
They’ve taken Pokemon and changed it so instead of turn-based battles you now have to use the stylus to draw circles round Pokemon. (The number of circles depends on the strength of the Pokemon.) If the Pokemon touches or attacks the circles you’re drawing or if you lift the stylus from the screen before you’ve drawn enough of them, then the circles dissapear and you have to start over.
It doesn’t sound too bad on the face of it, but as soon as I first tried to draw two complete circles round a Pokemon that was zig-zagging round the screen, I knew something was wrong. But what? You have to draw with inhuman speed around a target whose movements can’t be predicted, which is difficult. Difficult’s not always bad, though, that’s not the real problem. No, the main problem is that drawing circles really, really quickly is just no fun.
Somebody should really have noticed that during development, I feel.
You can try it, too, without a DS, to get an idea. Get a pen and a piece of paper. Start drawing circles really, really fast. Then get a parent or guardian to slap your hand away from the paper at random intervals. Then stop and get a friend to witter on about Snorlax and Pikachu at great length. Then go back to drawing circles. Repeat until your soul dries out and crumbles into dust.
Anyone who loves Pokemon may be able to get through the battles to experience the world and story, but the gameplay is fundamentally broken and without the Pokemon nobody would think of giving this a second glance.
Pokemon Mystery Dungeon was a slight disappointment, due to its simplicity and slow start, but Ranger is just plain awful. Replacing button presses with stylus actions isn’t a good idea unless it improves the fun factor of a game. I thought we’d got past the stylus-for-the-sake-of-it part of the DS’s lifespan. It seems not.
Contact (DS)
Oct 27th
I’ve played this for a couple of hours now in total, at a guess, with quick sessions grabbed here and there over the last few days.
My considered reaction so far is: hmmmmmm.
I like it, I’m enjoying it, but I really can’t quite understand why. In terms of combat (click enemy once and relax, unless you want to use a special move) and general buggering about collecting stuff (enemies and trees drop cooking ingredients) it feels rather like an MMORPG. But it’s definitely a traditional single player game when it comes to the level and quest structure. But it’s all skinned in a new, interesting and stylish way and it looks absolutely gorgeous.
I think I fell in love when I first worked out how to interact with the game at the beginning. One of those moments where you’re not quite sure what to do and idly try something, which has a very satisfying and surprising effect.
(Trying to avoid spoilers. Hopefully you’ll know what I mean if you’ve played it.)
Overall, that based one what I’ve seen, it’s a lovely handheld game to pull out for odd moments here and there. It’s fairly undemanding and simple – after the initial hour or so of confusion as you’re tutored in things after you first see them. (Or, at least, I kept being told about things after I’d already tried to use them and had given up in confusion.) And the sound isn’t great or rubbish, so if you’re someone who plays handhelds with the sound off – as I’m sure a great many people do – it’s no great loss.
Really needs a better save system, though. Suspend save’s no good if you’re trying to conserve battery or want to pop into your Animal Crossing town for a couple of minutes after playing.
Touch Golf (DS)
Oct 16th
This has gone and got hard, damn it.
I’m seeing the “Out of Bounds” message entirely too often.
FIFA 07 (DS)
Oct 12th
I started my career at Villa with a 5-2 win against Arsenal…
So I checked the game settings and it says it’s on Beginner level and won’t let me change it. Odd.
