A Gaming Diary
iPhone
Football Manager Handheld 2010 (iPhone)
Apr 19th
A weekend of highs and lows. Mostly highs. After a bit of a wobble we started winning more than we were losing and, at the time of writing, we’ve climbed up to second in the league. Not bad after our woeful start. (Let’s hope the Astros can do a similar thing over in baseball-land.)
Anyway, here’s some pictures.
I won a major award!
My star player! Noooo!
The day after the injury. Bittersweet.
The most annoying thing about the injury is that I should have prevented it. Jason Norville was getting tired, but he’s so very, very good that I didn’t want to be without him. So I decided to play him for the first half and replace him at half time. In the forty-third minute he picked up his three-month injury.
Still, after another rebuilding (i.e. losing) phase after his injury, we seem to be back to winning again. Maybe it won’t be a complete disaster.
Vector Runner (iPhone)
Apr 19th
Move left, move right, pick up power-ups, avoid obstacles.
Great little game to play for a few minutes here there. Which applies to approximately seventeen thousand iPhone games, I know, but this weekend’s time-killer of choice was Vector Runner. Very simple, gets very hard, doesn’t have any annoyances. Shrug.
Yeah, sorry, my heart’s not in it today. Back from the dentist after root canal work. Not really in the mood for extended blogging.
Street Fighter IV (iPhone)
Apr 19th
What is there to say? I’m still playing this and still enjoying it immensely.
Yep, still Blanka.
I haven’t switched away from Blanka, but maybe I should. I just enjoying using him an awful lot and I still need to get the hang of charging while doing other things.
Minigore (iPhone)
Apr 19th
Updated 3.7 wiped save data for those unlucky enough to load the game after installing it, but another update came out at the weekend that threw goodies at us as way of compensation.
Argh! Geroff!
Now, then, I’ve got every single character unlocked and huge bank of kills for any new characters that get released. I’d rather have worked to get them on my own, but better that than having to unlock everyone again.
Didn’t actually play the game much after loading it to test the fix, but had a bit of sun with Sensei Evan and his dual grenade launchers.
Football Manager Handheld 2010 (iPhone)
Apr 15th
My wife, on Twitter, last night:
*sigh* @thatrevchap has stupid Football Manager on his stupid iPhone. I miss him.
Also:
He seems to take personal offense every time the other team gets a goal.
I only played two matches last night! Two!
The first didn’t go so well. A great start, but then… aaargh!
Noooooooooooooooo!
The second, though, was my first win of the season.
Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!
Hopefully it’s the start of something good. (Though I did get a bit frustrated and applied for a new job in a fit of pique, so maybe I won’t be at Oxford for long.)
Warpgate (iPhone)
Apr 14th
I’m really, really loving this now. There’s an intriguing universe and a real sense of adventure and exploration. The story missions actually force you to make meaningful choices and I genuinely feel that I’m part of a larger story. It’s fabulous stuff, really.
I got a lovely new ship today. Much more powerful than the one I started with.
My only criticism so far is that there’s not much penalty for dying. When you use a warpgate to travel to a new system – which you do often – that acts a checkpoint for your progress. I’ve never lost more than about two minutes of play through dying and that cuts away the tension that should be a part of exploration and combat. I’m not sure if I’d like a roguelike system of permadeath – though it does appeal to me and could maybe be added as an option, along with high score tables – but maybe some system where you lose half your money, or something like that.
Football Manager Handheld 2010 (iPhone)
Apr 14th
It’s called FM 2010 in the App Store, but the title screen says Football Manager Handheld 2010, so I’m going with that. It’s rather more descriptive, after all.
Well, you know what you’re getting. It’s Football Manager… on the iPhone. Cut down from the PC version, but very familiar to anyone who’s played the PSP version, the only really important thing is the interface. First impressions suggest that it’ll be fine once you get used to it, but it’s unfamiliar and not especially intuitive.
(There’s a separate manual app that you can download for free – I’ve had to refer to it a couple of times.)
Still, I’ve managed to play a few games, change my formation and change around my squad, so it seems to be workable.
I took over Oxford United because there’s no random option that I could see. (Incidentally, there’s also no obvious way to get team info before you select them, which is a shame.) They come with a default 4-3-3 formation, so I left that alone for my first friendly match.
We lost 3-0.
So I decided to go back to the old standby of 4-4-2 for the next friendly.
We lost 3-0.
The score didn't stay 0-0 for long.
Hmm. I stuck with 4-4-2 for the next match, but focused on attacking.
We were down to 3-0 within twenty minutes. Oof.
Hooray for Norville!
Near the end of the game, though, there was a glimmer of hope as Jason Norville scored a late consolation goal. That’s something. I think I need to see how things go at the start of the season and see if I can work out a way to get the best from my squad. I’m a firm believer that midfield is what counts in football so I’m going to concentrate on that. There’s still time to bring people in.
Either that or I’ll look for a new job.
Warpgate (iPhone)
Apr 14th
A top-down space trading/exploring/combat game that reminds me a fair bit of the mighty Space Rangers 2. That should probably be recommendation enough for a lot of people.
You'll want to play it zoomed out, but that doesn't do justice to the excellent ship models.
You fly around a huge galaxy, completing missions, mining asteroids, buying and selling goods and upgrades and generally trying to avoid fights as much as possible in your puny mining ship. Well, that’s what I’m doing so far. I’d like to make my name as a pirate at some point, I think, but I’m a bit worried that I’ll die horribly if I try.
When you enter combat the screen swirls in an RPG-manner and takes you to another view, where your ship flies around automatically and you press buttons to fire your weapons when they’re ready. There’s an update coming to change things a bit, but while it’s not incredibly interactive it’s fine the way it is now. Just don’t expect to be dog fighting, avoiding enemy fire and using flying skills to take down ships better than your own.
Earth Vs Moon (iPhone)
Mar 18th
Polished and playable Missile Command game with lots of nice variety and a well-stocked shop for upgrades. I picked it up for free a while back but hadn’t played it until last night.
It doesn't just ape Missile Command...
It starts off nice and easy, easing you in and teaching what you need to know – without being too dull, thankfully – but the challenge soon ramps up. Soon enough you’re not just playing Missile Command, but Space Invaders and even Pong. Sort of.
Good game, good game.
Earthworm Jim FREE (iPhone)
Mar 18th
How do I get those guns?
Hmm. Looks lovely and I have fond memories, but I can’t remember how to play – what’s the head whip actually for – and I miss the jump button more often than is comfortable. Even at 59p, I think I’ll give the full version a miss. Might be a different story if the game had decent help of any sort.
