A Gaming Diary
iPhone
Touch Cricket Lite (iPhone)
Nov 20th
So, I was playing Little Master online and rather enjoying it. I noticed there was an iPhone version, but it cost 59p, and Touch Cricket – that I had been told was very similar – had a free Lite version.
And it is fairly similar, but more complicated. Your left thumb moves the batter and your right thumb moves the bat. Balls come in from the right and you have to hit them.
Easy enough conceptually, but incredibly difficult in practice. I tried and tried, but didn’t do very well at all. I think I managed over twenty runs in one amazing session, but most of the time I was getting caught or bowled without hitting a single ball. (And, yes, I read the help. This wasn’t a problem with the controls, just my own inability to judge where to put the bat and batter.)
Eventually the frustration got too much and I deleted it. Cricket’s rubbish, anyway. Harumph.
Ravensword: The Fallen King (iPhone)
Nov 19th
Guess what? Would you like it if you were in a dungeon trying to find an orc after killing loads of wolves to level up enough to survive the dungeon but you couldn’t find the orc and then it turned out you had to jump through burning hot lava to get to the orc?
Anyway, things are back on track now. I’ve rescued the girl from the orc, finally, and I’ve got a new quest to do.
Also, it turns out that zombies are surprisingly wealthy.
Call of Duty: World At War: Zombies (iPhone)
Nov 19th
You know how I blogged about this yesterday, praising it to the heavens and calling it a new App Store classic? Remember that? Well, I tried it at home last night and… and… I think I was right. It’s absolutely superb. I’m already itching for new maps, though.
I also tried an online game last night. It took me ages to find one – normally the Quick Game option would spend ages looking and then leave me in a lobby on my own where nobody joined me. Eventually, though, I got into a four player game. As soon as it started everyone started jerking around and then I found myself on my own. It was, quite frankly, awful.
I’m not going to blame the game, though, because I decided to run some speed tests. Looking at the results, it seems I need to try and play online either very late or very early. The evening, which is when I want to play, has terrible net connection speeds.
It may be that my ISP is doing some overly zealous traffic shaping, but I guess it’s just that everyone in my little cluster of houses out in the middle of nowhere is having to share a connection that just can’t handle us all.
Bejeweled 2 (iPhone)
Nov 19th
Ah, so it turns out the high scores are reset every week. This is probably only news to me. This week, though, I have two people to compete against. It was only one last week. Special.
I wish it would record my best score of all time somewhere, though. I’ll have to investigate menus just to see if I’ve missed it.
Anyway, yes, brilliant game. Great for quick bursts. I’m talking about the Blitz mode in this post, by the way. Should probably have mentioned that sooner.
You know, I often think of doing a monthly post of the top ten or twenty iPhone games, but then I realise that it would be far too difficult. Might be useful, though. People often ask me for recommendations.
Ravensword: The Fallen King (iPhone)
Nov 18th
After killing Nazi zombies I thought I’d wind down with a bit of fantasy adventuring. The controls, which felt fine yesterday, felt a bit awkward after Call of Duty, but I adjusted quickly enough as I walked through town. As soon as I was out of town, though, I got killed by a wolf. Bother.
To make myself feel better I bought a nice hat with wings. Wings!
Lovely, ain’t it?
Anyway, I’m a bit stuck right now. I’ve only got one quest, which involves rescuing someone trapped in a dungeon. Unfortunately there are a couple of high level skeletons in my way and they keep killing me, so I think I’ll have to go hunting for a while to level up. Mind you, there’s a mace for sale at the blacksmith’s shop. I wonder if that would be better against zombies than a sword? There’s no stats for weapons to let me know whether it would be any better or worse than the sword I’m using, which is a bit of an issue.
Call of Duty: World At War: Zombies (iPhone)
Nov 18th
Yes, it’s a two-colon game, but let’s not hold that against it. What we’ve got here is the Zombies game mode from Call of Duty: World At War, where you’re stuck in a bunker with hordes of Nazi undead trying to break in and munch on your brains. You start off in a small room with just a knife, pistol and few grenades, but as you earn money by killing zombies and repairing your barricades you can purchase new guns and unlock new areas of the bunker.
I’m not really sure it should work. After all, it’s a game designed for big consoles and big TVs and big controllers. However, against expectations, it’s blindingly good. It looks wonderful, with the zombie animation especially good, and it’s great fun to play. I’ve only tried the dual stick controls so far, but apart from sometimes shooting when I don’t mean to, I’ve not had a problem with them. (HINT: Swiping across the screen turns you 90 degrees, great when you want to look around quickly.)
I was playing it with headphones at lunchtime and it sounds great, with great zombie groans and useful sound cues. Excellently, though, the developers have realised that people will want to play with the sound off, so have included visual cues for when zombies get close to you. It’s just a sign of the love and care that’s gone into this game.
It may have a premium price – and it looks like you’ll have to pay more to get more maps when they’re released (only one comes with the game) – but it’s a game that’s actually worth the cost.
Oh, and that’s before taking into account the online multiplayer, which I’ve not had a chance to try yet. Top marks and a new App Store classic.
Incidentally, in my first go I got to wave three. On my second go I got to wave nine with a combination of the shotgun and then the flamethrower – and maybe could have gone longer if I had switched back to my rifle by mistake. Not a good thing to do when you’re surrounded.
Oh, and then I had another game but died on round four. Let’s forget that one.
Words With Friends (iPhone)
Nov 18th
Didn’t have time to play anything other than Words With Friends last night because I went to the cinema to see 2012. Takes nearly an hour to get there, then the movie was about eight hours long, so I didn’t get back until way after bedtime. No time for gaming. Anyway, the film had some brilliant set pieces and Oliver Platt, Woody Harrelson and Zlatko Buric were great, but it really felt like a great ninety minute film unnecessarily bloated with speechifying and too many subplots. Still, I’m very glad I went to see it at the cinema, because the good bits were tremendous. (Even if one of the best bits had been completely spoiled by being shown in a Sony commercial before the film. D’oh.)
Anyway, Words With Friends, eh? Lovely game.
Ravensword: The Fallen King (iPhone)
Nov 17th
It’s Oblivion on the iPhone, basically. A lot smaller, yes, and the lack of character customisation means it’s more of an action adventure than an RPG, but it’s set in an open fantasy world and lets you get on with things. There are quests to take, different areas to explore, treasure to find, monsters to kill, all that good stuff.
I’ve spent an hour with it, which has seen me killing rats for a restaurant to serve up for dinner, getting on a horse and herding some sheep, killing thieving goblin scum and venturing into a dungeon to rescue someone’s daughter.
And I’ve had a great time doing all of it. I changed the sensitivity of the controls to maximum before I even left the first room, then I was away. There’s a decent interface – though the map could maybe use a bit more work, even if only to show the direction you’re facing – and lots to do. It may not be as long or as deep as a real Elder Scrolls adventure, but it’ll do me fine, I think.
Oh, but I’ve been “dying” a lot and if Beatrice gives me her patronising speech one more time I may have to kill her… except I can’t, because you can’t attack NPCs. Probably for the best, eh?
GHOSTS’N GOBLINS GOLD KNIGHTS (iPhone)
Nov 17th
I was awake between 4am and 5:30am this morning, due to a combination of a dodgy stomach and a hungry cat. Mainly the stomach – the cat went back to sleep after getting some food.
I was using my iPhone in bed, after spending half an hour on the loo, and noticed that Ghosts’n Goblins, sorry, GHOSTS’N GOBLINS, had an update, which has added in a whole new game mode. That’s a bit of surprise so soon after release. And, even more of a surprise, it was free.
It’s Boxers mode, where you spend the entire game in your underwear, without armour, so one hit kills you. I also think the enemies might be faster and there might be more traps. It was hard to tell, it being five in the morning in the morning and all. However, even in the early hours, I was able to tell that the new mode’s an awful lot of brutal fun and should breathe new life into the game for me.
There’s also a new leader board for Time Attack. I don’t know if that’s for Boxers mode – unlike the standard mode, you get continues in this version so time-based leader board might make sense – or whether it’s for completing the main game in a single run, or what.
