A Gaming Diary
iPhone
GHOSTS’N GOBLINS GOLD KNIGHTS (iPhone)
Nov 12th
So, yesterday afternoon I finished the third level of the game. And then in the evening I finished the fourth level.
The fifth level didn’t take long. And the sixth level simply consists of the world’s easiest boss fight.
And that’s the end.
Obviously, I can go back and play it again. (And I have done, mainly to test if the game gets harder after you’ve completed it. It doesn’t.) For only £1.79 I’m not going to complain too much, but it feels like there should be a bit more game here. Fun while it lasts, but shockingly easy.
Boost 3D (iPhone)
Nov 12th
Now, this is more like it! Boost 3D got updated and is now much, much faster. I believe that it’s now running at the speed it was always meant to run, but there was a bug which meant it didn’t run fast enough on the 3GS, or something. Don’t quote me on that, I may have got the wrong end of the stick.
The trouble is, though, that although it’s more fun it’s now more difficult, so I’m unlikely to ever reach the high score I set in the slow version. D’oh.
Rally Master Pro 3D (iPhone)
Nov 11th
This is where damage becomes an issue. I started the fourth stage of the Pro rally with my car’s health at 74%.
It’s a twisty, turny track with lots of rocky outcroppings. I didn’t crash very often, but I kept scraping the sides and doing enough damage that my car simply wasn’t fast enough to win the stage. I’d make the best time over the first half of the course, but then would lose time over the second half because my car simply wasn’t up to it.
Eventually, though, I did manage to win. Only by 0.04 of a second, but a win’s a win. It felt very good indeed.
Unfortunately, I forgot how the repair mini game worked and did so poorly that my car’s going into the next stage at only 78% health. With two more stages to go before I can repair again, I think I’m done for and I’m going to have to restart the Pro rally over.
GHOSTS’N GOBLINS GOLD KNIGHTS (iPhone)
Nov 11th
Been very much enjoying this game. It’s not earth-shattering and I don’t see it being one of my games of the year, but it doesn’t do much wrong. The challenge has ramped up now I’m on the third level, but it’s still not as hard as the games of old.
I’ve even made it to the third boss a couple of times now, but on both occasions I was down to my pants, so didn’t last long.
Words With Friends (iPhone)
Nov 11th
Wow, look at that! I feel honoured to have had a move that good played against me.
GHOSTS’N GOBLINS GOLD KNIGHTS (iPhone)
Nov 10th
THANKS FOR ONLY USING CAPITAL LETTERS IN THE NAME OF THIS GAME, CAPCOM! I ALWAYS ENJOY THAT! Anyway, yes, a new – new! – Ghosts’n Goblins game has appeared on the iPhone today. It’s only £1.79 at the moment, which is within my impulse purchase range for a much-loved series such as this, so I gave it a go.
First thing you notice is that it’s all been rendered in fairly cheap-looking 3D. Arthur’s animation, in particular, is laughable, but not charmless. (There’s another playable character, Lancelot, but selecting him would, of course, be sacrilege.)
The second thing you notice is that it’s all very easy. I doubt anyone will see the Game Over screen before the end of the first level. You might misjudge a jump and lose a life or two, but that’s it. The enemies are no trouble and the boss is a piece of cake, with a blindingly obvious weak spot and attacks that are harder to get hit by than avoid.
The second level is rather more challenging. The enemies are slightly more troublesome, yes, but the real difficulty comes from the jumps. There’s one near the end of the second level (I assume) that I keep failing. Yet, I still kept going back, stretching the definition of lunch time to breaking point. (And you can choose which level to start on, so there’s no need to do the first level again once you’ve completed it.)
I miss the hardcore punishment of the GBA version of the game, but I’m not sure if it’d work with virtual controls, good as these are. It took me a few minutes to adjust to the fairly small d-pad, but after that I didn’t have any issues.
So, any bad news, apart from maybe the difficulty?
Yes, I’m afraid so.
The graphics sometimes make it unclear where you can and can’t jump. It’s not a big issue, but it’s occasionally annoying.
More importantly, the game doesn’t do any auto save. Get a phone call of press the Home button while playing and your current game is lost. The level select feature makes this slightly less of an issue than it might be, but it’s still not good.
The final bit of bad news is the game’s approach to in-app purchases. Take a look at this screenshot.
That’s right, you can buy cheats for 59p each. Infinite lives, infinite magic attacks, things like that. No, you don’t have to use them – and I won’t be – but it all leaves a nasty taste in the mouth.
Doom Classic (iPhone)
Nov 10th
Some days* you just need some good old shotgun therapy.
*Like, say, when the windows in your office are being replaced around you as you shiver, nurse a headache and try to work.
Dungeon Hunter Free (iPhone)
Nov 10th
Well, I was going to buy The Settlers yesterday. I’d spend a few days reading about it, trying to decide if it was worth £2.99, then finally decided it was. So I went off to the App Store, only to find that I couldn’t buy it because the price of the game was being increased to £3.99. So, no Settlers for me. I know it’s only a quid, but I’ve got £13.44 of credit that needs to last the next couple of weeks and there are a lot of games coming out – every pound counts.
Another Gameloft game is £2.99 at the moment, though, so I thought I’d try the demo version of Dungeon Hunter to see if it was worth the cash. Well, it’s a very short demo, but it seems like a decent, competent action RPG that basically only exists so you can pore through menus seeing if wooden boots are better than ceremonial boots. (They are, by the way.)
I’m reasonably tempted, but I think I’ll wait to see what sort of reaction Ravensword gets when that’s released in the next week or two. (By which time Gameloft will probably have put the price of Dungeon Hunter back up again, but that’s the App Store for you.)
Zombie Dash (iPhone)
Nov 10th
Played quite a lot of Zombie Dash last night, to see if it would get any harder. And, to be fair, I nearly died a couple of times when I got hit by bats and zombies at the same time, but I managed to survive. I went from the 38th day to the 51st and it was only those two occasions that presented anything like a problem. The only reason I finished playing on Day 51 was because I’d set myself the goal of clearing Day 50, I didn’t die or anything.
Honestly, I’m not really sure what the best way to make the game more interesting is. Obviously, it needs to be harder for me to really enjoy it. (I’m not claiming that everyone would want it to be harder, but I think I need the constant fear of death to make it come alive.) I think I’d limit the amount of antidote you can carry to fifty, make the traps deadlier, keep the bats as they are and, well, I’m just not sure what to do about the zombies. Right now they’re a bit of a nuisance, but that’s all. I think I might make them much deadlier and force the player to lure zombies into traps to proceed. Right now you can lead the zombies onto spikes, but they’re often too far away and it’s much, much easier just to run into the zombie and fight them off than make them follow you to a play where you can escape from them.
It’s tricky, but it’d be worth doing because there’s a great game in here, but it’s just lacking a bit of spark and pop and fizz.
The Isle of 8-Bit Treasures (iPhone)
Nov 10th
I think I may finally have got properly fed up with this last night. I don’t mind dying all the time – I’ve seen the screen below more times that I can count.
I don’t even mind it crashing now and again in custom dungeons, but it doesn’t crash now and again – it crashes all the time. The screen below shows a crash.
You can’t actually tell, because it all carries on nicely, playing music and animating the characters, but the game refuses to respond to any inputs. I shouldn’t even be needing to input anything in that screen, mind, as I should be escaping the dungeon. Maybe I should stick to the main dungeons, but the lure of custom dungeons is just too great.
Anyway, I’m sure I’ll still play it, but it’s going to become part of a balanced gaming diet; I won’t be gorging myself on it any longer.
