A Gaming Diary
iPhone
Cocoto Kart Online (iPhone)
Oct 16th
The law states that anyone in possession of a gaming console must own at least one cart racing game for that console. I’ve had my iPhone for a few months now, so was worrying that I might get a nasty fine from the authorities if I didn’t buy one soon.
I settled on Cocoto Kart online, because it’s the cheapest cart racer out there – 59p! – and because the kids over on the Touch Arcade forums seem to like it.
Played several races last night and I’m not sold on it yet, but I’m not yet ready to delete it.
Good Things
It’s fast. No starting out at walking pace and gradually working your way up to reasonable speeds. It’s no Wipeout or anything, but it’s good and speedy.
The tracks seem to have some nice shortcuts and I’ve seen more than I can work out how to get to.
The online works fine. I tried out a quick race over the Internet and didn’t have any issues, though I was soundly beaten.
Bad Things
It’s far too hard in single player. Even the first “easy” races are completely unforgiving and coming in anything other than last is an achievement worthy of a post on Twitter, at least.
There doesn’t seem to be any in-game help or advice, as far as I can see. I may be blind, but I did go looking. You boot the game up, it asks you to choose a character without telling you what the differences between them are. You have to work out the power-ups and the controls for yourself. Of course, it’s mostly pretty obvious, but some guidance would be lovely.
Most importantly, I’m not sold on any of the control schemes yet. The tilt controls seem like they work, until I find myself unable to get round corners. The d-pad controls I tried for half a race but liked even less. I think the controls might actually be fine, but just require a lot more skill than I’ve got right now. More breaking, turning into corners at the right time, that sort of thing. I just can’t really tell right now.
Some help pages and an easier single player would help a lot. Right now, you’re left with what seems to be a very hardcore cart racer. That may sound like a contradiction in terms, but it feels like a game for and by people who have played Mario Kart far too much and want a stiffer challenge.
The reception many people have given it suggest that there’s not a bad game in there, but it’s going to take some more digging to find it.
Orbital (iPhone)
Oct 16th
Went back to Orbital after some time away last night and tried to get a new high score in Pure mode. I upped my high score on the new phone, but it’s pathetic next to the score I had on my old phone. Anyway, the game’s great fun and is well worth buying.
Do you see what I did there?
Shoot me now.
Actually, the most interesting thing about Orbital is probably the rhythm of it. You can’t control the cannon at the bottom of the screen, so you need to wait for it to be pointing in the right direction. All the waiting should make the game feel relaxing, but the knowledge that a single badly-placed shot can end your game makes the game feel… oh, I don’t know. Sometimes I get impatient and wish I could aim the cannon myself. Sometimes I get unsure of myself and find myself unable to shoot. Sometimes I get tired of waiting and shoot the ball of in whatever direction the cannon happens to be facing. There’s really no coherent feeling to the game. Sometimes it grabs me by the balls and squeezes, sometimes it feels like I’m standing at a counter waiting for an especially slow fast food order – often both in the course of a single game.
And yet it never loses the “one more go” factor, because you always, always, always know that you messed up, either through incompetence or impatience. The game is very harsh, but it never feels like it wants you to fail. Some games have a relationship, even a rapport, with the player. Orbital is just there, cold as outer space and completely unconcerned with whether you live or die.
Canabalt (iPhone)
Oct 16th
A gaming diary is a stupid idea. It sounds like a decent concept. By writing about every game you play each day you can end up with long-term reviews. A game might be the best thing ever, but disappear after a couple of entries, meaning it burned itself out quickly. You might see something that seemed unspectacular on first playing become part of your staple gaming diet.
The trouble is, there’s not much to say about a lot of games.
Canabalt, for example. All you need to do it click the label below this post or do a search in my shiny new search box at the top of the screen to find everything you need to know about the game, which isn’t much.
I keep playing it, but there’s nothing else left to write about. If I had a sparkling wit and could lead words in a fantastic dance then that might not be a problem. I don’t and I can’t, however, so you’re just left with stodgy entries that don’t say anything. And even my blog posts that do say something tend to fall into a pattern.
1) “I bought/went back to this game yesterday.”
2) Description of game mechanics and/or the level I’m currently I’m playing.
3) If it’s a high score game, mention whether or not I got a high score.
4) End with “It’s not/quite/great fun not/possibly/well worth buying.”
There. By following that simple guide you too can write your own InvertY.com blog posts. Let’s try it now with Canabalt:
I went back to this game yesterday. Despite being out of practice, I eventually got back into the rhythm of the thing, though I died far too often on the drills that drop down. I didn’t get a high score, though I wasn’t doing too badly by the end of the evening. As I’ve said before, it’s great fun and well worth buying.
Perfect! Another blog entry completed! Now to add an image of the start of the game and press the Publish Post button.
I don’t want to be boring, but I can’t seem to help it.
Cash Cow (iPhone)
Oct 15th
Imagine Big Top Ten, but far more relaxed and based on American farms and not Edwardian circuses.
Basically.
Instead of making chains of numbers that add up to ten, you’re dealing with US coinage. You can make five 1c coins into a nickel, two nickels into a dime, two dimes and nickel into a quarter, four quarters into a dollar. (Or any combination of ten coins or less that adds up to another coin or a dollar.) Once you make a dollar, the coins are removed from play and added to your total. Don’t worry, it’s easier to play than to explain.
Between the main levels are fun little interludes.
Sometimes you get tilt-controlled bonus levels.
After every level you get to spend the money you earned on improvements to your farm.
It’s all jolly good-natured, with a jaunty hoedown soundtrack and a forgiving difficulty level. It’s worth the current asking price of 59p, I reckon, though it’s thoroughly unspectacular and not a patch on the furious intensity of Big Top Ten.
Blades of Fury FREE (iPhone)
Oct 15th
Gameloft’s take on Soul Calibur is now available in demo form, letting you choose one of two characters and have a fight against the other. One’s a big, slow brute, the other a quick, nimble lady.
Seems pretty good, based on a few rounds, if a little slow. The female character is rather more fun, but she’s not the kind of whirlwind fighter you might expect from a game of this type. Once you get used to the somewhat sedate pace, though, you can appreciate what appears to be a well-designed little fighter.
It also looks very nice and gave me the first “this is running on my phone!” moment that I’ve had in ages.
Soosiz (iPhone)
Oct 15th
Remember how yesterday I was saying I was stuck on a blue coin level? Well, I completed it within seconds of writing that post. Well, minutes. Might have been a couple of hours later. I’m not sure when I posted and when I next played the game. Point is, I finished the level easily.
I then proceeded to get hopelessly stuck on a completely different blue coin level. This one doesn’t rotate when you go under platforms, nor does it scroll. Instead you’ve just got a fixed-view, flick screen level. It’s basically a glimpse of what Soosiz could have been, had it gone horribly wrong at some point in development. It’s still fun, though, just very, very hard. I’ve still not got all the blue coins, but I’ve settled for silver medal and have moved on.
Now I’m finding a regular level quite tricky but, again, not in a bad way. The game boots up so quickly that you don’t feel committed to playing for ages when you start it up. I tend to have three or four attempts, then shut it down and check the Internet, then come back a little later. Keeps it fresh and helps keep the frustration demons at bay.
I really want to get to the last level of the second world so I can see how annoying the boss is. I have a feeling it’s going to make or break the game for me. Mind you, even if I do give up at that point, I’ll still be very pleased I bought the game, given how much I’ve enjoyed what I’ve played.
Minigore (iPhone)
Oct 15th
Got myself a new high score last night. Not especially impressive – about 4,362 or thereabouts – and a long way off unlocking Insane mode, but I was pleased.
Fantastic game, it really is. You go online and there are all these people moaning about the lack of “depth” in iPhone games like this, but here’s a game that’s a shallow as a Saharan puddle and is one of the very best games on the platform. Really, honestly, who needs depth when you’ve got THRILLS! and EXCITEMENT! and HEART-POUNDING TENSION! and OTHER THINGS WRITTEN IN CAPS AND FOLLOWED BY EXCLAMATION MARKS!, eh?
Words With Friends (iPhone)
Oct 15th
This game is now, thankfully, over. There was never any space and trying to fit words on to the board was an absolute nightmare.
Soosiz (iPhone)
Oct 14th
Didn’t play much last night. Had a bath, watched Stargate Universe, Electric Dreams and some other bits and pieces, didn’t find much time for gaming of any sort. I did, however, have a few games of Soosiz over the course of the evening. I was trying a blue coin level, which are bonus levels where the aim is to collect all the blue coins within a time limit.
In this one, you have to make bits of the level appear and disappear by jumping on buttons, but the changes only last a set amount of time. I can only get so far, because there’s one section where the part of the level I’ve just made appear suddenly disappears with no warning. I suspect there might be some sound effects letting me know what’s happening, but as I play with the sound off that’s not very helpful.
When the level disappears, I disappear along with it, until I press the jump button, suddenly reappear and then plummet to my doom.
It’s not as annoying as it sounds, though. I know I’ve just got to work out how to do that section more quickly. I’ll keep plugging away.
Minigore (iPhone)
Oct 13th
A lunchtime spent playing Minigore is a lunchtime well-spent. (Should that be hyphenated? It feels like it should be.)
Sometimes, though, Minigore makes me sad, because I know that however many furries John Gore shoots in the face, eventually they’re going to overrun him and kill him, the poor box-headed bastard.
And then I realise that that’s a bit like life. We spend our days “shooting furries” (literally in the case of Blake Shelton, less literally when you’re a software developer living in Kent), but eventually we die.
And then I realise that, far from making things pointless, like all French people think while smoking cigarettes in coffee shops and getting unsatisfying blow jobs from philosopher-groupies under the table (subs please check), that it just means that that the fight is the thing, the point and that life is made all the more meaningful, not because we can someday “win”, but absolutely because someday we’re going to “lose”.
And then I remember that that was the message of the TV show Angel, which seemed to spawn countless numbers of (mostly Canadian) vampire detective shows, but we shouldn’t hold that against it.
And that reminds me that I have to spend this weekend watching season one of Dollhouse, because it’s filling up my Sky HD box and season two starts soon.
