A Gaming Diary
Misc
Playstation 3 Plans
Mar 4th
I went into Gamestation today and put down £20 on a Playstation 3. Probably won’t get one on launch day, they don’t reckon, but I’m not overly bothered. The reason I’ve gone there – when Game and many online stores still have preorders for launch day open – is that I want to trade in games against the cost of the console, given that it costs an obscene amount of money in this country, and Gamestation give the best prices in town.
To that end I went through all my PS2, Xbox, 360 and Gamecube games and asked a series of questions.
1) Is it a UK game? If no, leave on shelf, if yes, proceed to next question.
2) Will I, thinking realistically, ever play it again in my life? If yes, leave on shelf, if no, proceed to next question.
3) Is it something that, even if it won’t get played, will still be loved? If yes, leave on shelf, if no, put in “to be traded” pile.
I’ve ended with about two hundred games to trade in and the vast majority of the games that I’m keeping are only staying because they’re foreign. They’re mostly very old PS and Xbox games that I picked up very cheaply several years ago, so I doubt I’d get more than a quid or two each. And I’m guessing the likes of Pro Evolution Soccer 2 and Dave Mirra BMX 2 won’t even be taken. Even the most recent stuff I’m getting rid of – 360 launch titles – won’t be worth anything much by now. I’m not going to take everything in at once, but some time in the next couple of weeks I’ll be taking the first hundred or so up to Gamestation. I’ll see what happens.
The person behind the counter is going to hate me, I’m sure.
(Actually, I’m pretty sure my Dave Mirra 2 is a US copy, so I shouldn’t have put it in the bag. I’ll find out in Gamestation, I guess. And I’m already regretting not keeping Mario Golf on the Gamecube, so I think I’ll take that back, too.)
The Wicker Man: Director’s Cut (2006) (DVD)
Feb 9th
The remake of The Wicker Man is as bad as the original is good. The original is one of my favourite films, maybe my very favourite. So, no, I didn’t go into the remake with a very open mind. But I simply didn’t expect it to be as bad as it was. As a remake it was all wrong, with the themes and style of the original film completely destroyed.
However, more than that, just taken by itself as a modern horror/thriller movie it’s awful. It doesn’t make sense. Characters come and go with no reason or explanation. Nicolas Cage spends the entire movie looking as if he’s trying to work out whether or not he’s just soiled himself. Events just… happen, seemingly at random. Scenes just… occur. It’s a complete mess. Something went horribly, horribly wrong here.
It’s genuinely one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen. It’s up there with Romance, Boxing Helena and Batman & Robin.
And it’s probably put people off seeing the original, which just completely criminal.
Joytech Control Centre 540C
Feb 5th
I got one of these for Christmas and set it up this weekend. It looks nice and it’s lovely to have a remote-controlled switchbox, but it degrades the 360 image quality and won’t pass a stable 480p signal from the Wii. Not good.
2006 Awards
Jan 2nd
GAME OF THE YEAR
The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion – It probably wasn’t as good as I was hoping for, the difficulty curve is all over the place and it feels a lot smaller and more constrained than Morrowind did to me, but it’s still one of the greatest games I’ve ever played, if not the very greatest. It’s a shame that there are few surprises after the first few hours – random loot seems to max out and become useless very early – but it’s always fun to wander the land seeing the sights and doing the odd quest. If they can release a couple of big expansions with less traditional landscapes and more to do for high level characters then the full package could be great beyond words.
HARDWARE OF THE YEAR
Nintendo Wii Remote – Yeah, surprise. It’s a controller with a speaker! And you can plug extra controllers in the borrom! Ace! But mainly this award is for the motion-sensing, obviously enough, which works wonderfully when used well (and when the sensitivity is set right in the options). In any other year the DS Lite would have walked it, but 2006 was special.
CONSOLE OF THE YEAR
Xbox 360 – Firstly: profiles. Having completely separate saved games and records based on who’s logged in to the machine is absolutely perfect. (Why in God’s name Nintendo didn’t do something similar for the Wii I do not know. It’s an absolute pain, especially when it comes to the saved states on VC games.) Live Arcade is brilliant, as is the Marketplace in general. Yes, some of the items for sale take the piss and hopefully they’ll fail dismally – I’m looking at you Godfather – but downloading demos and trailers is wonderful. Then there’s the fact this is the only current console to offer 720p as standard on all games. No longer do we have to suffer games that aren’t even widescreen or have shoddy PAL ports. The wireless controller is a thing of beauty, too, rubbish d-pad aside. And then there were the games. With the likes of Oblivion, Dead Rising, Ridge Racer 6, Gears of War, Viva Pinata, Saints Row, Test Drive Unlimited and GRAW the 360 had the best line-up of any console this yearm as well as the best versions of multi-platform titles like Tomb Raider: Legend and Hitman: Blood Money. And it had Doom.
MOST UNDERRATED THING OF THE YEAR
Sony PSP – Constantly dismissed by just about everybody, but it does have an excellent library of games now. You want names, I assume. Okay, here go: Tekken: Dark Resurrection, Football Manager Handheld, Loco Roco, Lumines II, Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories, Mega Man Powered Up, OutRun 2006: Coast 2 Coast, Hot Shots Golf, Street Fighter Alpha 3 MAX, Monster Hunter Freedom, Ridge Racer, Sonic Rivals. And those are just games I’ve played – there’s a load more I’ve got queued up at home and even more I’d buy if I had the time and money. There have been long dry spells in the release list and I’m not sure what the long term prospects for the machine are, but it really shouldn’t be dismissed. Shame about the analogue nub and the battery life, though.
WEAPONRY OF THE YEAR
Dead Rising – There’s the katana, simple, elegant, deadly. Possibly the single best weapon of the year. Then there’s the shotgun, too, one of the best since Doom. And then there were dumbbells, knives, frying pans, drink cans, chainsaws, hammers, golf clubs, vehicles…
BEST SURPRISE OF THE YEAR
Saints Row – Should, by rights, have been an appalling GTA clone. But then the demo came along and throwing pipe bombs at cars was fun enough to make the full game a required purchase. It didn’t disappoint. Tons to do and far friendlier than GTA, with a great many improvements to the game structure and controls. In fact, in terms of pure core game mechanics it stomped over GTA with big, heavy boots. If only the general gangsta vibe had been handled with a bit more wit. It wasn’t always unfunny, but the humour mostly fell flat and sometimes seemed to be attempting to be serious. It was hard to tell.
NEGLECTED GEM OF THE YEAR
Company of Heroes – It’s absolutely exceptional. Stressful, epic, exciting, explosive, etc. The superbly designed from the ground up and executed with amazing skill. But it’s on the PC and so I’ve only played it for one weekend. Oops. And not many other people seemed to play it, either. PC gaming just seems to take place in a parallel to console gaming at the moment, more so than ever.
FRANCHISE OF THE YEAR
Lumines – Superb on both the 360 and the PSP, I can never get enough of this game. Block rockin’ beats, and stuff.
DEMO OF THE YEAR
Lost Planet – This demo has been on my 360 since E3 and still gets player. It’s brilliant… but I’ve still not completed either level, so I won’t be buying the full game. This demo is game enough for me. Sorry, Capcom. For demos that do what they’re meant to do (i.e. make me buy the game) it’s a toss up between Dead Rising and Saints Row.
MOST SORELY MISSED CHARACTER OF THE YEAR
Mr Driller – Putting him in Pac-Man World Rally really doesn’t count, Namco. If nothing else, now the Wii’s out, please just translate Mr Driller Drill Land for us. Better yet, a whole new Driller game would be nice… but let us use traditional controls.
IDIOCY OF THE YEAR
OutRun 2006: Coast 2 Coast – It’s a fantastic game. It’s a brilliant game. It’s a wonderful game. It reminds me why games exist and why I love them, even. However, it came out on the Xbox, not the 360. And it’s not backwardly compatible. That’s idiotic. But even more idiotic is making some of the cars in the PSP unlockable only if you connect your PSP up to the PS2 version of the game. Especially as one of those cars is my favourite car, which I now can’t use in the PSP game. Hooray.
DISAPPOINTMENT OF THE YEAR
Lego Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy (360) – Not the worst game released by any means. It should have been one of the best games of the year, in fact, but it was ruined by bugs. I never even finished it in the end.
MOST UTTERLY, COMPLETELY HORRIBLE GAMING THING OF THE YEAR
Sonic The Hedgehog Demo – I played this a lot. Just because I couldn’t believe it was as bad as I thought it was. But it was. It was just a pitiful mess and broken beyond belief. And it was Sonic. Our Sonic!
The Boss Commandments
Nov 7th
1) Bosses must not have any unskippable cut scenes before the fight, though pre-fight animations of under seven seconds are allowed.
2) It must be possible to save directly before any boss fight in any game where progression, not scoring, is the main indicator of success.
3) All boss attacks must be avoidable, though games with character customisation can make this harder or easier based on the skills/equipment chosen by the player.
4) If the battle is based around finding weak spots, the number of times the boss’s weak spot must be hit must always be three, no more, no less.
5) If the battle is based around doing a certain amount of damage, the boss must have a health bar or equivalent way of seeing damage being taken (i.e. armour that falls off when attacks connect).
6) The player must never take damage due to an attack they couldn’t see because the camera got stuck behind a crate/wall/etc.
7) In a game with energy/hit points no attack should be able to kill the player in one hit.
8) Bosses must never be allowed to heal themselves fully when nearly dead, though partial healing is allowed.
9) Boss fights should always reward tactics, cunning and creativity over mere endurance.
10) All bosses must be killable in less than five minutes, though fights can take longer when players are unskilled, unsure or underpowered.
MAC Vs. Mac
Oct 30th
Just for the record, I know it’s normally Mac, not MAC, but I’m using capitals in my titles for everything. When it arrives, Wii games will be marked (WII), for example.
So I’m not just being a wronghead.
Six Word Stories
Oct 27th
Inspired by that Wired link doing the rounds, stories that are six words long. Here are mine -
America defeated! Maple syrup for all!
He speaks softly to the dead.
Years unloved. He jumped. Squashed soulmate.
Doctor lost TARDIS, eternity in Hull.
Star Wars fan tries force, nothing.
Star Wars fan tries force, something…
Phone battery dead, kidnappers killed child.
No parachute! What now? Grow wings!
Fan forcibly shaved, Shearer was culprit.
Redundant, he lay down, awaited bisection.
Adventure booked, chute failed, God found.
Footsteps in empty flat, I moved.
Moon, howling, teeth, blood… cycle repeats.
Time stopped, we kissed, walked forever.
Dangerous plan leads to graveyard plot.
Garden swing, secrets, smiles, memories forged.
And now, working on a theme -
Bear steals picnic basket; ranger annoyed.
Dog nominal hero; cat catches criminal.
Dog sniggers, but plan backfires ironically.
Pigeon in danger? No, not really.
Cat has gang, lives in dustbin.
And more so -
Dog runs away, makes tall sandwich.
It was the amusement park’s janitor!
“Puppy power!” Quick change the channel!
Lesbian in glasses longs for redhead.
The movie was actually quite good.
Invert Y
Oct 26th
Yes, this is the old blog known as My Secret Game and – very briefly – Die Sony Die. I got myself a brand new domain – inverty.com, if you’ve just woken up – and I’ve promoted the blog to the front page. It’s not like there was anything much on the old front page of mysecretshame.co.uk, anyway.
Anyway, should be mostly the same old stuff. A list of games I’ve been playing that’s of no interest to anyone except myself. I may – may – branch out a little and make some posts that aren’t just a record of what I’ve recently done in video games, but no promises.
Anyway, welcome. Different URL, but the same old rubbish.
(I don’t know who I think I’m talking to. Nobody read this diary at the old site and if they did then they’d just think I’d stopped updating it because I didn’t put a notice up before I moved.)
