A Gaming Diary
PS3
Infamous Demo (PS3)
May 11th
Short version: It’s a bit like Crackdown, but something stops it being OMG BEST!
Long version: An open world superhero game, where you climb buildings and shoot folks. It’s a generous demo and it seems like a good game, but there’s something lacking for me. I’m not sure quite what, though. It might be that the controls feel just a touch clumsy, or it might be that the enemies are hard to see, or it might be that enemy fire is too hard to avoid, or it might be that it’s really quite tough, even on easy, or… I’m really not sure. However, I played the demo for a long, long time, then started it again when it finished, so it must have something.
And let’s not forget the first impressions I had of Killzone 2 were very similar and that turned out to be brilliant. Right now I’m interested, but not convinced. It seems like a good, solid game, but not a must have.
SingStar (PS3)
May 6th
Played enough of this last night to leave my throat broken. We got four new songs with some credit I had in my account. Minnie Ripperton’s Loving You, which was highly amusing. Sonny and Cher’s I’ve Got You Babe, which was awesome to sing with my wife. (We don’t have a pot! I have long hair! It’s our song!) And I can’t, right now, remember the other two, but they were great. Oh, Blue Bayou by Roy Orbison, which I did really well on considering I didn’t know it. And the final song was… was… nope, can’t remember. Oh, yes, I can. It was Girl Put Your Records On. I’m glad I remembered that.
Anyway, I’m torn between Pull Shapes and Total Eclipse of the Heart for a favourite. Got our best score ever on the latter and would probably have done even better if I hadn’t had a coughing fit halfway through.
Noby Noby Boy (PS3)
May 4th
Played about for a bit between watching Mamma Mia and Hellboy 2 on Blu-Ray. Mamma Mia wasn’t… um… well, I’m not really the target audience. I’d probably enjoy the stage show more, I reckon. Hellboy 2 was really rather good, though I kept dozing off, because I’m very, very old. Noby Noby Boy was, as always, fun.
Valkyria Chronicles (PS3)
May 4th
Started off today with a skirmish map I’d unlocked yesterday. It was just a desert level from a previous chapter, so I was fairly confident I could get it done. Indeed, it started well, with the first enemy camp falling without real issue. (One of my snipers had got sniped after I miscalculated some sight lines, but I rescued him.)
However, after that I had to get to the second enemy camp, across open ground, past enemy snipers, shock troopers and tanks. When I’d done this in story mode a convenient sandstorm had blown across the level and hidden me from view, but there was no such help this time. So, I, er, tried exactly the same tactic again.
And it worked. Sort of. It was carnage, but I managed to get into the enemy camp and, with a sliver of health left and being at shot at from close range, one of my guys managed to capture the enemy flag. It shouldn’t have worked, it was incredibly stupid, but I won and I managed not to lose anybody permanently.
It’s still niggling at me now. It was clumsy and came incredibly close to being a complete disaster. Urgh.
Anyway, I then moved on to Chapter Nine of the story and had a much easier mission. I had to stop an armoured car from getting from one end of the map to the other. On my first attempt I made a mess, so reloaded even before I died. The second attempt went well and I won with a B rank. Hooray! (It could have been an A if I’d remembered to use an order to increase Vyse’s attack power, but I never remember orders.)
Interesting to note that I consider that a success – a good result on the second attempt – but that I consider the skirmish a failure – a win on the first attempt.
After completing chapter six I went to buy new guns, level up, all that. Ms Ellet, the reporter, was selling a new bonus chapter, so I bought it. It was cost 50,000, um, whatever the in-game currency is called. That’s very expensive – around ten times the cost of the other bonus chapters. I thought this might include a new battle, some new potentials (basically, context-activated stat changes) for my characters, or something. But no, instead I got some bonus models of the main characters in swimsuits to look at. (As well as extra cut scenes, of course, so not a total waste of money.)
Must remember, if a bonus in a Japanese game costs way over the odds, chances are it involves female characters in swimsuits and/or underwear.
Valkyria Chronicles (PS3)
May 3rd
Did all of chapter eight this morning, which is the first chapter I’ve come across with two missions. The first mission was a sneaking mission that I died on over and over and over and over and over and over again and again and again and again until – hooray! – bioluminescence saved the day. (No, really.) The second mission was a more standard stand-up fight, which I failed first time due to not knowing what was going on, but which I won handily the second time I tried.
Wonderful stuff all round, really.
X-Men Origins Wolverine Demo (PS3)
May 2nd
Still great fun on a second play through. More fun, probably. Not a full-price buy, but I’ll try to get a rental or Goozex it or something.
Everybody’s Golf: World Tour (PS3)
May 2nd
Played a few rounds as Sackboy, in an awesome example of gaming crossovers. (Or cross-promotional marketing, if you have horns and a tail.) It’s a very relaxing game to play on a Saturday morning. No great revelations – it’s the same game it’s always been with a few tweaks and new, slightly different, control scheme – but it’s polished and solid.
Noby Noby Boy (PS3)
May 2nd
I’d heard there was an update, so thought I better download it. Once I had, I thought I’d have a quick go. Forty-five minutes later I managed to stop playing. I do wish this had sold more, partly because it’s so lovely, partly because I want to reach Mars one day.
X-Men Origins Wolverine Demo (PS3)
May 2nd
Very nice. Very linear, made up of obvious rooms and corridors in a jungle setting, but it looks lovely and features smooth, violent and satisfying combat. I’m not sure if I’d want a whole game of the same thing for eight hours, but the demo is great piece of free game.
However, it features one of my biggest annoyances in demos – you get the boss introduction scene and then the demo ends. Boss fights can break a game, though, so one of the most important things for a demo to show me is what the boss fights are actually like. Boo.
Marvel Vs Capcom 2 Demo (PS3)
May 1st
Only a local two-player demo and the wife was in bed when I downloaded it at six o’clock this morning, so it was just a case of playing against standing opponents. Not an awful lot of fun, but gave me a chance to go “oooooh” at how nice it looked and try to remember some of the controls. Loved this on the Dreamcast, will probably love it this generation too, if the single player difficulty hasn’t been set too high. I can’t imagine I’d be able to compete online with it.
