A Gaming Diary
PSP
OutRun 2006 Coast 2 Coast
Mar 29th
Tried the PSP version briefly this lunchtime. Very difficult to control and drifts don’t seem as natural to pull off as in OutRun 2 on the Xbox.
It seems good, don’t get me wrong, but it’s going to take some getting used to is all.
Generation of Chaos
Mar 12th
Big complicated PSP strategy game with no tutorial and an awful font.
I’ve been through two turns. Thr first turn I bought a sword, but didn’t do anything else. The second turn I managed to move some units and send another off on a search, or something, which is different.
I really don’t have a clue what’s going on.
There are cut scenes, soon, where lots of people talk to each other about nothing. Using a horrible font.
I need to read the manual. Then maybe some reviews.
Armored Core: Formula Front International
Feb 26th
I just tried a league match.
I choose Manual mode instead of AI.
And I still won!
Hoorah.
Armored Core: Formula Front International
Feb 20th
It’s a PSP mech game.
I thought I was being clever, ordering the Japanese budget release rather than the expensive UK version. The Japanese version has an English language option, you see. Unfortunately, the manual’s in Japanese. As are the introductory training videos. Ah.
Anyway, I’ve muddled through. My team The Revstars have started with five mechs. I’ve renamed one of them Big Red and fiddled about with it. I’ve tuned the parts, played the with AI, that sort of thing. A lot of it is understandable, but there are lots of acronyms like EO and, er, other things that I don’t understand. What are hangers? I dunno. It’s almost like Gran Turismo, where it’s assumed you know what the difference between a manual and automatic gearbox is, or something. The whole game seems to be like that. It’s assumed you know what all these things are.
Anyway, I decided to test Big Red out. First I tried him out in AI mode and he killed the opposition. Then I tried him out in manual mode and didn’t know what the hell I was doing. Couldn’t work out which buttons did what, really, and just when I thought I was getting there, I blew up.
Oh well.
Street Fighter Alpha 3 Max
Feb 19th
I can’t do 360s on the PSP d-pad it seems.
But then I doubt I’d ever choose to play as any charatcers that need to do them, anyway.
Street Fighter Alpha 3 Max
Feb 18th
Hooray, I’ve just finished Asia in world tour mode.
Last bit took a while. In one battle I could only damage the enemy with combos – and combos of over two hits. I can’t do that, due to rubbishness. But you start off with a bigger health bar, so I just had to bugger about avoiding damage until the timer ran down. Next battle was against Sagat, a two out of three job. A Power battle, which means his attacks did loads more damage than normal. That’s what took…
Hang on, this is tedious even for this diary, which is an exercise is ultra-boring geekdom.
Anyway, yes, I kicked some arse and progressed to the USSR.
Street Fighter Alpha 3 Max
Feb 18th
God, I love this game.
Why can I kill Blanka in Free Battle but not when he turns up in Arcade mode?
Street Fighter Alpha 3 Max
Feb 12th
Just to give you an idea of ridiculously packed this is, here’s the list of choices on the main menu -
Arcade Mode
Variable Battle
Training Mode
Free Battle
Option Mode
World Tour
Edit Mode
Entry Mode
Vs 100 Kumite
Network
Survival Mode
Dramatic Battle
R. Dramatic Battle
Final Battle
Score Ranking
Arcade has a million different options you can tweak, Survival Mode has eight different types of Survival on its sub-menu, World Tour is pretty huge on its own, etc. etc. etc. etc.
It’s just huge a Street Fighter sandbox.
Street Fighter Alpha 3 Max
Feb 12th
Hooray, round four!
I’m getting better.
My dragon punches aren’t coming as easily as there were last night.
Also noticed a Street Fighter Alpha 3 strategy guide on a bookshelf earlier. It won’t cover everything, but it might be worth looking through. I’ve got an odd collection of strategy guides, actually. Starcraft, Xenogears, Suikoden II, even Crazy Taxi of all things. (I seem to remember that last one was being sold off for 1c in Toys ‘R’ Us.)
