A Gaming Diary
Wii
Super Smash Bros Brawl (Wii)
Jul 30th
Finished Subspace Emissary mode last night. I don’t think I’ve unlocked all the characters doing that, though. I’m sure Wind Waker Link was meant to be the game, but maybe that was a filthy rumour. I also played some 1v1 brawls against the computer and designed my first stage. Turns out, having tunnels in Smash Bros game is a bad idea, so I’ve changed it a bit.
Super Smash Bros Brawl (Wii)
Jul 27th
So, I picked this up in Tesco because it was on special offer.
Got home to find they’d left the security tag in it. Took about twenty minutes to get the box open and the disc out. They’re very well designed, those tags. Started up the Wii, only to find the hand cursor wouldn’t appear. After some fiddling I found the problem – my lovely cat had bitten through the cable. Oh yay. Got a couple of night lights set up in front of the TV and managed to get enough of a signal from them to start the game. Then it was just a question of turning on my Wavebird controller which is, thankfully, fully supported once you’re into the game. Pity you can’t control the Wii menu with one.
Played a lot on Friday night, then – once more using the night light trick – on Saturday. I must have played it a lot, because I unlocked something for playing for over ten hours at some point on Saturday afternoon.
Verdict? Well, it’s certainly addictive. Hours disappear like minutes when you play. There’s tons of great stuff to unlock – characters, trophies, stickers, music. etc. There’s an awful lot to it. A huge one player game mode that I’m still only half-way through. Lots of events and mini games. A “Classic” mode I’ve not even looked at yet. The normal multiplayer game, that is great fun to play in single player against AI. And a slowdown-ridden buy playable online mode. Then there’s the extra bits – arrange your trophies, use coins to get new trophies and stickers in a shooting mini-game, a stage builder and probably more I’m forgetting.
It’s a massive package and for the price you can get it for now, it’s a complete bargain.
Boom Blox (Wii)
May 14th
I got home last night and the first thing I did was try an “impossible” level my wife had got stuck on while I was at work. I flexed my manly gaming muscles and gave it a go. Turns out, it actually is impossible. Or as near as you can get to it. You have to protect four kittens from eighty-five attacking skeletons. I can only manage to kill about fifty, at best, before the kittens get killed. Ah well.
So I went through Explore mode on my profile instead. That unlock Expert Explore mode, where I managed to fail a long level. Boo.
And then it was time to play some co-op, because my wife’s arm had recovered enough from her afternoon with the game. Co-op is definitely the best part of the game that I’ve seen so far. We got through several levels very easily, but are now stuck trying to topple a very solid tower with bowling balls. I have some theories as to how best to go about it, but they don’t seem to be working.
It’s really a very good game. It’s not as polished as I’d like, though. The cross-hairs freeze for a second every now and again. It’s never been at an important time, but it’s annoying when you’re trying to line up a shot. And once it ended a level saying we’d failed when my last ball was still knocking things over. The game showed a gold medal winning score, but said we’d failed but made us retry. And once I managed to knock a gem into a wooden block – luckily a bit was sticking out and hitting it freed it. I’ve seen some incredible slow down in co-op, too, but it’s never been a gameplay issue.
Anyway, they’re just minor niggles that reviewers don’t seem to be reporting. Not enough to knock any points off the score, but worth mentioning in passing.
Boom Blox (Wii)
May 13th
It’s not really a mini-games compilation, it’s too well-themed for that. But they do get an awful lot of play styles from the basic premise of blocks falling around. There’s Jenga, which is probably the best bit of the package so far. There’s, um, bowling or something, where you have to use balls to topple blocks or to destroy baddies that are coming to break down your castle. There are shooting range levels where you simply have to point at moving blocks and shoot them. There are quite possibly other styles of play, too.
Last night I did the training and a few simple single player puzzles, but I spent most of my time playing the co-op levels with my wife. It’s all very, very good fun. We had a devil of a time where you work simultaneously to remove blocks from a see-saw, but we didn’t get grumpy and it was a sweet, sweet feeling when we won. The Wii controls feel exactly the way they should and the physics engine seems very sensible. I’m not surprised it’s been getting such good reviews.
Mario Kart Wii (Wii)
Apr 27th
So much fun had and I didn’t even go online. I did a fair few time trials – badly – then did some Grand Prixs. It was great, but then my TV decided to show random flashing pixel-high two-centimetre long lines all over the screen, so I had to turn everything off and on again and by the time I’d done all that it was time for the Eastenders Omnibus and too late for more Mario Kart.
Current favourite track is Rainbow Road, but it’s often my least favourite track. Depends on whether I’m in a big heavy kart or on a tiny bike.
Mario Kart Wii (Wii)
Apr 11th
I need italics.
This game is brilliant.
The wheel is a great accessory and really adds to the experience, after five or six races of falling off things, bashing into walls and failing to do tricks. I thoroughly enjoyed my time paying through the first couple of 50cc cups.
But where it got the italics was online. Just playing random people was amazing. No visible lag at all, which is incredible. Whether Nintendo have written amazing net code or amazing lag-hiding code I don’t know, but it was just as smooth as playing offline. Except, you know, instead of playing cheating AI characters I was playing real people in the UK, Germany and France. I just thought I’d try out a race or two and ended up playing for an hour. I only stopped because I had to get some potatoes out of the oven.
Ghost Squad (Wii)
Feb 13th
First day with the Wii Zapper.
My accuracy was shot even after calibration, reloading was harder and I missed two bosses, but I somehow got my second best score ever.
Jury out so far.
Ghost Squad (Wii)
Feb 12th
Hmpf. Somebody’s been hot-linking to images on my site and it’s exceeded its bandwidth. So nobody’s going to be able to read this blog until next month. I’ll update anyway, though.
After a break last night because I took my wife to the pub, I played Ghost Squad this evening. Beat the first to bosses, but failed the third. Made up to 2nd Lieutenant Rank (oooh!) and unlocked a new costume.
Ghost Squad (Wii)
Feb 10th
Today I used the gun I unlocked yesterday, the SAW24. And very interesting it is, too. Unlike all the other guns I’ve used so far, you don’t need to reload it. It’s got infinite ammo. And, to add to the fun, it’s the first fully automatic weapon I’ve unlocked. So, what’s the catch? Well, it overheats. Fire it quickly and your Wiimote will start beeping furiously and you’ll be left defenceless for several seconds.
I think, on the whole, I prefer the guns you have to reload.
Ghost Squad (Wii)
Feb 9th
I am now level fifteen, a Chief Warrant Officer and I’ve unlocked a new costume and gun.
Hooray.
Didn’t manage to defeat the boss of the third mission today, though.
