A Gaming Diary
Xbox
Elder Scrolls: Morrowind
Feb 28th
Yes, Oblivion fever sent me back to this. Xbox version, as I didn’t want to bother reinstalling the PC one.
Loaded up my last save, dated 9th February 2004. Yes, over two years ago. Disturbingly, within about two minutes I’d remembered exactly what I was doing. I’d got stuck doing Imperial Guard missions when I got to a locked door in a tower that I couldn’t get past. I also remembered that in the PC version I’d found a key to the door and a bit of nosing around unearthed it. Inside the room was a nasty man who refused to pay his taxes and had imprisoned an orc who’d come to collect them. So I killed him. Harsh, but fair. He had some expensive stuff, so I took that. Freed the orc, went back to my commander. Got promoted to a trooper and got asked to see if I could find proof that some of the soldiers were in a cult planning to kill the Emperor. I had to use a fair bit of cash to bribe people, but I got my answers and found the proof. I was then tasked with killing the two main conspirators. Sorry, not killing, executing. I believe there’s a difference. Anyway, they died and I got promoted to the rank of agent and got given enough new armor to leave me unable to actually move.
I saved it there. I’ll have to drop some stuff when I reload. I probably shouldn’t play this too much before Oblivion appears, lest I get Elder-Scrolled-out. But I may have the bug again.
(And then I played Animal Crossing with p’anther for two hours.)
Black
Feb 25th
I just did it again!
I blew up while the “minefield cleared” text was still on the screen!
The trouble is, everything’s brown. Completely brown. So although the mines are on the surface, most of the time they’re not actualy visible.
I know, I know, I should be more careful, but these new mines come at the end of a big, safe bit and as it’s telling me the minefield is cleared.
Mind you, second time was definitely more my fault than the game’s, it has to be said. I’ll try again some other day and this time I’ll remember.
Black
Feb 25th
You have to laugh.
On a level where you navigate through an area packed with enemies and reach a minefield. Avoid the mines while killing enemies, that sort of thing.
Anyway, first time I tried the level the mines killed me. Next two times I didn’t even reach it, thanks to things exploding next me. Time after that I made it to the minefield again and slowly, carefully made my way through it, using grenades to blow up the mines in my path, picking off enemies along the way. Lovely game.
Then I got to a point where it said the minefield objective was complete. Hooray! So I – I’m not making this up – took one step forward and the ground beneath me erupted. Oh. A mine. I thought I was meant to be through the minefield. Didn’t you just tell me that?
No checkpoint, so it asked me if I wanted to restart from the beginning of the level again. I didn’t. I turned the Xbox off.
It’s just… how can something with such great gameplay – and I really must make clear that it really is superb given how much I’m complaining – be surrounded by such oddness?
Black
Feb 25th
Oh for pity’s sake!
So much of this is great. I love the gameplay, but some of the interface decisions are incredibly stupid. Like the not being able to save checkpoint progress. That’s just absolutely insane. I’m baffled.
I was playing a level just now and for some reason all the guns except my own stopped making sounds. My ally’s gun wasn’t making any noise. My enemies’ guns weren’t making any noise. Which made things a bit tricky and a bit, well, shit. But I was two checkpoints through a mission and I couldn’t turn the console off without losing that progress. So I just had to do the final section several times in weird half-silence.
And why warn that you’ll lose all your progress when you restart a mission after not having made any progress? How difficult would it be to see if any checkpoints have been reached and miss out that screen if they haven’t?
So, we have what appears to be a brilliant game, based on the first three or four levels. (I forget.) I mean, truly exceptional. But there are bugs and an interface that might as well have been designed by Satan himself. No mid-level saving. No skipping cut-scenes until you’ve completed a mission. Odd uneccesary warnings. Stupid unskippable credits sequence when you first boot up and want to get playing.
It’s the exact same problem as Burnout 3. A great game wrapped in a hideous interface.
I am most perplexed. I just don’t see why things are as they are. It doesn’t make any sense.
Black
Feb 25th
Mission two done.
Criterion have done exactly what they set out to do, but probably not in the way they meant to. They said they were going to do for the FPS genre what Burnout did for racing games. And they’ve done it, in that they’ve managed to combine a fantastic game with one of the worst interfaces I’ve ever had the misfortune to use.
How on earth do they do it?
OutRun 2
Feb 25th
One run through Arcade mode.
Top of the score board and four seconds off my previous best time.
Ah, that’s better.
Now I can probably jump back into Black for a bit.
Black
Feb 25th
Picked this up in Game. Paid fifteen quid after using my reward points.
The core game is excellent, I reckon. Really nice feel to it, great fun. Bit tricky to pinpoint headshots, but then I’ve never been the most accurate of marksmen. Lots of flying bullets, weighty guns. Very nice.
However, however, however…
We’ve never needed the Blue Sky In Games campaign more. Apart from the green health bar I might as well be running this on a black and white TV. I had no idea they were going to take the game’s name quite so literally.
No checkpoints. Well, there probably are, given there’s an option for them on the menu you get when you die, but I’ve not seen one yet. The first mission didn’t have any. (I know because the last bloody enemy killed me the first time I tried it.) The second one might do, but they must be a long way in. Too far in. You have to trek through a forest to a border crossing and then fight your way through it. So I get to the border crossing and die. Trek through the forest again. Die in exactly the same place. Trek through the forest again…
You get the idea. Surely a checkpoint when you reach the border crossing wouldn’t be too much to ask? I’m only playing on Normal, too.
Also: Unskippable cut scenes. And not just unskippable the first time you watch them. Every time. That’s really idiotic and annoying. That and the checkpoint thing led me to switch the game off just now and play OutRun 2 instead.
Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory
Feb 22nd
Mobile version.
(I’m installing XP on a new PC today. Hence long period of nothing to do but watch progress bars and fiddle with my phone.)
Finally, after many months, I’ve got off level six. Level seven is proving to be a bastard. It’s an excellent little game, mind.
OutRun 2
Feb 18th
Well, as the Xbox was on I couldn’t not, could I?
Did the the easiest route in arcade a couple of times and came 5th and 3rd on the high score table. Flushed with success, I decided to try a mission, as I’ve never fnished mission mode. A few goes later I realised why – it’s bloody hard. Too hard for midnight Friday night, anyway.
Halo
Feb 17th
As Taito Legends was such a disappointment I decided to fall back to Halo. All the talk in the rllmuk thread about the game had left me itching to play it on Legendary difficulty again. Seems I’d finished a few levels already on that setting, so I started where I’d stopped, at the beginning of the level called Halo. Took me ages to reach the first checkpoint. Then ages more to reach the second. I haven’t reached the third yet.
But, oh, despite looking weirdly dark on my LCD TV, it was wonderful stuff. It really is gaming perfection. And it was the Needler that got me through to the second checkpoint. It’s got a reputation as a useless weapon, but it really, really isn’t.
