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A Gaming Diary
Red Faction: Guerilla Demo (360)
Apr 11th
A mixed bag, really. It’s being sold on the destruction, which is awesome. If you, like me, just enjoy games that let you destroy buildings, then you’re going to be giggling with glee here. Bombs, giant hammers, great big walking mining machines – everything you need to smash stuff up.
It’s great.
On the downside, though, the guns feel rubbish, the enemies have no personality and I keep dying in exactly the same place in the mission and I’m not really sure why. I’m on the back of a truck, firing at enemies coming to me from behind. The truck slows to a stop just before a bridge, my body flies through the air and the mission is failed. It happens at exactly the same point every time. Very odd.
Still, walking through buildings in a giant walking machine as they fall apart around me… I’m not sure that’s ever going to get old. It’s just curiously lifeless when things aren’t falling into bits and, so far, if you strip the destruction away, I think you’d just have a standard FPS from the previous generation of consoles. It really feels like an average PS2 FPS when you’re not destroying stuff. Let’s hope they tweak it a bit before release or, alternatively, that the full game has you blowing up buildings without pause.
I’m interested in the full game now, but I’m not yet sold on it.
Left 4 Dead (360)
Apr 11th
Hooray and such! Last night I turned on my Xbox to play the new Red Faction demo, but as I logged in a friend invited me to play Left 4 Dead. And so I did. I joined in the last level of one the campaigns – not sure which one, hadn’t seen it before – and we tried to complete the level. Tried and failed. Repeatedly. Getting to the final house was easy enough, but the siege at the end was always a disaster. Too many zombies, not enough ammo, special infected coming from the worst places, it was massacre after massacre.
Still just about the best fun you can have with a joypad, though. I very much enjoyed myself.
And I got an achievement for letting my chum Myoptika out of a toilet.
Animal Crossing: Let’s Go To The City (Wii)
Apr 10th
My heart wasn’t in it today. After a trip to my parents – involving the worst trip ever up there, during which I got lost in Harlow, having had to come off the M11 avoiding all the people being late for flights out of Stansted – I got home and thought I should play some Animal Crossing. I wandered around for a bit and bought a jukebox, but it felt like far too much effort.
Remind me never to drive anywhere on Good Friday again.
Mr Driller Online (360)
Apr 10th
Not a community game! I noticed that my score in quest mode was terrible and that I was bottom of my friends list. So I played for ages and got… one place higher. And I’m meant to be quite good at this game. For some reason I kept dying at about 900m on the 1000m stage.
I also spent some time trying the 3000m stage in normal mode, but didn’t get close.
Groov (360)
Apr 10th
I completed the Original Mix this morning. Didn’t get first place on the high score table, though, so that’s the next goal.
You really should give this a go, you know. Yes, you. (Not you, though. You’ve already seen me play it and it’s so not your type of thing.)
Peggle Nights (PC)
Apr 9th
And for the sake of completeness, I suppose I’ll mention that I played this for a while last night. I was trying to get over 350,000 on some level, I forget what it’s called or where it is, and failing dismally.
Peggle (Mac)
Apr 9th
I have three levels left to complete 100%.
It’s never going to happen, I don’t think. It’s just got too hard. I’ve been trying that stupid level with the portals and the UFO for days. Days!
Groov (360)
Apr 9th
I still love it, I still haven’t completed the Original Mix. (That’s the first level. After that you have a harder version, then a jam session, which I assume is the same again but with invincibility, or something.)
How much do I love it? Well, I got up a few minutes early and played it a couple of time before work. That’s the highest praise there is, I think.
Carneyvale Showtime Demo (360)
Apr 9th
Remind me of Star Trigon more than any other game, which is no bad thing. But instead of using Mr Driller characters to draw triangles, you have to chuck a clown around a level and get him to the exit. Actually seems quite fun – and the lack of boring tutorial is a definite plus – but I was pretty terrible at it. I’m just not good enough at timing my button presses.
Also, the nagging “BUY ME!” messages between levels put me right off.
I’d be very surprised if I didn’t play it again sometime, though.
