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A Gaming Diary
Animal Crossing: Let’s Go To The City (Wii)
Mar 19th
Just popped into McNulty at about eleven o’clock for some coffee and to talk to Violet about fashion choices. She gave me a pacifier. She’s meant to be leaving town, but hasn’t packed up yet.
Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars (DS)
Mar 18th
Got busted after crashing a petrol tanker while carrying $35,000 worth of coke. That’s a big hit to take, but less than half my vast fortune. Drug dealing is an excellent way to make money and it’s a lot of fun. So much so that I haven’t done any missions in hours. I’m slightly worried that the huge profits to be made from high-value drugs will unbalance the game, but I’m sure the developers have got that covered.
This is, I think, probably the best game to hit the DS in years. So many nice touches – optional top-screen GPS arrows, ordering from Ammunation from your PDA, being able to save anywhere, easy access to information about which dealers are selling and buying cheaply, etc.
Animal Crossing: Let’s Go To The City (Wii)
Mar 18th
Oh. So I apparently now must be a paedophile, according to police in Missouri. Sigh.
In other news, my wife saw Wisp and Nintendo sent us both hats.
Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars (DS)
Mar 17th
Don’t want to say too much about this ahead of release, but it’s very, very good indeed and if you get it from the right place (Play.com, Amazon.co.uk) it doesn’t cost much more than The Lost and Damned. And first impressions are much better for this than the GTA IV add-on. The game engine is amazing, it uses the DS sensibly and it’s dead good fun.
If you’re not sure whether or not to buy it, think on it no longer – go buy now. If you like GTA and have a DS I don’t think you’ll regret it.
And you can hail cabs by shouting “yellow car!” in a drunken fashion. You don’t actually have to, but you can.
Peggle (360)
Mar 17th
Did a couple of levels of Adventure, but I mainly played Duels with the wife. At the end of it we’d won fifteen each, which was a nice way to leave things. It’s great fun.
Animal Crossing: Let’s Go To The City (Wii)
Mar 17th
Delivered a package from Bella to Mott. Sold some fruit. The usual.
Peggle Dual Shot (DS)
Mar 16th
Yes! Another version of Peggle! Hooray?
Well, the conversion is pretty nasty. The graphics look terrible (not a patch on the iPod version, but the screen resolution on the DS is much lower), it’s very hard to judge shots, the ball judders around the screen (and is a square, rather than being round) and they’ve added in a horrible mini game that you can trigger by getting five purple pegs in a level.
It’s really not very good at all.
But! It’s still Peggle and thus strangely playable, even though the joy of watching the ball bouncing around the screen is lacking. And in terms of content, there’s no complaints. Peggle, Peggle Nights and some extra unlockable levels on top.
So, it’s shame it looks so horrible, but it seems the spark of Peggle genius has survived. Just.
Peggle Nights (PC)
Mar 16th
Popcap have released a set of free spring-themed levels for Peggle Nights, which installed easily (though they wouldn’t install to my D: drive, where I like to keep game files.) I’ve been having fun with them – the “ace” scores seem really quite high and trying to get those scores and the 100% award will keep me going a long time.
Peggle (360)
Mar 16th
This gets the award for the hardest version of Peggle. The aiming arrow’s quite short and there’s no cursor, so judging longer shots is tricky. It’s lovely to have leaderboards, though. Mostly for comparing with friends, but it was nice to be 16th in the world overall on level 7-4 (I think) on Saturday.
Haven’t tried multiplayer yet.
Mortal Kombat Vs. DC Universe (360)
Mar 16th
Have no really idea what I’m doing. It’s a rental copy, so no manual, and I’ve not bothered to look up any guides online. I’ve progressed a little further than button bashing, but not much further.
Instead I’ve just been having fun beating people up. In that sense, it’s a success, but it’s hard to tell if there’s any long-term fun to be had with this. It’s not going back to Lovefilm quite yet, though.
