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A Gaming Diary
Namco Museum Beta (PS3)
Dec 15th
Downloaded this from the Japanese store. Played some Pac-Man, did terribly. Then played some Dig Dug. Didn’t do too well, but did unlock a nice model of one of the enemies to put in my apartment in Home. Very nice to have something in there that doesn’t look it came from Ikea.
And talking of Home, during the closed beta I had an excellent hat. In one of the updates it got removed. Now it is for sale for 59p in the Threads store. Um…. no.
Little Big Planet (PS3)
Dec 15th
Spent many hours on Saturday playing this with my wife. We’re near the end of story mode now. Only a few more levels to go. We got stuck on a huge wheel full of platforms, or maybe just after it. It was 3:30am by the time we quit, so I’m having trouble remembering details.
Awesome, awesome game, by the way.
Animal Crossing: Let’s Go To The City (Wii)
Dec 15th
A new animal moved into town on Sunday. A sheep called Wendy. She seems pretty awesome, but it’s hard to tell based on first impressions. I do wish Big Top would move in – he was my favourite animal in the DS version.
Nook’s got upgraded and got some new tools in, so I bought a slingshot and axe and gave them to my wife.
I won the fishing tournament on Saturday with 6.1″ pike. I also caught a tuna, but didn’t use it, so sold it the day after.
I also put gyroid up for auction – let’s see if it sells next weekend.
Animal Crossing: Let’s Go To The City (Wii)
Dec 12th
The last couple of nights have seen a new real human visitor to McNulty, lots of snow and a lot of fishing.
Truth be told, after an epic session on Wednesday night I didn’t play it much last night. I was in a hospital for twelve hours and wasn’t up to much when I got home, to such an extent that even the normally relaxing Animal Crossing seemed like very hard work.
Animal Crossing: Let’s Go To The City (Wii)
Dec 10th
Not an awful lot happened last night, but I did design an excellent Dr Who shirt. And I got a new haircut.
Also, it seems that Apollo has started worshipping Cthulhu.
Animal Crossing: Let’s Go To The City (Wii)
Dec 9th
Last night mrak from Redditch came round to visit McNulty, then I went over to Redditch for a bit. Fun was had.
Also, we got cherries and peaches. I want an axe so I plant the peach in a spot where I know a tree will grow. Until then, I’m keeping it safe in my filing cabinet.
Little Big Planet (PS3)
Dec 8th
The current king of games.
It is wonderful.
I’ve been going through story mode, sometimes alone, more often with my wife by my side. Either way, it’s superb. From the reviews, I’d got the impression that story mode was nothing more than an extended tutorial, but it’s a full game. Levels are very replayable, each new level throws up new surprises and challenges and it’s given us hours of pleasure already. We’re near the end, but there’s a fair amount we’ve not found yet. And, oh, for those of us who love unlocking little things in games, this is heaven. New costume parts, new objects, new stickers, new decorations, new mini score attack levels. Every level is absolutely full of new things to get.
And it’s fun. It’s not just a collector’s dream, jumping, running, swinging and flying are all great fun. Every level in story mode is designed with love and care, the physics, graphics and sound add charm by the bucket loads and it’s just an absolute joy.
I really can’t speak of it highly enough.
And that’s without mentioning the hours I spent on Sunday morning making my own level. I haven’t published it, because it’s not very good, but I loved making it. First, a football with a face, sombrero and fine moustache welcomes you to the level. I mde that character. Then a heart-shaped multi-legged creature takes fright when you come close and jumps away. I made that creature, too. Then you find a a spotlighted area with some prizes in it. Then you come to a bit with some flaming mountains (which I made) and some very tricky jumps past some bats. (I didn’t make the bats, I just used some I’d picked up in one of the story levels.) That’s hard, though I have made it easier. At one point during the jumps it takes your photo and adds it to your Photo Booth photos. And then there’s a short race over some spikes. You have to grab a balloon and fly over. And then the level ends. You unlock some nice photos for completing it. And if you somehow manage to do it without losing any lives, you win the creatures and mountains I designed for the level to use in your own levels.
As I said, it’s not very good, but it’s a proper, working level that I had great fun messing around with.
And I still haven’t gone back and finished the user-made Castling level I downloaded a few days ago, or gone looking for any more levels.
Now, after all the gushing praise, we come to the problem. There’s only really one and it’s not a big one, but it’s a problem.
Little Big Planet is more-or-less 2D in gameplay terms, but takes place over three planes. You can manually move between the three planes, but the game is intelligent enough to work out where you’re jumping and automatically adjust your plane as you go through levels. At least, that’s the idea. And it works for me. I can move planes when I need to and let the game take care of it for the rest of the time. It’s fine. My wife, however, has terrible problems moving between planes and we can’t work out why it works fine for me, but not for her. It doesn’t spoil the game for her at all, but adds some extra frustration that I don’t have.
GTI Club+ (PS3)
Dec 8th
It’s fun, but I don’t love it as much as I expected to. Possibly because the handling hasn’t quite clicked yet. I get it and I’m doing handbrake turns all over the place, but I can’t quite feel it in the same way I feel the cars in OutRun 2006 or Gran Turismo 5 Prologue. I just don’t feel as connected. And I hit the edges of the road and come to a full stop far too often. Which is my fault, obviously, but adds some frustration.
And it could really do with more races. With the multiple routes through the city it should be easy to add a whole host of new events that take you down specific routes. As it is, after the Easy course is over, Medium and Hard levels just open up the whole city and let you get on with it. I haven’t won a race on Hard yet, but once I do I’m worried I won’t feel the need to go back and improve things.
Still, it’s lovely to have pure arcade racing with blue skies and small cars sitting on my hard drive. Maybe I shouldn’t be hammering this to death. Maybe I should just do a race or two every few days
Animal Crossing: Let’s Go To The City (Wii)
Dec 8th
This is the first Animal Crossing where my wife and I will share a town. We named it McNulty, in honour of hapless Jimmy McNulty, one of the main characters in The Wire. (Which, incidentally, is the best TV show of all time, no arguments.)
She moved in first, did all the Nook jobs and poked around. Then I started, did the same jobs again, then popped over to the city. It’s nice to see the animals milling around the main square. We saw some old friends like Rasher, Dotty and Wart Jr. Gracie’s is terribly expensive, but after some fishing I managed to buy my wife and excellent hat.
Anyway, it’s rather like the upgrade from the Gamecube version to the DS version. At first it appears very similar indeed, but has a host of small changes that only people who played wild World to death will notice. Outside the obvious addition of the city, there are styles of housing, new items, more context-sensitive animal chat, a new event day this weekend, you can now arrange visits to animal houses, etc.
It’s quite a clever upgrade, really. It feels similar enough to be comforting, but with enough little new things sprinkled about to add a feeling of excitement. And, on Nintendo’s side, it’s a heck of a lot cheaper and easier than developing a new game.
One for newbies and hardcore fans, then. The vast mass of more casual Wild World players, or those that played it for a while then got tired, won’t find much here for them, I don’t think.
