InvertY.com
A Gaming Diary
Homerun Battle 3D (iPhone)
Jul 15th
It still looks lovely, even a year on.
So, I was watching the Home Run Derby the other night – well done Big Papi! – and fancied some home run action of my own. I knew I hadn’t played this game in a while – not since it was called Baseball Slugger – but I hadn’t realised that I wouldn’t have a save file. Seems that I’ve not played it since getting my replacement iPhone nearly a year ago.
Still, it holds up well. It’s not as revelatory as it once was and doesn’t stand out quite so brightly, but it’s as fun and addictive as it ever was. (And it’s still getting updates, too. One came through just a few days ago.)
PES 2010 – Pro Evolution Soccer (iPhone)
Jul 15th
Last time I blogged about this, I praised it to the heavens. I’m still loving it, but I should perhaps mention that it’s not perfect.
There’s odd annoying cosmetic issue, such as teams taking to the field in strips that are far too similar in colour, making it hard to make out your teammates. I pretty much exclusively play quick matches, so after a couple of misplaced passes I usually quit and try again with two more random teams. I can imagine it being hugely annoying in a cup match, though.
Some chaps playing footie.
The most serious issue is that the game decides which player you’re controlling using a set of arcane, seemingly random rules. When you’re attacking it’s obviously fine. You control the player with the ball and then switch after you pass. In defense, though, it’s never obvious which player the game will give you. World Soccer Champs just chooses the player nearest the ball, which is at least predictable. PES, though, seems to throw you around all over the pitch. It’s not enough to ruin the game, or even stop it being brilliant fun, but it can be annoying.
New Super Mario Bros (Wii)
Jul 15th
Played more of this with my wife over my extended birthday weekend. We’re both utterly hopeless at it, but we have a lot of fun.
We’ve got as far as the first castle in world two, but have died there more times than I care to remember. We did get to the boss once, but we both managed to get ourselves killed. We’ll get him next time, though. (Possibly.)
Demon’s Souls (PS3)
Jul 15th
Apologies for the lack of updates for the last week or so. I’ve been off to the hospital a million times and have had a birthday – and one of my birthday presents was a game. Can you guess which one?
Yes, I’ve finally got my own copy of Demon’s Souls. I’ve missed it since returning my borrowed copy, but now I’ve got my own Black Phantom UK edition. It’s a lovely package, with an art book, CD and strategy guide.
As this is the UK version, though, and I was previously playing the Asian version, the game didn’t pick up my old save file. That turned out to be a good thing, given that I couldn’t remember any of the controls or how to play.
Still, it all came back fairly quickly and it only two me two hours to clear the tutorial and dispatch the first boss. Haven’t played much since then, but I’ve poked away at level 2-1 enough to get to the horrible bastard spider boss. Whereupon I used all my healing items and then died. It’ll be back to 1-1 to pick up some supplies, then. Sigh.
I’m glad my memory wasn’t lying to me about the game, though – it’s just as utterly, relentlessly, punishingly great as I’d remembered.
PES 2010 – Pro Evolution Soccer (iPhone)
Jul 8th
I’ve not played a PES game for years and have had a somewhat complicated relationship with the games when I have tried them. Sometimes it’s felt like I’m having to wait for the game to finish what it’s doing before it deigns to let me offer it some advice on what should happen next, other (briefer) times I’ve found myself playing some absolutely lovely football.
The iPhone version? Astonishing. Absolutely astonishing.
Now, I’ve not played any of the big console videogames for a few years, but this iPhone version of PES is revelatory. Never have a played a football game that felt quite this physical. There’s a real sense of weight and consequence to everything that happens on the pitch. Smoke and mirrors, maybe, but whatever the reason, it works to give a very convincing sense that real football, with its mistakes and flukes and human players, is under my control.
It’s like I’m seeing a whole new world of football, just there, in my phone.
I'm using the more traditional of the control schemes, avoiding the need for tilts and swipes.
I started the game up last night and kept going back, again and again. It’s just wonderful, with the default difficulty level feeling just right to me.
Now, of course, is where I should be gasping to try a fuller version of the game (or even a recent console FIFA), but I think part of my enjoyment comes from the two-button control scheme. Extra sticks and buttons might just overwhelm me.
It’s amazing, though, just this. I’ve enjoyed football games here and there – FIFA World Cup on the iPhone has given me a fair amount of enjoyable matches – but with PES and World Soccer Champs (two very different, complementary takes on the sport) I feel like a gaping hole in my gaming life has been filled.
Incredible.
Babylonian Twins (iPhone)
Jul 8th
I won’t rehash the story of this game’s turbulent development. (If you don’t know about it, you can read more at Wired.)
I will say, though, that I had no interest in the game until I saw it was free. (It still is, by the way.)
What you’ve got is a puzzle-platformer, where you have to switch characters to get past obstacles and collect the four golden palm trees needed to clear each level.
That swordsman is just about to kill me.
It’s actually very playable, with great controls and excellent level design. The only problem is that it uses a lives system that means you have to start a level from scratch once you’ve lost all your lives. I know, I know, that’s standard practice, but the levels are huge and far less interesting second time around. It really saps my will to carry on playing when I’ve got three of the palms and then lose my last life because a bat’s hit me in the face.
Might just be me, though, and it’s a still pretty marvellous that they’re giving the game away.
Robot Unicorn Attack (iPhone/Mac/PC)
Jul 8th
So, yeah, I tried Robot Unicorn Attack on my old G4 Powerbook the other day. (It’s over seven years old now, is only running OSX 10.2.9, but runs Opera perfectly well for general web use.) I survived for about three hours, by which time I’d reached about seven metres.
So, yeah, it runs, but it’s slow. Like, as slow as a zombie snail. With a broken leg. (Shush.)
My wife plays the game on her Samsung NC-10 netbook and it’s much faster, but still slower than it should be.
Robot Unicorn Attack running at the correct speed. Oh... wait...
To show her how it should run, I started up the iPhone version and promptly got my best score ever and continued playing when I went for a poo. It’s not easy to put down once you start playing, especially with the sound on. And I’m sure my wife enjoyed hearing the tinny sounds of Erasure coming from the bathroom as I wrestled with a truculent stool.
Zombie Defense (iPhone)
Jul 8th
Oh, for pity’s sake. So I’m trying to delete games form my iPhone because I’m nearly about of space. I deleted a few things, like Super Monkey Ball 2 and Re:Bounce, then came across Zombie Defense. I had a feeling it was the game with the zombies and the sandbags, but couldn’t really remember. It does have one of the most generic titles ever, after all.
So I started it up on the loo, just to check that I could delete it… and got completely sucked in. (To the game, not the toilet. Apologies for the mental image you now have.)
And, yes, it is the zombies and sandbags game. You’ve got four humans who don’t want to become brain-munching undead types, so you set the sandbags up so the zombies have to go the long way round to get to them, giving the humans more time to shoot their heads off.
Curse you, diagonals!
Simple enough, really, once you’ve remembered that zombies can get through defenses if there’s a diagonal gap between sandbags. My first couple of mazes were not a success, but I survived anyway, probably due to playing on the easy setting.
I lasted all three nights and now I’ve got a bit of a problem. Not only am I not sure that I want to delete the game, I’m now contemplating paying for the full twenty-night version. Bother.
Warpgate (iPhone)
Jul 7th
No, don’t get excited. I didn’t actually play this. I don’t have any great tales of space adventures and explosions to relate. I can’t even regale you with tales of ferrying religious pamphlets around the cosmos, which is all I seem to end up doing normally.
So why am I blogging? Well, I did the start the game up. An update came out for the game this morning that implemented Apple’s whizzy new anti-aliasing and I thought I’d check out the difference. So here are two screen shots, one taken before I downloaded the update and one afterwards.
Before.
After.
It’s like night and day! It’s practically a whole new game!
Ah, exclamation marks, the punctuation of the sarcastic internet tosser.
Maybe I should have zoomed in on my space ship a bit before taking the pictures. Still, the grid lines are less jagged. And… um…
NEXT: I actually play the game long enough to get in a fight, die and put the game down for another three months. Probably.
World Soccer Champs 2010 (iPhone)
Jul 7th
I really don’t think I’ve enjoyed a footie game this much in many a long year. It’s so good that I even made a custom team. I’m not sure if I’ve ever bothered doing that before – and if I have, it must have more than fifteen years ago.
So, I decided to make a team of country music stars. Waylon and Merle up front, Willie in goal, etc. It doesn’t take very long at all to set the kit and name the players, but why the game uses a slightly-unresponsive custom keyboard and not the iPhone’s built-in keyboard I don’t know.
Nice kit, huh?
The boys and girls of the team.
Here we are in action. I made the short name of the team CTY rather than CNT. I'm mature, me.
We’re not that great, according to the stats, but I’ve winning games against bad teams, which is good enough for me. I’ve just started an eight-team tournament, so we’ll see how that goes.
