InvertY.com
A Gaming Diary
Soul Calibur IV (360)
Aug 1st
First thing I did was use Yoda to run through the Story and Arcade modes. Fighting The Apprentice in a Star Destroyer hanger bay was an amazing highlight. Great lightsaber battle. Not really in keeping with the rest of the game, though. Not that I care.
After that, into the character creation mode. Created a green-skinned lady in a witch’s hat called Elphaba. Over the course of the evening I tried out several styles with here. Currently she’s using a rapier. Put her through story mode, then took her to the Tower of Souls, which is a series of events where you can earn new items by completing hidden (and then hinted at) objectives. Most levels require multiple combatants, so I teamed her up with a custom Yoda where necessary. He’s the same as the normal Yoda, but has a fancy lightsaber and rubbish skills. Oh.
Took Elphaba online for a few fights, fighting opponents who’d unlocked far batter skills and items than me. I lost every match. I think I lost every round, even.
Before bed I made a character based on me and one based on the wife, using her choice of weapon and clothing. I’m based on Astaroth, she’s based on Ivy. Did a few levels with that team. We’re a good combination. I do a lot of damage when I hit, but I’m very slow, my wife if is really fast but doesn’t seem to do much damage.
All good fun and stupidly, insanely addictive. I need to read the manual before I play much more. I have no idea what a Soul Gauge is or what relevance it has. I think it might be important.
Also, it threw Achievements at me. I even got one for getting to the main menu – the first Achievement I’ve ever got without pressing a button.
Korg DS-10 (DS)
Jul 30th
I borrowed a cable off someone in the office, used Windows Sound Recorder to record the output from the DS, then copied the resulting WAV file to my Mac and converted it to MP3 in iTunes. Lots of fun, that was. Why on earth doesn’t my iMac have a line-in socket? For pity’s sake, Apple. Sigh.
Anyway, I made a song called Jason and you can listen to it by clicking THIS LINK.
Animal Crossing: Wild World (DS)
Jul 30th
There’s a new resident in Venture! His name is Lobo and he’s a wolf. Difficult to tell before guys have unpacked, but he seems cool. He’s on the dudes’ side of the river, along with Frobert and Big Top, so I hope he fits in. Whenever ladies move in on that side of the river they never stay long.
Korg DS-10 (DS)
Jul 30th
Made my first “song” last night that I liked enough to keep. It’s called Ransom and it’s slow, with a lot of weird effects and suchlike. If I can find a cable and recording software to get music off the DS I may put it up for your pleasure.
Super Smash Bros Brawl (Wii)
Jul 30th
Finished Subspace Emissary mode last night. I don’t think I’ve unlocked all the characters doing that, though. I’m sure Wind Waker Link was meant to be the game, but maybe that was a filthy rumour. I also played some 1v1 brawls against the computer and designed my first stage. Turns out, having tunnels in Smash Bros game is a bad idea, so I’ve changed it a bit.
Korg DS-10 (DS)
Jul 29th
Back in about 1990, a friend of mine bought a second hand Roland SH-101 synth for £45. I was very jealous, despite the fact that I have no musical talent and wouldn’t have had a clue what to do with it.
Now, I’m never going to get an SH-101 (have you seen the prices these days?) but I do now have the Korg DS-10. Okay, so you tap away with the stylus instead of physically moving knobs and switches. And the sound quality isn’t as good. But, you know what? It’s £30 imported from Japan and it makes me feel good. It’s very limited in sequencing terms and seems to be designed as a live tool, but what you’ve got works very well and there’s lots of stuff to play around with. I don’t know the terms, I don’t know what I’m doing, I can only seem to make a horrible repeating racket, but it makes me happy.
It’s a toy, but it’s had a lot of thought put into it. It gives me a lovely feeling of being musical and creative even when I’m just making horrible noise. And, most of all, unlike homebrew music apps, it’s official. It’s an official Korg synth. This makes a world of difference to me, though I’m not sure why.
(It’s also all in English. Well, if you can call baffling acronyms and abbreviations English.)
Animal Crossing: Wild World (DS)
Jul 29th
So many weeds. So many that the town actually featured a huge corpse flower, which I didn’t know you get in Crossing and my wife had heard about but considered a myth.
My wife popped over from her new town of Arkham and we managed to pick them all. Saw all my old chums. Went over to Arkham to meet new people and see a couple of animals from my town of Venture who had moved in there.
Alfonso was very fussy about what he considered to be a rare fish, but at least I got a Kitchen Tile floor out of it.
It was nice to be back after so long, especially with my wife. Before we lived in the same country we used to play Animal Crossing over wifi all the time. We’d sit on the phone talking why pottering about in each other’s towns. Definitely helped us feel closer, so I have a strong emotional attachment to the game.
I’m not sure how long I’ll be playing it again for, but it is good to come back for visit. And it would be very nice to pay off my final loan some time, too.
PixelJunk Eden Demo (PS3)
Jul 27th
Well, that’s a surprise. Didn’t know what this was, but it appears to be a mix of LocoRoco, Wik and Flow. Or something. Some frustration when you get really high only to miss a jump and fall all the way back down to the bottom of the level, but otherwise it’s completely lovely once you get used to the controls.
I am most definitely interested in the full version now.
Super Stardust HD (PS3)
Jul 27th
Had to download a 255MB update before it would let me play it. I think it was just to add in trophy support – the PS3 equivalent of Achievements. Being rubbish at the game I didn’t actually manage to earn any. Well, it was part being rubbish and part the fact that I haven’t spent cash on the upgrade packs that add some extra game modes. Still, it’s a great shooter regardless of all that extra stuff.
Too Human Demo (360)
Jul 27th
Seems to be okay, but it’s hard to tell given the sheer amount of incredibly tedious cut scenes you have to sit through. I like killing robot monsters, I like getting new equipment, I like getting new skills. I don’t like having to sit around doing nothing and I don’t like that it’s so dark that it’s almost impossible to play on a sunny day.
