InvertY.com
A Gaming Diary
Nurikabe (DS)
Apr 9th
Haven’t played this in ages, but fancied a break from NetHack half-way through the evening. Did two or three puzzles. Took a few minutes to remember/work out how it all worked, but got there in the end. I think I prefer it to Slitherlink, you know.
NetHackDS (DS)
Apr 9th
Another evening mostly filled with NetHackDS. I was letting the game choose for me, so I ended up playing as a lot of races and classes and got killed in a variety of ways. Like attacking a shopkeeper while hallucinating. Not a good idea. I keep kicking myself if I die and have forgotten to pray, though. I’ve also taken to sacrificing stuff on altars when I see them, though they’re pretty rare. At least, they’re rare at the depths I normally get to.
NetHackDS (DS)
Apr 8th
Today the DS gave me an orcish rogue. I got my best score ever in the DS version – still pitiful, but better – but starved to death on level five of the dungeon. If only my dog hadn’t eaten all those jackal corpses before I could get to them…
NetHackDS (DS)
Apr 8th
This ate up most of my evening yesterday. It really is a very good substitute to the Mac-based version I’ve got. Some things are slightly clunkier, simply due to the nature of the input devices, but it mostly works superbly well. (And it’s nice that it uses the tileset that I’m used to, too.) The main problem is one I’ve mentioned before – it’s far too easy not to notice that your hungry and end up dead because of it.
Nothing much of note happened last night. I started, I got a few floors down, I died. Over and over again. Sometimes it seemed unfair, like when I walked into a room and was immediately by a hobbit firing a magic missile at me. But that’s NetHack for you.
The biggest thing of note was that in one game I – ironic gasp! – didn’t actually play as an orc barbarian. I let the game choose for me and I ended up as an poncy elven ranger. Still, he did okay. No worse than anyone else, anyway.
NetHack (Mac)
Apr 7th
No stupid deaths today, really, just lots of being beaten to death by monsters while wearing cursed gear. Yeah, I know I should identify things before wearing them, but identity scrolls are few and far between in the game. I’ve never managed to uncurse items in NetHack, either. Not because I don’t know how, just because I’ve never had the stuff to do it.
Sigh.
Mr Driller: Drill Spirits (DS)
Apr 7th
Several rubbish attempts at the 1500m stage. Mercifully, I was stopped from trying too many times by the Red Light of Battery Doom.
Mr Driller: Drill Spirits (DS)
Apr 7th
A quick couple of goes in bed. Controls felt slightly clunky, but at least they didn’t kill me.
Mr Driller Online (360)
Apr 7th
Haven’t taken this online yet – which sounds like a good thing, as it’s apparently horribly broken – but I did have another quick go at the India stage between Mad Men and bed. Didn’t do awfully well and lost one life simply because the controller didn’t seem to want me to drill upwards. Gah. That’s the funny thing, when the controls are working they feel more fluid and responsive than just about any other version of the game, but when the stick refuses to go in quite the direction you want it to, it’s horrible.
Gran Turismo 5 Prologue (PS3)
Apr 7th
Had a wonderful few hours with this on Sunday morning. It just clicked. Throwing the Integra round that windy, hilly countryside track was a definite highlight. I wasn’t suddenly get golds in everything, mind. I did, however, finish of the C-class stages with a mixture of bronzes and golds. (No silvers, oddly.) I also went online. My RX-8 couldn’t really compete with all the concept cars everyone else seemed to be fielding, but I did okay. Apart from one race where I smashed into the wall on the last corner I managed to end each race in the middle of the rankings and, more importantly, I wasn’t an awful driver. Maybe I was a little too safe, but I didn’t smash into people or go spinning off the track, so that was lovely. Infuriating and addictive in equal measure, once I get a decent car or two I think I’ll be okay. (Either that or the extra power will prove to be completely uncontrollable and I’ll be awful.) Shame about the lag – cars jump around a bit and don’t become insubstantial quickly enough for my liking – but it’s still great.
The Simpsons Game (360)
Apr 4th
First impressions are that it’s a standard platform game, elevated by fantastic Simpsonsness but then let down again by an atrocious camera. Still good fun so far. I just try not to think about Mario Galaxy when the camera moves 180 degrees during jumps and I fall to the floor AGAIN.
