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A Gaming Diary
Sega Superstars Tennis (360)
Mar 22nd
I’m not sure if it’s just me, but Beat seems to be the best character in the game by far. If I’m playing as him, I win. If I’m someone else playing against him, I lose.
It’s probably just luck or something, but that’s the way it’s been for me so far.
I’m really hoping for a sequel with more characters in it. There’s nobody from Shenmue or Virtua Fighter, to name just two, which is a missed opportunity when you consider some of the characters that made it in.
Mystery Dungeon: Shiren The Wanderer (DS)
Mar 22nd
Sometimes, just sometimes this game hates me.
My wife died on level eight. I tried to rescue her three times and failed each time. I can’t fail to reach level eight three times in a row!
But I did.
Sega Superstars Tennis (360)
Mar 22nd
So I was playing tennis as Beat, of Jet Set Radio fame, against Amy Rose, of Sonic The Hedgehog fame on a court based on House of the Dead, surrounded by cheering zombies.
And I thought, “This is a bit odd.”
Good, though.
Pain (PS3)
Mar 22nd
Nothing to it, really. A single level with a few target variations. You fire your character into scaffolding, walls and exploding crates and that’s about it.
It really, really needs more levels. Feels more like a demo than a game right now.
Able to eat a surpisingly large amount of time, though.
Mystery Dungeon: Shiren The Wanderer (DS)
Mar 20th
This lunchtime I got to level sixteen. I knew I was going to die around there because I’d rushed through a few levels before Mountaintop Top so I could reunite a lost girl with her parents. Consequently I was rather under-levelled and I left most of my good stuff in storage, then, basically, wandered off into the marshes to die.
Still, that was my second-best game ever, which ain’t bad.
Mystery Dungeon: Shiren The Wanderer (DS)
Mar 20th
I died on level seventeen last night. That’s the furthest I’ve ever got. I’ll do that again, though, one day. I might even get as far as level eighteen!
After that, my wife needed rescuing. She’d died on level three but had already found some cool stuff, so wanted reviving. She sent me a request using the DS wireless connection and I went off in search of her. Found her limp body surrounded by monsters, but managed to kill them all and revive her. That done, it was back to the main menu to send her a revival scroll. Job done.
Later, though, she died on level thirteen, again with a whole bunch of cool items, and asked my help again. That’s a long way down, so I grabbed all the items from my warehouse and set off. I didn’t find a single weapon until level eight, but I was doing okay, until I reached level twelve. Went down the stairs and found myself in a tiny room surrounded by monsters. Five of them. I killed three, but a couple of tanks brought me down. Dead.
It doesn’t sound like much, but it was one of the most intense bits of gaming I’ve ever had. Just knowing that death lurked around every corner, having to use every item at my disposal to make it to the next floor and then – bam! – dead.
You get three tries to rescue someone. So all was not lost.
On my second try I died on level one. Level one! That never happens!
And on my third try… I died on level one. Again. The game obviously had it in for me.
Oh well, I did my best to try and rescue the damsel in distress. I guess it was not to be.
NetHack (Mac)
Mar 19th
Inspired by Shiren I decided to play NetHack. I’ve played enough ZAngbandTk to make it easy enough to step into, but it’s quite different. No town, for starters. And you start with a pet – which inevitably dies or goes missing, leaving you feeling guilt-ridden and sad for the rest of the game. Hooray? I’ve also been killed twice for kicking down doors – once by some watchmen and once by an irate shop keeper. I didn’t know it was a shop door! Harumph.
Great fun, anyway – even it did take me about fifteen minutes of Google searching just to work out how to blow a whistle.
Mystery Dungeon: Shiren The Wanderer (DS)
Mar 18th
This lunchtime’s adventure saw me fail to find a weapon. Any weapon. At all. I got to Pegasus Ridge 6 and did not find a single weapon. Gah.
Ended up getting turned into a rice ball – yes, turned into a rice ball – and killed while trying to run away. Apparently, rice balls can run.
Mystery Dungeon: Shiren The Wanderer (DS)
Mar 18th
My DS arrived back from repair yesterday, so I decided to play this, as it’s been waiting for me for weeks.
I was slightly worried, I must admit. I very much enjoy roguelike games, but the only one I’ve tried from this developer was Pokemon Mystery Dungeon, which I found tedious in the extreme. Luckily, this one is a lot better. It’s a proper roguelike, in that when you die you lose all your items and experience and get sent back to the beginning of the game. I like that. You can store items and weapons in special storage areas and people in towns remember you, but everything else is reset.
In my last run last night I was carrying around two really good weapons, just hoping to bump into a courier who could take one of them back to the warehouse, but died, thus losing them both. (I was really hungry and had no food, so I wasn’t being as careful as normal and ran into a couple of hard enemies who proceeded to kill me quickly.) My lovely Katana + 2 is now gone forever. I’ve got nothing in the warehouse in the starting town now, so it’s going to be hard getting started again. But good hard.
I played for about three hours, so it’s getting things right, even if it isn’t as deep as many PC-based roguelikes.
DJ Max Portable 2 (PSP)
Mar 16th
After playing a few songs this seems to be gaming equivalent of rubbing your stomach while patting your head… while on fire… in a car that’s plummeting off a cliff… onto a spikes. Or something.
It’s impossible for me. I can’t seem to divide the left hand and right hand actions up properly. Everything’s a horrible mess and I just keep getting lost in it.
