InvertY.com
A Gaming Diary
Carcassonne (iPhone)
Jul 5th
Nearing the end of the game I won.
Just like Words With Friends, I play Carcassonne every day but never seem to blog about it. It’s hard to find anything useful to say. It’s a bloody brilliant game design, it’s perfectly executed on the iPhone and even the teething troubles with Internet play against friends seem to have been ironed out now.
Oh, and I won a game at the weekend. I think it was a fluke, though, because I don’t feel like I’ve really got a handle on the game yet.
Words With Friends (iPhone)
Jul 5th
A million and one games to get through after I spent lots of quality time with my iPhone over the weekend, so let’s get started. I’ve been neglecting to mention Words With Friends lately, despite playing it every day. So, to redress the balance, here’s a post about it.
Huh huh huh. Wiener.
Yes, it might have been better to do it on a day when I had fewer games to talk about, but never mind. Let’s face it, I may well still be blogging about the weekend’s games tomorrow.
Anyway, though, Words With Friends. It’s still on my iPhone, I still play it and it hasn’t changed in any major way, though every now and again the dictionary and interface get little tweaks.
Physics Gamebox (iPhone)
Jul 2nd
Just a quick one today. Didn’t play much of anything yesterday, but did play Physics Gamebox. It’s a new iPhone title bundling together two old Flash games.
First you’ve got Ragdoll Cannon, which was “homaged” by the iPhone’s Ragdoll Blaster. Now we get the original to play – and it does exactly the job you’d expect. Haven’t found any annoying levels yet, which is nice. (Though there are 200 to get through.)
Should that be fewer?
The other game is Roly-Poly Cannon, which reminds me a bit of Fragged. You have to send bombs out and blow up bad guys while leaving the good guys alive. Only a hundred levels to this one, but they generally last a little longer.
I think it should be, but I'm second-guessing myself now.
Neither game has set my world on fire, but they’re both decent, time-wasting fun – and getting both for 59p is pretty lovely.
Civilization IV: Beyond The Sword (Mac)
Jul 1st
The Zulu declared war again, as did the Indians and the Native Americans. (I was particuarly upset with them – I’d been the only civilization prepared to give them anything for centuries and had always refused when other civs told me to stop trading with them.)
Anyway, though I’d built up my forces, I hadn’t built them up enough. The Zulu stormed over my borders and wiped me out – all except one small city stuck between the mountains and the sea. They would have taken that, too, but I paid them off to get a peace treaty.
All that remained.
There was nothing left I could do, except sit back in my little city as the mighty Zulu gained a diplomatic victory.
The glorious Egyptian empire that had once covered half the globe was now a tiny, isolated state with no resources except corn and bananas and no power on the world stage. Our ancient cities were in the hands of the Zulu and we were left with a small city that had once, not so long ago, belonged to barbarians.
It hurts to see our cultural heritage and treasures in the hands of others but, still, we survived. That’s something.
Civilization IV: Beyond The Sword (Mac)
Jul 1st
Can I have my cities back, please?
Bloody Zulu and their Indian lapdogs. You see all those cities in Zulu territory to the west of my land? They used to be mine. Okay, so I left them almost completely undefended, but that’s because I was keeping all my neighbours happy. Was working well until the Zulu decided I was too close for comfort and declared way. I eventually managed to buy peace, but at the expense of about a third of my empire.
I can’t even get the help of other nations, as the Zulu are by far the most powerful civilization diplomatically. I’ve just got to try and keep them happy and see if I can launch a spaceship before they decide to take more of my land. I doubt it’s possible.
I did want to nuke them, but I don’t seem to have uranium to build any. Bother.
Anyway, back to it. I’ve got half an hour of lunchtime left.
World Soccer Champs (iPhone)
Jul 1st
Lovely penalty there.
Tried out the Tournament (i.e. World Cup) mode last night. Despite winning a game, my England team failed to get past the group stages. Oh well.
Re:Bounce (iPhone)
Jul 1st
Throw the ball around and hope to destroy those towers.
Decent, frantic ball-bouncing, ball-breaking game. Chuck the ball around to break balls and either reach the exit or stop the balls from advancing to the top of the screen.
I downloaded because it was free and being compared to Peggle. Well, it’s nothing like Peggle, but it was free, so fair enough.
World Soccer Champs 2010 (iPhone)
Jun 30th
Wasn’t sure what to expect with this one. Top-down footie games normally try to be Sensible Soccer, but fail.
So it was with some trepidation that I paid my £1.19 and started up the game.
I made the mistake of starting to play without reading the instructions. Don’t do that. You see, the game’s got a lovely passing mechanic that you simply won’t discover until you read the instructions telling you how to do it. (Or maybe you will, if you’re not as stupid as me. I don’t know. Maybe you’re some sort of robot-headed football game genius. I’m not making any assumptions.)
So, I thought I liked the game, but wasn’t sure.
It's better than Striker on the Super Nintendo, at least.
After reading the instructions, I knew I liked the game. Oh, it’s a bit of a mess when I’m defending, but that’s always the case with me and footie games. Attacking is absolutely lovely, though – and I’ve even managed to score some goals. Hooray!
I think I’ve nearly played as many matches of this game as I have of the official FIFA World Cup game already, which is quite impressive.
It may or may not be to your taste, I really don’t know, but I’m throughly enjoying and think it’s well worth trying.
Farmville (iPhone)
Jun 30th
Baa.
There, look, I got my sheep. I can stop playing now.
Or can I?
Stayed tuned to find out!
The Oregon Trail (iPhone)
Jun 30th
It’s the iPhone version of an old Commodore 64 game. I don’t remember it from back then, but my wife does. Apparently the iPhone version is very different – especially graphically. That should be obvious from one look at the screenshots.
Anyway, The Oregon Trail is the story of a family struggling across North America to go and set up home in the west. The pace was slow and so is the game.
You spend a lot of time staring at the screen as your grumbling family plods across America.
You spend most of your time watching this screen.
Every now and again, though, something happens.
You might play a mini-game, such as floating down a river, hunting animals, picking berries or repairing your wagon.
Hit the nails to repair your wagon.
One of your family might get injured or ill, which doesn’t result in a mini-game, just a hard decision. Carry on with an injured child? Rest up while they heal? Spend much-needed cash on a doctor?
You even get to meet famous people from, you know, history. They give you little quests, most of which seem to involve talking to them again at a certain location further down the road.
I failed this quest - I'd already agreed to meet someone else on another route.
It’s a bit of a slog, but that’s really the point. If you’re anything like me, you’ll become attached to your family and want to see them through to the end. The mini-games are workmanlike, but it’s a pretty good attempt at generating the right atmosphere without being off-putting.
