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A Gaming Diary
Jeanne D’Arc (PSP)
Sep 10th
Oh, bother!
I was doing well, with a slightly modified version of my previous tactics, when I forgot that Jeanne had to survive this battle and sent her off into the middle of a scrum of enemies, without even noticing she only had half a health bar. A stupid, stupid death and a richly deserved Game Over screen.
Halo 2 (360)
Sep 10th
I’ve discovered something. Using the Needler and the shotgun is the way to go on Easy. Oh, and that sword thing, whatever it’s called. It starts to feel more Quake-like and is a lot of fun.
Jeanne D’Arc (PSP)
Sep 10th
And after taking The Bastille of The Augustins, I then had to defend it. I had a cunning plan, which seemed to work okay. While the main force were forcing their way through the locked main gates, I took on Talbot, one of the main baddies, on the steps up to a turret, as he’d managed to sneak in. It took a long, long time to kill him, but I made it and then ran up and sat in the turret. A good defensive position, as only one enemy could get into an attacking position on the stairs each turn. (Which was what had led me to take so long to kill Talbot.) The main English force had broken through the gates by this point and I positioned my strongest character at the top of the stairs and had the others raining down offensive spells and doing healing.
All was well until all that was left was the enemy’s priestess, a healing character with little or no offensive capability. Unfortunately, she decided to run away. Unfortunately, all levels in this game have a turn limit. I chased her, but she had a big head start and I only had Jeanne, Marcel and Liane left. Jeanne moves quite quickly, but Marcel and Liane are slow. For the last three turns I wasn’t able to damage the priestess enough to kill her and on her turn she’d run further away and heal herself. At the end of my last turn I got her down to nine hit points. That’s not a lot, but she was still alive and my time ran out and the Game Over screen appeared.
Never before, I don’t think, have I been as exhilarated at failure. I’m itching to get home from work tonight and try again. This time: take out the healer early with whatever I’ve got. Maybe I should buy some more of those items that do magical damage when you throw them, if they’re available in the shops. More ranged attacks are always good.
Whether the enemies auto-level or whether there’s suddenly been a scripted difficulty hike I don’t know, but the difficulty feels just about perfect right now. The enemies have a bit more health than my characters and there are more of them, so I’m having to think. And, you know, I nearly won.
I think next time I try I should bring in Jean instead of one of the other characters I used. On the stairs his two-square hit zone – not to mention his special Impale move – should make things quicker and easier… if I can keep him alive.
Jeanne D’Arc (PSP)
Sep 9th
Well, forget what I was saying last time I played, about it being very easy. I’ve just taken the Bastille of the Augustins from the dastardly English, but not without a fight. In fact, when I won I only had one unit left – my archer, Marcel. It really was very exciting and felt very cinematic.
I probably could have won without losing almost all my units, too, but I was being a bit inept.
Halo 2 (360)
Sep 8th
With Halo 3 just around the corner, I thought it might be a good time to finally see the end of Halo 2′s single-player campaign. This means starting from the beginning again, unfortunately, so I’ve stuck it on Easy so I can blast through as quickly as possible.
On Easy it’s quite good fun, but nothing very special in raw gameplay terms. I’m not having to use any tactics, and instead I’m just running around blasting anyone who needs to be killed and running past anyone who doesn’t. I’m not quite invincible and have died carelessy a couple of times, but it’s one of those games where Easy really, really means easy.
Of course, all the great incidental stuff is the same on Easy as the other levels. The Convenant design, the character dialogue, the action-movie-cool set pieces, all present and correct.
Folklore Demo (PS3)
Sep 7th
Similar to Heavenly Sword; it looks lovely, but only feels okay to play.
It’s all a bit repetitive, some of the timing is so tight it amounts to luck for a reaction-time-challenged thirty-something like me and you can’t change the camera controls, which are the wrong way round on the x-axis. Nevertheless, I finished one character’s part of the demo and started the second character’s, only to quit out when it started giving me the same tutorial information all over again.
Quake 2 (PC)
Sep 7th
As well as finishing Bioshock yesterday, I also finished this, but forgot to post about it.
It really is an exceptionally entertaining shooter. I was playing it through on Easy with sound off and was never bored or annoyed with it. The look of it still works, too, with the chunky design looking “classic” rather than “eye-breakingly horrible”, even using the software driver (because the OpenGL version is far too dark on my PC, for some reason).
Excellent game all round and one that’s stood the test of time very well indeed. It’s not complicated, or deep, but as a fast-paced run-and-gun arcade shooter it’s brilliant.
Now, if I can find a copy of the 360 version of Quake IV for less than a tenner I might be tempted to get that.
Bioshock (360)
Sep 6th
Well, holding LB and RB on startup to delete the cache let me continue playing and, in a three-hour session, I managed to finish the game.
Overall, it was brilliant, but there were enough little niggles at the end to knock it down from 10 to a 9. Chief among these was the final boss encounter. The first time I played it, another enemy killed me when I was just finishing him off. The second time, the game glitched and the button I had to use to defeat the boss wouldn’t work. The third time I defeated him, only for the final cut scene to flash up, followed by the game over screen. The fourth time, I won and the game didn’t kill me afterwards. Phew.
Still, I’m a fan. I’m a fan of the world. I’m a fan of the posters up around Rapture. I’m a fan of the Big Daddies and Little Sisters. I’m a fan of the plasmids. I’m a fan of the crossbow. And the shotgun. And the machine gun. I’m a fan of the music. I’m a fan of the ghosts.
Bioshock (360)
Sep 5th
Hmpf.
I was happily playing this, until after an hour or so it started freezing up for a couple of seconds every ten seconds or so.
Not the only one seeing the problem this evening and there was a patch when I started up, so I guess something’s been broken. Way to go! Patches that break perfectly good games!
Jeanne D’Arc (PSP)
Sep 3rd
I’m way too levelled. In today’s story mission I cut through the enemies like butter.
Excellent.
