InvertY.com
A Gaming Diary
Excite Truck (WII)
Feb 22nd
Look, this game is incredible. It just is.
I’ve now completed the Bronze and Silver cups (levels, whatever) with S ranks and I’ve dipped into Challenge mode. I’ve tried a level where you have to drive through lot of gates without your time running out. It’s incredibly hard, but very addictive and it’s just a very nice cherry on the Excite Truck cake.
And a word about the graphics. Yes, the trees are just hexagonal structures painted with low-res textures. Yes, there is a distinct lack of anti-aliasing. Yes, some of the objects are semingly two-dimensional. BUT! You can see for miles, everything’s very clear and it all runs incredibly quickly and smoothly. Which is good enough for me, thanks.
Excite Truck (WII)
Feb 21st
All cups finished, so now it’s back to get S ranks so I can unlock Super Excite mode.
This is, quite simply, one of the best games I’ve played in a very, very long time.
I have no idea why it’s met with such a muted reception. Variable reviews and a new entry at 36 in the UK charts this week, why?
Excite Truck (WII)
Feb 21st
Marvellous.
On to the Platinum Cup now and I’m having a great time.
It’s impossible to play without tilting around like a madman and shouting “whoa!” every few seconds.
I did a 1440 degree air spin this evening. I am a god.
Still not got any jump combos, though.
Excite Truck (WII)
Feb 20th
After buying this yesterday and not ending up playing it, I just put this on for a quick go… and an hour and a half later I’ve had to force myself to stop playing so I can make dinner and deal with family emails and suchlike.
It’s huge amounts of fun. It looks absolutely fine to me and it plays brilliantly. Fast, intense and, yes, exciting.
Whether it will last is another matter – I’m guessing I’ll want to play it until I’ve S-ranked everything but it’ll end up disappearing into the “must finish sometime” pile once Crackdown arrives – but whether or not it lasts, I’ve had an amazing time with it so far.
Expectations smashed, and all that.
(I did, however, have to turn the music right down after going through the tutorials or go completely insane.)
Power Stone Collection (PSP)
Feb 18th
Yep, that first boss in PS2 Adventure mode goes down without trouble every time now.
I just can’t work out how to avoid the second (and final) boss’s attacks, though.
Powe Stone Collection (PSP)
Feb 18th
Well, I managed to kill the first boss, but the second one kicked me all around without breaking a sweat. Ow.
I tried the original Power Stone for a bit. The arenas are smaller, so the characters stay a bit more visible, but it doesn’t have the excellent item collecting that’s in the second game, so I think I’ll leave it alone.
There are also some mini games, it seems. I’ve only got one open now, an LCD-style flying game. It’s amusing and even almost playable.
Power Stone Collection (PSP)
Feb 18th
Picked this up cheap in Tesco after wanting it for a while. I remember losing an entire weekend to Power Stone 2 on the Dreamcast once. So I decided to leap straight in to that, bypassing the original game for now. Went to Adventure mode to get on with the item collection. It’s still great fun, even if everything’s a touch too small on the PSP. However, the third fight is a boss fight and I just can’t kill the bugger, even with the difficulty set on minimum. I can scratch him a little, but that’s about all. I’ll keep trying until TOCA calls me back.
TOCA Race Driver 3 Challenge (PSP)
Feb 18th
I am stuck. I’ve got to the first championship in Australasia. I’m starting on the grid in second place, but I still can’t make any progress in the first race. The track is normally packed, so I’m being battered around all over the place and damage has really started to matter. With a even yellow engine I seem to get overtaken by other cars very easily. It’s a difficulty spike for sure.
However!
This is not a bad thing. It’s still incredibly good fun, just repeating the same race over and over again. It’s a well-designed track with a nice mixture of different types of corner and the car I’ve been given handles like a dream.
New Adventure Island (WII)
Feb 17th
Well, I got off level 1-3 and on to level 1-4, but I didn’t manage to get very far on that one in the few minutes I played today.
Excitebike (WII)
Feb 17th
I was curious. I’ve been curious for a while. And points aren’t real money, right?
I’m not convinced I made a good decision. I’m not convinced a bad one yet, though, either. I have quite worked everything out. I know what the buttons do, but there are some jumps I can’t seem to make and sometimes the angle I think I should be at doesn’t match what the game thinks.
It would also help if I could work out how to get back to the main menu.
