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A Gaming Diary
F.E.A.R.
Jan 22nd
Straight after installing I had to download a 122MB patch. Aren’t PCs great? Only took a few minutes download, though. I remember spending all day trying to download a 13MB patch for Carmegeddon. It took ages and it wasn’t until my third or fourth try that my net connection managed to stay up long enough for me to get it. Gah.
Oh, yes, anyway. FEAR. (Just put the full stops in mentally. I can’t be arsed to type them every time I write the name.) It’s great. It’s depressing to see so many settings on “medium” in the menus, but it runs nicely for the most part. Every now and again it’ll just die for no reason for a second or two, which is odd. But that only happened a couple of times in the hour I just played.
Anyway, so far there have been loads of fights against nasty men with guns and only one crate puzzle. So that’s okay. Thoroughly enjoyable. And, yes, it’s a bit spooky at times.
Animal Crossing: Wild World
Jan 22nd
I got stung by bees four times.
I didn’t catch a tuna.
Bah.
On the plus side, though, I did shoot down a couple more presents. The golden slingshot can’t be far away now.
Animal Crossing: Wild World
Jan 22nd
Well, I didn’t bother with turnips this week. I’m about more than making money, man.
At the moment I’m mostly about fruit trees. I’m going to wait a few days without picking any fruit so I can see which trees on the east side are fruit trees and which ones… aren’t. I’ll then cut the non-fruit ones down and replace them with nice pear, orange and peach trees. I’m thinking long term here, you see.
Anyway, today was Yay Day. In which the animals all said nice things to me – even Curt! – and I had to say nice things back. “Nice ears”, “cool trunk”, “shiny beak”, “nice arse”, that sort of thing. (Deena’s now proudly striding round Venture proclaiming that “nice arse” is her middle name.) The only animal not taking part was Frobert, who had the sickness and needed his medicine again. There’s something very wrong with that frog.
I’ve persuaded Curt to stay, which pleases me. Every town needs at least one grumpy resident. Nobody seems to be packed today, which is nice. I like getting new villagers, but I’m pretty happy with my neighbours right now.
Also completely rearranged my ground floor room… but I’m still not happy with it at all. Hmpf. Maybe I need to go for a whole new vibe, ditch the gaming/entertainment thing.
Star Wars: Empire At War Demo
Jan 22nd
Oh.
I wasn’t paying attention and just got wiped out by an AT-AT.
I wasn’t expecting that.
Xbox 360
Jan 21st
Robotron 2084 first, to check to see if the background can be removed. (I don’t think it can.)
Then a few levels of Wik, which is seriously draining for some reason. I’ve got on to levels with poisonous bugs now, which is really annoying because I have to, you know, be careful and stuff. Boo.
Then Geometry Wars 2. Hours of it. Well, about an hour of it. I got best score ever, which should be a cause for celebration, but it was only 6,000 short of the achievement-netting 250,000 mark, which put a damper on things. Just 6,000 more and I could have got some more sweet, sweet gamer points.
Star Wars: Empire At War Demo
Jan 21st
Yep, I’m going through the demos and free downloads this weekend.
Anyway, I did the incredibly long tutorial for this new RTS and it seems like it might actually be quite good.
It doesn’t seem to be doing anything too new and it doesn’t look all that great but it seems to play smoothly and, well, you can be the Empire and go round blowing up rebel bases and slaughtering Jawas. The galactic strategy Interface looks a bit fiddly for those of us not sitting with our noses against the monitor, though.
Anyway, I suppose I should actually try playing the game part of the demo at some point, but that tutorial wore me out.
Difficult to judge RTS games quickly, anyway, I suppose. Should probably wait for some reviews.
X2: The Threat Demo
Jan 21st
It’s one of those Elite type things where you fly around in space and wish you had a quick keyboard reference and get hopelessly lost because there’s no up or down and then get annoyed and turn it off.
Not helped by the fact that my mouse cursor wouldn’t appear, mind.
Space Rangers II
Jan 21st
Installed No-CD crack. (The disc’s actually sitting right next to my PC at the moment, but I’m lazy.)
Loaded last save game.
Died three turns later after finding my last game was saved in a Dominator-controlled system. A frantic dumping of cargo to get my ship to move and a run towards the nearest warp point were to no avail. The comforting rings of safety were almost within my grasp when my ship finally succumbed to the Dominator onslaught. So near, yet so far…
Yeah, well, I’ve quit and I’ll start a new game later. Should probably do the tutorial again, too…
Counter Strike: Source
Jan 21st
I just played this for the first time in well over a year. I wanted to see the new de_militia map, so I jumped on to a random public server.
About an hour and a half I played. Over three different maps. An hour and a half of frenetic, fast-paced combat.
I got four kills.
Four.
People started commenting on it. Not unkindly, but the way they might talk about a younger relative who’s a little bit slow. I’ve got no idea why I was enjoying, given that my average life span was round about twenty seconds.
Rag Doll Kung Fu Demo
Jan 21st
Now, I didn’t play it for long, I admit, but I really didn’t like the controls.
I know that they’re meant to take some time to get used to, but I’m really not sure I can be bothered. It was just annoying and confusing and I didn’t like it.
Which is odd, because I thought I was going to. I guess I’m just not in the mood today. I’ll try again some other time.
