InvertY.com
A Gaming Diary
Animal Crossing: Wild World
Jan 14th
So Curt, Big Top and Dotty sang me tunes. I love all three animals, but I had to go with Dotty’s tune. It seemed to mean more to her than to anyone else. At least, I think I’ve done what I was meant to. I told her she was hired. It’s odd, not as organised as I’d expect. Ah well.
Curly’s packed to move out today. I’ve barely talked to him since he moved in, so he’s welcome to go. I’ll miss his flowers, though.
Frobert needed medicine for the second day running. He must be really sick. I hope this doesn’t throw his training regime off too much.
And, finally, I hope there’s no limit to the number of new trees that grow each day, because I planted hundreds of them today. None were in old tree places, but I hoping a fair few of them will survive.
Auto Assault Beta
Jan 14th
Well, the performance issues haven’t gone away overnight, but the repair pads work now.
I went back to the Proving Grounds to mop up quests that I’d missed. Did a few and then tried my first PvP mission. Well, sort of PvP. I wasn’t shooting other humans, but racing them. First up to the top of a mountain won the race… or wouldn’t have done if the end point hadn’t refused to respond when I got there. I should have won, but in the end I had to just abandon the quest. Gah. I filed a bug report about that one, you can be sure of that.
Then I did another mission where you were meant to kill enemies round a house, but they weren’t unique, so you could kill the same type of enemy elesewhere on the map and complete the mission in relative safety. Not sure if that’s a real bug or just an odd consequence of the design, so I didn’t file a report about that one.
Did a few more missions until I just couldn’t take another. I’m running out of missions, too. I’m getting tons of equipment I can’t use for another four or five levels and after the mission I just took I’m not sure if there are any more I’m ready for. The “main” mission I’ve got is for level eleven players and I’m only level four.
I suppose I should say something else nice. Well, I like the way that though all your weapons are ranged you can do melee damage by driving into enemies. You are in a big armoured car, after all.
Auto Assault Beta
Jan 13th
Well, I’ve played it some more.
It hasn’t changed much, except that I’ve run into some horrible framerate issues. Really, really bad stuff. Very odd. It first happened when I went into the first town and I could hardly move around because I was getting about one screen update per second. And then back out in the field I had some issues – mainly when driving a long way very quickly. I think the game just can’t keep up with the amount of streaming it must be doing. Or something.
Also, the repair pads don’t seem to be working, which meant a lot of down time until I discovered I could get fully healed for two, er, whatever the currency they use is called.
All the quests are very standard “kill N of X” or “deliver O to Y” things. And I’ve done the main line of quests too quickly and am now on one where the enemies I’m meant to kill are impossible for me to hit. (I thought something was up when I got a quest reward that was two levels too high for me.) So I’m going back to find some subquests more suited to my level.
Something odd happened, though. I enjoyed myself. I killed a load of enemies. I had a very quick conversation with another player. I customised my car a bit. I used some skill points to get some healing and defensive abilities. I even got an apartment. And despite the lazy post-apocalyptic generic look of it, despite the frame rate issues, despite the non-working repair pads and despite the standard MMO combat I had a very good time.
I can’t explain it and I find it slightly worrying, because I feel like I should be slagging it off as lazy, uninspired rubbish. But I can’t help it. I enjoyed it.
Best Games Ever
Jan 13th
I just had to make a list of my top ten favourite games of all time. It looks like this -
10. Animal Crossing: Wild World (DS)
Online and girlfriend loves it and we can play it together. Which makes it special. And I’ve played it every day since I got it.
9. Mr Driller: Drill Spirits (DS)
Best (English language) Mr Driller. Drill Land might take the spot if it was out in English.
8. Resident Evil 4 (GC)
Well, just because it’s ace. It’s as good as all the other RE games are bad. Put together. Which is very good indeed.
7. World of Warcraft (PC)
Because it’s given me some of my best gaming moments ever… And I just realised today how much I love the graphics.
6. ICO (PS2)
Haunting, atmospheric, etc. Colossus might challenge it, but I’ve not finished that yet. Maybe next year.
5. OutRun 2 (XBOX)
I hope this will be chucked out of the top ten soon when Coast to Coast is released. But for now, this is the best racing game in the world… by a fairly long way. (It was a very long way before PGR3 came out.)
4. Mario 64 (N64)
Loved it then. Love it still. But it’s losing a place a year (roughly) because it’s not aging very well.
3. GTA: San Andreas (PS2)
Best setting, best map, best features, best everything.
2. Elder Scrolls: Morrowind GOTY (PC)
Life eater.Played the Xbox version a lot, too, but the PC version is better. Could be another game to be replaced soon by a sequel. But Oblivion could be broken and shite, so maybe not.
1. Doom (PC)
Genius that hasn’t aged in anything but graphics. Gameplay, level design, feel… it’s still all there. BEST. GAME. EVER.
Right yes. Something like that… maybe. But I want Giga Wing in there, too. And Halo 2. And a Castlevania… And the GC 1080. And KOTOR… And…
Auto Assault Beta
Jan 13th
Well, first impressions after ninety minutes of play. It’s very… brown.
And it just feels like GENERO-MMO-293.94… but in a car! It looks like the combat should be proper Twisted Metal style shooting, but it’s really just normal MMO style ranged fighting with a cosmetic twist. Lock on to target and hold down fire, watching it say -4, MISS, -2, MISS above your target until one of you dies. And occasionally pressing a number key to use a special ability if you’re still awake.
It’s not that I didn’t enjoy… It’s just I didn’t… er… really… feel much of anything. It’s not bad, but based on that quick play (I’ll try more later) it’s something I might drop fifteen quid on, but not something I’d pay a monthly fee for. Maybe there’s more to it later…
Animal Crossing: Wild World
Jan 12th
More online goodness.
It ate yet another evening.
Glory be its name.
Animal Crossing: Wild World
Jan 12th
You know, I think I love Dotty a little less after she gave me a shanty wall in exhange for a fossil.
On a happier note, all my coconut trees seem to have taken.
Animal Crossing: Wild World
Jan 11th
I made a road network out of sandstone tiles I’d designed.
I was very proud of it, until the first person to see it referred to it as the ‘Burberry Road’.
Damn it all.
Geometry Wars 2
Jan 11th
Half an hour.
No score above 120,000.
Sometimes I don’t know why I bother.
Well, apart from the fact that it’s great fun.
Animal Crossing: Wild World
Jan 11th
Every day I have to fend off animals begging for fossils as if they were crack.
Today I had two spare fossils and I couldn’t find a single animal who wanted one.
I’m sure they’re playing with me.
