InvertY.com
A Gaming Diary
Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow
Sep 30th
Went back and killed the boss without potion use on my first try. Lightweight bastard. I drew his seal first time – it’s very easy, but also annoying to have to leap for the stylus when he starts exploding. I don’t like it when games shove in stylus use when it’s not needed just to say they have.
I can now summon bats and cats as well as zombies, but haven’t tried yet.
Yoko’s shop is confusing me. You can upgrade weapons with souls and release souls, but I have no idea what releasing souls is for. RTFM? Maybe it’s time.
Got stuck for a while because I didn’t notice a switch by a door, but at least wandering around randomly nets you experience and souls, so it’s not wasted time.
Into a whole new section now, but I just wimped out and ran back to an old save point because my health was getting low.
Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow
Sep 30th
PRO: It’s Castlevania!
PRO: In 2D!
Introductory speaking bits are done.
The menus have been investigated.
The first save room has been located.
The first boss has been found…
And he’s kicking my arse.
Twice now. I suppose I could use a potion or two… but he’s the first boss!
I need to read the manual and maybe redefine the keys. I keep doing some sort of super attack by mistake and it uses half my magic.
On the plus side, I can now summon zombies to do my bidding shuffle around ineffectually. Bwa ha ha!
LA Rush Demo
Sep 29th
So I hate to admit it, but I bought the Official Xbox Magazine today. For the demos, obviously.
I’m interested in giving Battlefield 2 a try – though it’s online only and I’m not a big fan of jumping into online multiplayer in a game I don’t know.
I was, however, more interested in the LA Rush demo. It’s the name. I loved Rush 2049 on the Dreamcast to death, played it loads in single player and the multiplayer gave good value, too. Now, I know LA Rush is completely different game. Your cars don’t have wings, for a start. And there’s far less neon. And it seems to have gone for a free-roaming, blinged-up, urban cool thing. Hasn’t quite it hit it, as far as I can see from the demo. It’s not cool or stylish. It’s what it should be – big, dumb, arcade fun.
There are three modes in the demo. First up, racing. Which does what it says on the tin. Race around city streets, grabbing shortcuts, avoiding traffic and coming second by the same distance every try, even when your times are twenty seconds different in a sub-two minute race. Still, it’s good fun and though the collisions are less polished that those in the Burnout series they do have a certain satisfying weightiness about them.
The next options on the menu are Cruise and Roam. Which both seemed to mean the same thing. But they don’t. Oh no, they don’t. Cruise should probably be called The Car That Couldn’t Slow Down, as it actually starts you on a stretch of a road, tells you not to drop below 55 mph and gives you a certain distance to run. My current best is thirty-six percent, which is rubbish. But it’s great, intense, annoying fun.
Like Race, Roam does actually do what it says. You just drive around the city annoying police and finally noticing the framerate (not as bad as Rush 2049), the deeply strange pedestrian behaviour (which consists of them running around like earth-bound fleas in an attempt to avoid your car, but don’t need to because if you manage to trap one you just drive right through him) and the way that sometimes you can drive through trees and sometimes you can’t.
I get the impression that it’s one of those games that I’d get annoyed with if I paid £40 for it, but would hail as a negleted gem if I got it for a tenner. So, right, as soon as it’s cheap, it shall be mine.
PSP Emulation & Homebrew
Sep 28th
So, I got Doom working. Doom 2, to be precise. (Seems WADs should be called doom1.wad or doom2.wad – my doom1 is called plain simple doom.) Controls are a bit iffy – but I’m a keyboard purist for Doom – and it’s rather buggy, but, hey, it’s Doom. And Doom is The Best Game Ever. No, really. It’s always number one when I make a top ten games list. Ah, Doom.
Also tried Chrono Trigger. Now, every time in the past I’ve tried it I’ve got five or ten minutes in, got bored and left it for another year or two. Got five minutes in this time. But I did go wandering off where I wasn’t meant to be and got into my very first Chrono Trigger fight. I feel reborn. Or something.
What else?
::strokes chin::
Ah, yes, Zelda 2. Can’t find a candle. Have no idea what that Start Menu is all about. Got stuck. Tried to go through a cave without a light. Died. I AM ERROR.
PSP Emulation & Homebrew
Sep 28th
I want to play Metal Slug! But I don’t own it. Nor do I have it. So that’s out. I should remove the Neo Geo emulator from the list, it’s only mocking me.
Anyway, the NES emulator runs precisely half the ROMs I’ve tried with it. Zelda works, Excitebike turns off the PSP, Metroid works and something I can’t remember the name of goes to a grey screen and then stops.
Tried one of the homebrew games. Can’t remember what that’s called, either. (Some diary, eh? Forgive me, I’m ill.) Anyway, it’s a Bejewelled/Zoo Keeper style thing with an unexpectedly disturbing lack of animation and expectedly annoying lack of stylus control. Actually, I think it might be called Polygon.
PSP’s on charge now. Doesn’t really need to be, but I want it away from me, to stop me playing with it.
Oh, and Doom still doesn’t work. Boo.
Alien3
Sep 28th
In 1994 I was on the dole. I had a SNES with five games: Striker, Mario All Stars, Starfox, Street Fighter II Turbo and Alien3.
I loved them all.
And, now, through the miracles of technology, I have Alien3 in the palm of my hand.
Yes, it runs full speed on the PSP’s SNES emulator. It’s all right, too; my memory isn’t too far out of whack with reality. It’s a pretty standard 2D run and gun platformer, but non-linear. I just played a game, but couldn’t remember how to find out what different areas were called, so just ran around randomly killing aliens until I died. Bloody face huggers.
PSP Emulation
Sep 28th
So, I downgraded my PSP from 2.0 to 1.5 last night. A dangerous procedure, but I think several days of being stuck at home with a dodgy stomach have bored me so much that anything to do seems like a good idea.
It all worked, but getting emulators on there has been problematic. A pack of emulators I downloaded works, mostly, but everything else I’ve tried fails. It’s very odd and annoying.
The Megadrive Sonic games run, but the display is a bit odd in a way I’m not finding it easy to explain. A bit blurry, a bit jumpy, but not in a dodgy framerate kind of way. Seems to be better now I’ve shrunk the size of the window they display in and turned VSync on.
Tried the SNES version of Super Mario Bros. Runs quite slowly at time, not great. Might be okay for RPGs though, I suppose.
I’ve been playing the original Zelda game on the GBA recently – one of those NES classics carts – so I tried Zelda on the NES emulator. Seems to work, but I seem to have a shield equipped without having a shield equipped. Some lovely hacked ROM, I guess. It’s annoying, anyway.
Beats of Rage works, but the initial load is incredibly long. Then it hangs between levels and I have to suspend and then turn the PSP on again to give it the kick it needs to continue.
Doom simply doesn’t work, which is annoying. And, yes, I’ve got a WAD file in there.
A very mixed bag, then. I’m not sure how worth it is from a gaming point of view, but it’s good time-wasting stuff from a sick geek viewpoint.
We Love Katamari
Sep 27th
I just properly fell in love with this game.
Previously, I liked hanging out with it and wasn’t averse to the odd bunk up and, sure, I loved it in a way, but now I’m completely in love.
It was the Hansel & Gretal level that did it. The simplest and easiest level so far. There’s nothing to it at all. But just the design of the house and the greatness of the concept just worked some magic on me and now I’m in love.
Even if I just let a fire go out twice and had lasers shot at me for my troubles.
Call Of Duty 2 Demo
Sep 27th
Whoa. Now that was rather intense.
Whether it’s more than Call of Duty with a graphical tart up I couldn’t say, having only played the Call of Duty demo about fifteen years ago (give or take) on a machine that could barely handle it.
And talking of barely handling things… CoD 2 (ah, we’re into the acronyms and this diary is only a few days old) selected 640×480 as the recommended resolution. But it also decided on 4x AA and a few other things I can’t remember and when I started it up I was shocked by how good it looked. Shocked, I say. And it ran decently, too, with a minimum level of shuddering.
I died lots. Gunfire and explosions all around. Many deaths – but that’s okay, especially as the checkpoints are well placed and the reload times are tiny. Men flying past me and crumpling to the ground in front of me. Orders, English and German, being shouted out over all the noise. Grenade warnings, cries of warning and of triumph.
Or, to put it another way, you get to run around a town shooting Nazis in the face.
I’m mostly avoiding PC games these days, because they’re more hassle than they’re worth and my Bluetooth keyboard isn’t great for gaming, especially as it has to rest on my stomach as I slump on the sofa. PC connected to TV, you see. And, yes, I generally slump a bit, except when I’m leaning forward to peer at tiny text that wouldn’t be a problem on a monitor but is annoying as hell on a TV six foot away.
You’ll notice I said ‘mostly’ and that’s because I think I’m going to have to get Call of Duty 2. I might wait until it’s on budget, but it shall be mine.
