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A Gaming Diary
GHOSTS’N GOBLINS GOLD KNIGHTS (iPhone)
Nov 10th
THANKS FOR ONLY USING CAPITAL LETTERS IN THE NAME OF THIS GAME, CAPCOM! I ALWAYS ENJOY THAT! Anyway, yes, a new – new! – Ghosts’n Goblins game has appeared on the iPhone today. It’s only £1.79 at the moment, which is within my impulse purchase range for a much-loved series such as this, so I gave it a go.
First thing you notice is that it’s all been rendered in fairly cheap-looking 3D. Arthur’s animation, in particular, is laughable, but not charmless. (There’s another playable character, Lancelot, but selecting him would, of course, be sacrilege.)
The second thing you notice is that it’s all very easy. I doubt anyone will see the Game Over screen before the end of the first level. You might misjudge a jump and lose a life or two, but that’s it. The enemies are no trouble and the boss is a piece of cake, with a blindingly obvious weak spot and attacks that are harder to get hit by than avoid.
The second level is rather more challenging. The enemies are slightly more troublesome, yes, but the real difficulty comes from the jumps. There’s one near the end of the second level (I assume) that I keep failing. Yet, I still kept going back, stretching the definition of lunch time to breaking point. (And you can choose which level to start on, so there’s no need to do the first level again once you’ve completed it.)
I miss the hardcore punishment of the GBA version of the game, but I’m not sure if it’d work with virtual controls, good as these are. It took me a few minutes to adjust to the fairly small d-pad, but after that I didn’t have any issues.
So, any bad news, apart from maybe the difficulty?
Yes, I’m afraid so.
The graphics sometimes make it unclear where you can and can’t jump. It’s not a big issue, but it’s occasionally annoying.
More importantly, the game doesn’t do any auto save. Get a phone call of press the Home button while playing and your current game is lost. The level select feature makes this slightly less of an issue than it might be, but it’s still not good.
The final bit of bad news is the game’s approach to in-app purchases. Take a look at this screenshot.
That’s right, you can buy cheats for 59p each. Infinite lives, infinite magic attacks, things like that. No, you don’t have to use them – and I won’t be – but it all leaves a nasty taste in the mouth.
Doom Classic (iPhone)
Nov 10th
Some days* you just need some good old shotgun therapy.
*Like, say, when the windows in your office are being replaced around you as you shiver, nurse a headache and try to work.
Dungeon Hunter Free (iPhone)
Nov 10th
Well, I was going to buy The Settlers yesterday. I’d spend a few days reading about it, trying to decide if it was worth £2.99, then finally decided it was. So I went off to the App Store, only to find that I couldn’t buy it because the price of the game was being increased to £3.99. So, no Settlers for me. I know it’s only a quid, but I’ve got £13.44 of credit that needs to last the next couple of weeks and there are a lot of games coming out – every pound counts.
Another Gameloft game is £2.99 at the moment, though, so I thought I’d try the demo version of Dungeon Hunter to see if it was worth the cash. Well, it’s a very short demo, but it seems like a decent, competent action RPG that basically only exists so you can pore through menus seeing if wooden boots are better than ceremonial boots. (They are, by the way.)
I’m reasonably tempted, but I think I’ll wait to see what sort of reaction Ravensword gets when that’s released in the next week or two. (By which time Gameloft will probably have put the price of Dungeon Hunter back up again, but that’s the App Store for you.)
Zombie Dash (iPhone)
Nov 10th
Played quite a lot of Zombie Dash last night, to see if it would get any harder. And, to be fair, I nearly died a couple of times when I got hit by bats and zombies at the same time, but I managed to survive. I went from the 38th day to the 51st and it was only those two occasions that presented anything like a problem. The only reason I finished playing on Day 51 was because I’d set myself the goal of clearing Day 50, I didn’t die or anything.
Honestly, I’m not really sure what the best way to make the game more interesting is. Obviously, it needs to be harder for me to really enjoy it. (I’m not claiming that everyone would want it to be harder, but I think I need the constant fear of death to make it come alive.) I think I’d limit the amount of antidote you can carry to fifty, make the traps deadlier, keep the bats as they are and, well, I’m just not sure what to do about the zombies. Right now they’re a bit of a nuisance, but that’s all. I think I might make them much deadlier and force the player to lure zombies into traps to proceed. Right now you can lead the zombies onto spikes, but they’re often too far away and it’s much, much easier just to run into the zombie and fight them off than make them follow you to a play where you can escape from them.
It’s tricky, but it’d be worth doing because there’s a great game in here, but it’s just lacking a bit of spark and pop and fizz.
The Isle of 8-Bit Treasures (iPhone)
Nov 10th
I think I may finally have got properly fed up with this last night. I don’t mind dying all the time – I’ve seen the screen below more times that I can count.
I don’t even mind it crashing now and again in custom dungeons, but it doesn’t crash now and again – it crashes all the time. The screen below shows a crash.
You can’t actually tell, because it all carries on nicely, playing music and animating the characters, but the game refuses to respond to any inputs. I shouldn’t even be needing to input anything in that screen, mind, as I should be escaping the dungeon. Maybe I should stick to the main dungeons, but the lure of custom dungeons is just too great.
Anyway, I’m sure I’ll still play it, but it’s going to become part of a balanced gaming diet; I won’t be gorging myself on it any longer.
Words With Friends (iPhone)
Nov 10th
Sometimes, I feel bad when I make game-changing moves like that. Not bad enough not to do them, but, well, it does feel a bit like I just ruined the game. Hopefully my opponent will come back with some huge move later on to wreck me.
(And unless the game allows Wookiee-language words, it’s not like I’ve got great letters now.)
The Isle of 8-Bit Treasures (iPhone)
Nov 9th
Once again, The Isle of 8-Bit Treasures took up all my gaming time over the weekend. I didn’t mean to play it exclusively, but I just kept on starting it up. It’s really very good indeed, despite the horrible bug that seems to freeze the game in custom dungeons. It’s normally, but not always, when you use an escape item. Very, very annoying, yet I keep coming back.
I actually made some progress over the weekend. I managed to finish another couple of main dungeons and even found another rare C item, which I used on my Raijin Blade to add a fire attack. I spent a lot of time trying to finish the Unsolved Child Murder dungeon, but didn’t quite manage it. It’s only four floors deep, but the last one’s full of nasty monsters – and there’s always one monster-filled room on level two that can kill me if I’m careless or unlucky. (If the stairs down from level one take you straight to that room, it’s pretty much game over right there.)
On the plus side, the Unsolved Child Murder dungeon doesn’t include any annoying little slime monsters. The green ones are fine, the yellow ones a pain until you level up, but it’s the blue ones that are the real buggers. They often split in two when you hit them, so if you get surrounded in an open area, death can come quickly.
Great game, but I really can’t recommended it in good conscience until they fix the freeze bug in custom dungeons. Unless it’s just me experiencing that? Has anyone else reading this seen anything similar?
Words With Friends (iPhone)
Nov 9th
Wasn’t entirely sure that would work, but, hey, if it gets me points it’s okay by me.
The Isle of 8-Bit Treasures (iPhone)
Nov 6th
Unsurprisingly, I spent my lunch hour playing this game. I mainly spent my time in custom dungeons, so I thought I’d give a quick guide to how that feature works.
First you click the feather near the top of the map screen.
Then you chose a song. In this case, I’m going to choose Unsolved Child Murder by The Auteurs.
And lo and behold…
…the Lair of Spirits has been created. Let’s go have a look at it. First I need to choose which sword to use. The Training Sword is useless, so forget that. My Raijin Blade is decent, but I’ve now also got Durandal, which I created from Poker Face by Lady Gaga. It’s got the same number of special moves as the Raijin Blade, fewer upgrade slots and more offensive special moves, compared to the Raijin’s Blade more supportive moves. It’s hard to choose between them, but this time I’ll go with Durandal.
Next, I get to choose items from my inventory to take with me, but if I die in the dungeon I lose them. I’m using custom dungeons to try and gather items, so I won’t take any with me this time.
Now we’re all set, so let’s get going!
There we are, that’s the dungeon I created. The first floor is full of useful items and the enemies aren’t too hard. Lovely. Now, let’s go down the stairs to level two…
Oh crap! Help!
Yes, death came quickly in that room. The Lair of Spirits dungeon is actually good for me at the moment, though. The first two floors are pretty easy, usually, and I can normally find an escape item and lots of other nice things. So I’ve been going in, grabbing as much as I can and hoping to find an escape item so I can get out again. Most attempts end in death, but I’ve had enough success to get quite a nice little stock of items in my inventory.
I really, really like this game, you know. However, as well as the problems I mentioned in my last post, I’ve found a new one. Sometimes the game stops responding to all inputs and I have to quit out of the game and come back in. I think it’s when I use an escape item that will let me leave the dungeon my next turn. I use the item, but now and again my next turn never comes. It’s happened a few times now and it’s very irritating.
The Isle of 8-Bit Treasures (iPhone)
Nov 6th
Normally, I’m a bit of a games slut on my iPhone, popping in and out of several different games over the course of an evening. Last night, though, apart from checking in with Words With Friends every now and again I only played one game, The Isle of 8-Bit Treasures.
I wasn’t really sure what I was getting when I paid out the massive sum of £2.99 for the game. It looked like it might be a roguelike, or possibly some sort of Zelda-esque action RPG. Enough people were intrigued by it online, though, that someone had to buy it to see what it was, so I decided to step up and be a man about it.
So, what did I find? Well, things didn’t start awfully well, because when I first loaded it up I saw the screen below.
Yes, it was telling me I didn’t enough free memory and that I should reboot. So I did and when I started it up again I didn’t get the warning message and haven’t seen it since.
I tapped past the title screen and chose Tutorial from the main menu, which consists of a few screen shots with some explanatory text round the side. It doesn’t help an awful lot, but it got me started. Next, I went into the game itself and chose to play as the beginner Soldier character. I took my basic training sword and started one of the unlocked dungeons.
Happy, happy! It’s a roguelike! It’s turn-based, with randomly generated levels and everything. You battle monsters, collect items and money and try to get to the special item on the bottom level of the current dungeon. It took me a long time to even finish one dungeon, because the game’s pretty tough. You always start a dungeon with your character at level one, but you can bring in a weapon and inventory items you’ve managed to save from previous attempts or buy from the shop.
The battle system is quite interesting. You can either use items, which can stun enemies, do fire damage, etc. or attack with your weapon. On the right hand side of the screen is the Weapon Reel. Attacking with your weapon moves the reel one space and if a special effect appears in the little highlighted square, your weapon produces that effect. Your training sword, for example, only has one special effect, which does a strong hit when the fist icon appears in the square. This doesn’t come round very often.
You can power up your weapon by finding crystals that give special effects and adding them your weapon. The only crystal I’ve found so far is one that heals me when I hit an enemy. I didn’t add that to my training sword, though, because by the time I found the crystal I was using a different weapon – a Raijin Blade. How did I get that? I created it from my iTunes library. You can chose a song and a weapon will be created based on that song. I used Babe, I’m On Fire by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds and got my Raijin Blade, which beats the training sword by having lots of special effects. Sometimes it hits hard, sometimes it stuns, sometimes it does Holy Damage, etc. And now, as I said, it heals me every now and again. Excellent.
Still, it hasn’t made the game easy. This is a very simple game underneath the lack of documentation and little quirks, but you really have to be very careful. I’m currently trying to best an unlit dungeon. I’ve bought some torches, but they don’t last very long and I’m running out of money. I may have to beat this dungeon in the dark.
It’s definitely more Pokémon Mystery Dungeon than NetHack, but it keeps me coming back, time after time. There seems to be a lot to it, too. I’ve played for a few hours now and I’ve completed 5% of the game with my soldier – and once I’ve finished the game with him, there are Hunter and Witch characters to play as. Oh, and you can create new dungeons from your songs, as well as weapons. I tried creating a level from Gunpowder & Lead by Miranda Lambert, but it was rather too difficult and I ran off with my tail between my legs.
I appreciate I’ve written a lot here and probably not explained it very well at all, but the short version is that it’s a simple, challenging roguelike, well-suited to short play sessions… or it would be, if not for a near-fatal flaw.
You can’t save mid-dungeon. Press the Home button, you lose your progress. Get a phone call, you lose your progress. (Or so I assume, that hasn’t happen yet.) Dungeons don’t take all that long to clear – so far – but not being able to go off and do something else and then come back is a deeply idiotic design decision. Whether you can put up with that is up to you, but, for all its many faults, I don’t regret buying the game. How could I when I played it so much yesterday and want to be playing it now?
