Grand Theft Auto IV (360)

Quite a bit more play today. In no particular order, I had an encounter with Dimitri, have a new safehouse in Bohan, met and helped Elizabeta, met Playboy X and had a gunfight with a load of cops with him, and have now unlocked the next island.

Completed my first "vigilante" mission too, using the computer onboard a police car I, er, borrowed. And basically just spent ages doing nothing much bar explore and cause trouble. No glitches today either.

Oh, and I tried to play online, but couldn't find anyone to play - and the one game I joined was just finishing so I was kicked out.

Grand Theft Auto IV (360)

Lots (and lots) of play on this today. It's one of those games where I can't really explain too much about what I'm doing in case I spoil anything, as far as the main storyline goes anyway. I did a few missions for Mikhail, completing his bit of the story, a couple of jobs for Little Jacob (whose accent is bloody amazing), and a couple of jobs for Brucie.

Also dated Michelle a couple more times and, er, "made it" with her, drove round rather a lot doing nothing in particular (I came across an alleyway with a police car parked up in it, and the policeman up a fire escape, so I killed him and was chased for ages). I went to the airport, but was disappointed to find that 1) you couldn't nick a plane, and 2) you got a 4-star wanted level just being there. I did manage to shake off the police though, gaining me an achievement.

Then I tried to get a car up onto the roller coaster at the fairground, but couldn't find a way onto the tracks and ended up driving into a pond at the miniature golf course by accident. Tch.

GTA Glitch Watch:

1) Cutting a corner in a car dropped me into a front yard where they'd been digging up the pavement, and my car got stuck in a wall, then flipped upside down (even though I was stationary), the car fell through the floor, everything went black (bar the car), and then the car flipped up into the air, span a lot, and then landed right-side-up back in the wall. I had to get out.

2) I parked a car very close to a wall (next to the Russian clothing shop) with the driver side door hard up against the wall. Rather than do what he normally does in this situation and shuffle over to the passenger side to get out, he opened the door through the wall and ended up in the shop, where I instantly got a 1-star wanted level for no reason, and the police piled in and killed me.

3) At the burger shop place near the fairground, I bought a burger, Niko turned to face the camera, and then... nothing. He didn't get given a burger, he didn't eat anything, I couldn't move, use my phone, use my weapons, change the camera or anything. A bystander started walking on the spot, and I could do nothing bar reload a saved game.

4) I jacked a car, and the owner ran after me and grabbed the door handle. I drove along for a bit dragging them, and eventually they let go. I then realised I was going the wrong way, u-turned, and saw them in the road with no legs. I ran them over, and they got pushed through the road (presumably to drop out underneath).

5) On one of the missions, the camera got stuck in a wall giving me a view through the back of Niko's head, showing his eyeballs from the inside. Eurgh.

Wii Fit (Wii)

FORTY-FIVE MINUTES today! And mostly the energetic stuff too: Advanced Step, 10 Minute Free Step, both Hula Hoop games, Island Lap jogging, Super Advanced Rhythm Boxing, and the warrior and lunge yoga/muscle combo. And some other bits too.

I was absolutely knackered afterwards. Which was ace!

Wii Fit (Wii)

15 more minutes tonight, almost entirely on the Ski Jump game. My highest score today was just 358, which was rubbish compared to the 376 I already have set.

I'm guessing 400 is the maximum?

Grand Theft Auto IV (360)

OK, final mission involving Vlad completed! Also dated Michelle again, and did the first mission for Little Jacob too.

Found a Burger Shot full of bikers, and accidentally pushed one of them (who looked like a pirate). He stood up, was twice as tall as me, and then a huge fight kicked off. I managed to escape, barely, by stealing one of their bikes.

Wii Fit (Wii)

Just 15 minutes tonight, mostly on the bubble game and step game, but also attempted to beat the Ski Jump and Slalom records (and didn't).

Oh, and was just 9 seconds off a flawless Arse-Sit. Gah.

Grand Theft Auto IV (360)

No graphical issues today, and I'm getting used to the camera, but it did hang on the loading screen at one point and I had to quit to the Xbox dashboard and reload the game. That was annoying.

I dated Michelle again, played pool with Roman (and lost, even though neither of us potted the black at all), played Qubed (the arcade game, which is hard), and completed a couple of missions for Vlad.

Wii Fit (Wii)

Another 34 minutes on this today. I even managed the 10 minute Rhythm Boxing game, although I'm still struggling to get it to register "weave" movements.

Grand Theft Auto IV (360)

Lolz! Not really!

But see this post.

Anyway, I'm not far in, having played for two hours. Run a few missions for Roman, dated Michelle once, and spooked a Korean for Vlad.

Grand Theft Auto IV (360)

It's crap.

Wii Fit (Wii)

I didn't play this yesterday. It made me feel suitably guilty for not playing it yesterday too. Evil thing. I did, however, manage 34 minutes today.

About 10 of those minutes were doing the Muscle things. They're like the Yoga ones, only involve you moving. Those I tried were actually pretty easy. Spent about 10 minutes on Yoga too, and the rest was on Rhythm Boxing (I've just unlocked a 10 minute version too!), Step, and assorted balance games.

Impossible Mission (Wii)

Another attempt at this today, and another horrible failure. I managed one puzzle, but the problem was that all the remaining things I had to search required a Snooze to get to. And I had no Snoozes. And I couldn't get any more Snoozes as all the remaining things I had to search required a Snooze to get to.

Which was a bit of a problem.

There's also one room which is completely impossible, Snooze or no Snooze.

Nodame Cantabile (DS): COMPLETED!

Erm, yeah. Already.

After just another half and hour's play, I reached the final performance, in which it was revealed that virtually all the other characters in the game are, in fact, the orchestra. I imagine you'd know that if you'd seen the anime the game is based on, or can read Japanese. And then there were the credits.

After that, racoonhamsterbear thing played a Special Stage (the game's theme tune), and it was all over. And! Shock! Racoonhamsterbear was just someone in a suit! OMG!

So, a game that's excellent fun, but very short. However, Ouendan is also very short (albeit a lot harder than this), so I can't really hold that against it. And it was only four quid. It's gone up in price a bit now, but Play Asia still have it pretty cheap if you want it.

Nodame Cantabile (DS)

So I've had this for ages, but because we were redoing our lounge and ditching old bookcases and stuff, it got packed in a box soon after arriving. It was unpacked a few weeks ago, and I remembered it today. So I thought I'd give it a quick go.

Two hours later, I had to put it down. Yes, it is very good.

If you haven't heard of it (and that's pretty likely - I hadn't and only bought it because it was really cheap), then I will try to explain. You're a bear. Or possibly a giant hamster. Or a racoon. Something like that. Or maybe even a man in a costume. I DON'T KNOW. And you seem to play some sort of mouth-keyboard-organ-recorder instrument, you know, like off of the 80s.

Anyway. You're in a school, or college. Or university. And you talk to people, who talk back. I don't know what you or they say, as it's all in Japanese. There's quite a bit of talking too, but you can skip it all. After some talking, you're asked Hai or Iie. That's yes and no, if you didn't know. Replying Hai takes you onto a game. And the game is... Ouendan! Sort of. Only a bit different (notes come in from the right and pair with note symbols - you tap them as they pair up). And all the music is classical music. But it's ace! Honest!

And it goes on. Different characters, different (or possibly the same - who can tell?) chats, different ye olde bangin' choons.

Then... it went a bit odd. I had a tune I had to drum along to, like that Namco drumming game. In fact, with the Namco drumming game drum in it. And then I had to cook a meal by chucking ingredients into a frying pan (like Cooking Mama). And then, most bizarre of all, it turning into a side scrolling jumping game on the moon where you control a boy who has to jump and duck bears, rabbits, fireballs and spikes, whilst The Can Can plays in the background. WTF? Then I had to sort books and laundry and rubbish for some girl?

But it is excellent. I never knew so much fun could be had from tapping along to The William Tell Overture.

Patapon (PSP)

Progress! Finally!

I seem to have spent the last four or more hours (in the game over a period of days, not in one sitting today!) essentially doing nothing. I've hunted, hunted some more, made some new Patapons, hunted, killed some bosses again, and hunted. But today I finished off two more levels and another boss. Phew!

And then I went and hunted some more. And killed some previous bosses. Then hunted a bit. Erm.

Wii Fit (Wii)

32 minutes today! Although the final two hardly count - as they were from the final balance "game": sit on your arse. No, really.

The other 30 minutes were mostly from the long Rhythm Boxing, the whole island lap jogging, and the Step game, bolstered by more snowboarding and some of the shorter games.

Oh! And I ran up a MASSIVE 376m on the Ski Jump!

Patapon (PSP)

It's be a week or so since I last played this, and I'd actually forgotten the Pon-Pata-Pon-Pata retreat song. Not that I intend using it, as I'm not a coward.

Spend ages redoing hunting levels in order to get more Kerching, so I could create some new "special" Rarepon Patapons. I have this amazing Mogyoon-Yaripon now which has mad damage skillz, something like 50 damage compared to the normal 20 my other Yaripons are capable of.

I still need more Kerching though, and I need to retire some crap Patapons to replace them with better ones.

Impossible Mission (Wii)

I'd forgotten just how fantastic this game was. OK, so it's the inferior (but possible) C64 version and not the amazing Spectrum version, but you can't have everything. I could have played the Speccy version on an emulator for free though. Hmm.

Anyway! I spent two hours playing this today, which comprised just three games in total. The first one saw me die before even uncovering half the map, the second without completing a single puzzle, and the final attempt got me FIVE puzzles completed, and very nearly six - time ran out while assembling it.

Wii Fit (Wii)

30 minutes! Gasp!

And it was mostly on the energetic stuff too - jogging, Advanced Hula Hoop, Step Plus (which is really pretty difficult) and Advanced Rhythm Boxing, as well as a few goes on Snowboarding, Advanced Slalom, Penguin Feeding Thing (88 points!) and Ski Jump (matching my best of 338).

I did feel throughly worked out afterwards. Which is the point, really.

LocoRoco (PSP): COMPLETED!

Yay! That's PSP Game #2 completed! And very good it was too. Even if the last level was pretty tricky (in comparison to the previous levels, anyway).

I only had three levels left to complete today, and with them done the overly-cute and ten minute long end sequence played. All the LocoRocos of assorted colours sang together! Aces.

Wii Fit (Wii)

Only 15 minutes tonight, but I did mainly stick to energetic games (like Rhythm Boxing and Step), and Advanced versions of other games (like Slalom). I unlocked Snowboarding today too, which is just like Slalom, only side-on.

Managed a HUGE 338 on the Ski Jump too. Aces!

LocoRoco (PSP)

Finished the last few levels on World 4, and then moved on to completing most of World 5 too. There's not long left now!

I'd have played for longer this evening, but the battery in my PSP lasts 4 hours - or less - so I have to keep charging it. Conclusive proof the PSP is a modern-day Game Gear :)

Wii Fit (Wii)

Another 20 minutes today. I've unlocked a couple more games today too - the penguin-feeding one and the fantastic Rhythm Boxing.

LocoRoco (PSP)

Today I worked through most of World 4, not finding it especially difficult. Of course, getting a perfect score on each and every level is a life's work, but I don't think I'll be doing that. It's too frustrating, as sometimes a mis-jump takes you past a point you can't return to without trying the level again.

Wii Fit (Wii)

Another 20-odd minutes on this tonight. I didn't get a chance to play yesterday, so should really have made a bit more effort today, but anyway.

Did the jogging thing again, this time chasing after the dog what runs past you. This altered the course a little, but was a nice touch. Also beat my previous scores on Hula Hooping and That Game Where You Tilt Balls Into Holes. The new Yoga pose I'd unlocked (Palm Tree) was hard, as I kept almost falling over.

And I was rubbish at skiing today.

Ape Academy (PSP)

Bought this at the weekend (although not for me), and gave it a quick go this evening. It's... very odd. You play noughts and crosses, with each square being a monkey-infested minigame. Kind of like single-player Mario Party. With monkeys.

It was pretty good, although I did only complete the first "level" of the academy.

Wii Fit (Wii)

Yay! I managed to ace the Step Aerobics game! Well, not ace as such, but I did only get one miss. And I scraped a few more seconds off my Tightrope time, and improved on my Ski Jump score - but still can't beat my wife. I did, however, thrash her football score of 100 with my amazing score of 234. Ha!

LocoRoco (PSP)

With Katamari done and dusted, I returned to this. Didn't play for all that long though, but I have now finished off all of World 3. I understand there are five worlds, and with a play time of just over three hours currently, it looks like it's going to be a pretty short game.

But that's OK - I think it would drag if it was much longer, as although it's fun and everything, there's not all that much variety between levels.

Me and My Katamari (PSP)

So... that's pretty much it. I've completed the few remaining levels (all of which were Volcano Island "strange request" levels), and on every level I've managed a reasonable-or-better score, with many levels having a score of 100. I don't really fancy playing it again for better scores, as each level was almost the same as the last, so I feel I've been playing the same level over and over and over already.

Besides, the 360 is easier to control, so I could just play that if I fancied a bit more rollyball "action".

Mario Party 8 (Wii)

Had a go of this today with my wife, on the Shyguy Train board. Things got off to a bad start for me, as for the first four turns I couldn't roll higher than a 3, and by turn 8 I was still starless while everyone else had two or three.

However, I somehow managed to turn it around, and on the final turn had three stars, beating everyone else. To further prove my superiority, I then won all three bonus stars, and the stats showed that regardless of which bonus stars had been randomly chosen, I'd have won the game anyway - even if I hadn't picked any stars up on the board. Amazing!