Advance Wars: Dual Strike

Dipped out of Campaign Mode again, to tackle one of the War Room maps. By Day 15 things were already not looking good. At all. I had hardly any units, the enemy had me pinned down, and some of my cities had started to fall. I can't create any aerial units as they get shot down immediately, and the missile silos I reached didn't help a great deal. By Day 25 things were even worse, but then my Tag Team CO Powers destroyed almost all of the enemy units in one day, leaving him wide open for me to march in regaining ground. But that will have to wait until tomorrow.

Pac 'n Roll

Completed all of World 3 this evening, and as a result of collecting a certain number of gems, I unlocked World 7-1, on Pac Moon. Basically, it was a DS version of the original Pac-Man, with a goal of 10,000 points to gain another gem. Luckily, it was pretty simple and I soon had some 18,000 points before I died.

Back into the main game, and I'm now on to World 4 - Ghost Land. Uh, but all the lands are ghost lands, are they not? They all have ghosts in them, at least...

Pac 'n Roll

And on to (and past) World 2. It's, erm, a bit easy so far. Fun still though! Plenty of ramps and launchers and hilly rolly bits and springs and a pinball bit. And then a boss at the end of the world. One power pellet isn't enough to dispose of him - oh no. He needs three, collected in quick succession, and the you can eat him. Repeat a couple more times, and he haev teh dead.

Then onto World 3, and it's a bit harder now. It's like some kind of sweet-and-toy shop, complete with trains you can ride and stuff. Excellent - but I died like a moron.

Pac 'n Roll

Noooooooooooooo! Too many DS games to play! Pac 'n Roll arrived today, and of course, I had to play it. And it's ACEBEST.

You control Pac-Man by rubbing the stylus over his face on the lower screen, like a trackball. He then rolls around the level on the top screen. It's really quite clever. You can do long fast "strokes" to power forward, and there are assorted hats to wear to add new abilities and stuff.

Played through all of the first world (five levels in all). EXCELCIOR.

Advance Wars: Dual Strike

Mission 18, and it's another double front mission. At first, it seemed impossible, but thanks to some Stealth Fighters it was soon made much easier. I also got aircraft carriers on this level, which were useful for firing at helicopters as well as for re-supplying my flying units. S-Rank GET!

Advance Wars: Dual Strike

Took a short break from the main story mode to have a go at one of the War Room maps - Spann. It was after about 15 moves that I realised I'd played that map before - in the original Advance Wars. Took a good 30-odd days to win though, even though I started off with the advantage. C-rank == RUBBISH.

Advance Wars: Dual Strike

A few more (lengthy but pretty easy) missions, including one against Green Earth and a Megatank (which took some 6 rockets to destroy) and another with some Black Bombs that were under my control. Stupidly, I destroyed two trying to figure out what to do with them, and then the others ran out of fuel. I did get one to detonate near some baddies anyway.

Nintendogs

"Chris! Chris! Good boy! Sit! Sit! No, Sit! Sit! Sit dammit! Sit! No, not Roll Over, Sit! No! Come back! Chris! Chris! Chris! Gah!"

And so on.

I did teach Chris a few more tricks (Lie Down and Roll Over), but he doesn't seem to respond to "Sit" anymore. Maybe my voice broke last night or something. Took him for a walk, which he didn't seem to enjoy as I kept having to yank his lead to keep him moving. Met a couple of other dogs, and Chris rummaged through some rubbish he found, eating a banana skin.

He didn't die though.

Advance Wars: Dual Strike

Missions 10-13. One of them, 11, against Yellow Comet was a bit tricky, until I found the obvious weakness and stormed it. It didn't seem to matter that I was hopelessly underpowered in the end.

There was a Fog of War one too, which I almost lost due to not realising that under the fog, there might be ranged weapons. There were, and they wiped out my infantry. With no factories, I couldn't create more, and, even though there were factories on the map to take over, I had no infantry to do it. Tch. Luckily, I had two teams, and although it took a while, I finally built up the weapons of Blue Moon and sent in the cavalry. Hurrah! Pwned!

12 and 13 seemed quite a bit easier for some reason. There have been a few new things added since the first Advance Wars, although how many are new to this, and how many were new in Advance Wars 2 I don't know. Com towers, black crystals, Neotanks, missile silos, black boats, etc. It makes it all slightly more confusing. But ACEBEST.

Advance Wars: Dual Strike

Mission 9, and it's the first one with a "war on two fronts". As such, it was a bit confusing to start with, but in fact the second front (on the second screen) kind of takes care of itself for the most part. I just had to send up reinforcements every so often.

This mission took ages, but was pretty simple. I think I overdid it buying millions of missile launchers, when Neotanks were much more useful. Destroyed the "Black Crystal" to win.

Advance Wars: Dual Strike

A few more missions, and my first DS game crash! Part way through the first Fog of War mission, I attacked an enemy tank, and the bottom screen went black and the game crashed. The music was still playing in the background though. Had to power off and try again.

Also had a play on Combat Mode. It's great - kind of like a cross between Atari's Combat for the 2600, and Gauntlet. You have one unit at a time that you have to control (in real-time), and shoot the opposition who roam around, and capture their base (whilst defending your own). Bizarre, but ACE.

Nintendogs

Just a quick go to pet Chris some more, and water him again. Bought him a frisbee (sorry, "flying disc") and we had a play with that for a bit too. Also bought a rubber brush, and it made me giggle when I used it and it said "Chris is clean now!" when the "real life" Chris is anything but.

Advance Wars: Dual Strike

It's just like the GBA game! Only, better. In some non-identifiable way. There's a new CO, Jake, who is "street", word, owned, yo, and although others have found him more than irritating, I think he's ace.

Played through to Mission 7. There's not really much to say, except it's great.

Nintendogs

YES YES YES! Puppy pwnage! Set it up, and played with some of the puppies in the kennels, then picked out a male Yorkshire Terrier. My plan is to make him gay.

Called him Chris, after one of my friends. It does seem a bit disturbing shouting "Chris! Chris! Good boy!" at my DS though. After teaching him his name, I petted him a bit and bought some food and water for him. Then I taught him "Sit!", and then "Shake!" where he shakes his paw. I can now shout "Chris!" and he'll run over wagging his tail, then I can make him sit, and shake his paw. It's JUST LIKE HAVING A REAL DOG!

Took him for a walk, and met "Spot" on the way. Came home and gave him a drink and some food, and then he played with a tennis ball for a bit. Excellent.

Firefly

Well duh. You're supposed to collect the fried egg things first, and then you can get into the gun thingy much more easily. And you get energy back that way too.

Note to self: Next time, read the instructions.

Firefly

The rllmuk forums have suggested this Spectrum game as a game to play this month. Oh dear. I'm a bit pants at it.

I've figured out how to teleport, and how to kill the gun placement wotsits, but the guns keep firing at you as you try and get inside them (like you need to do) and my energy drops and then I die. How, exactly, are you supposed to do it?

Jump Superstars

Well, the walls were easy today. Stupidly. I used, erm, Bloke From Dragonball in the end, destroying all the walls with 30 seconds to spare. No idea how I was going wrong previously.

And now I'm stuck again. I did some more "missions", killed some people, etc, but I'm on another mission with no idea what to do. Looks like it'll be back to GameFAQs to read up on what to do this time...

Jump Superstars

Aha! Thanks to the wonderous magic that is this page on GameFAQs, I found out what I was supposed to do and worked my way through the missions some more. The path between them branches a bit, it seems, but you still need to do them all to progress - I've completed Grassland 2-1, but I can't move on to 2-2 until I finish 1-7.

Which isn't going to happen any time soon, since I have to destroy all the walls in 60 seconds. I managed about 50% of them in that time, after about 10 attempts. I just can't get enough hits in quick enough, and some bits of wall I can't even reach to hit. Pff.

Pocket Slay

Another island, only with the Scots theme on. "It's mine noo!" and "Och!" abound. I won, of course.

Zelda no Densetsu: The Hyrule Fantasy

Hmm. Dungeon 5 is too hard. There's one screen with a billion blue Darknuts in, and I just can't kill them all. I can't swipe my sword at one without another walking into me. Found the dungeon boss too, but none of my weapons hurt him. I think I need something past the Darknuts...

Gave up in there and went wandering, finding The Lost Woods on the way. Ended up at Dungeon 6, and had a quick go inside. Lots of Wizzrobes. Who killed me far too quickly. Lots of times.

Nintendo Puzzle Collection

Another game that arrived today. Well, collection of games, at any rate: Puzzle de Pon, Dr. Mario, and Yoshi no Cookie.

Played all three with my wife this evening. There's a few problems with running it on PAL Gamecube with Freeloader, in that some of the Japanese text appears as gibberish (no, real gibberish), meaning I can't read it even if I could understand the Japanese.

Puzzle de Pon was probably the best of the three. It has a new 3D mode too, kind of like Lemmings Revolution, erm, but only in the way it rotates. Or Nebulus. Or something.

There is also a feature that lets you download the Famicom versions of the games to your GBA. Which is a little silly in the case of Dr. Mario, since I have the Famicom Mini version of that already. Tch.

But buy it here, 'cos it's cheap!

Jump Superstars

Although I ordering this about 27364 years ago, it has been sat at customs for aaaages. Finally got it today.

It's a bit like Super Smash Bros. only not quite. Although I had a few goes in "battle" mode, I was stumped part way through "story" mode. One of the training bits requires me to do something, but I don't know what. Something to do with blocking, I suspect, but I can't figure it out.

Why not buy it from here, then let me know what to do, eh?

Ghost Recon: Island Thunder

Even though I hate soldier games, and squad based soldier games most of all, I still bought this for a fiver a couple of weeks ago. Had my first play today, on co-op over Xbox Live, with the openly homosexual "madm0nkey", whom I have previously thrashed on such titles as Project Gotham 2 and Outrun 2.

However, since we were playing co-op, and I had no idea at all what to do, what the controls were (they're not in the manual) or anything, I spent most of the first game we played dying. Or being shot. Or being dead. Then he completed the mission on his own, causing me to wonder what the hell had just happened.

The second mission was much like the first - I wandered round in some kind of daze, wondering what was going on and where we were supposed to go, and what we were supposed to do. It transpires that bridges needed to be blown up. I just shot people, and died a couple of times.

It was all more than a little confusing.

Zelda no Densetsu: The Hyrule Fantasy

Why did no-one tell me that you could kill the four-shell-claw-thing boss with just one bomb? I ran out of rupees again, and had a go in desperation with a bomb. And lo, it died in one hit. What a great big giant pair of sweaty pants.

Well, after that, Dungeon 4 was easy. Actually, it wasn't, but I had a wander round outside, found three more heart containers, a stack of rupees, the White Sword (more powerful than my current one), and then, on my way back to the boss of Dungeon 4, I found a short cut. Since I had full energy by the time I got to him - a two headed dragon - I could "fire" my sword from a distance, killing him without losing any energy. Hurrah!

Off to Dungeon 5, and had a wander round inside (going though a "secret" entrance I found under a statue by accident). Haven't found the map or compass yet, nor have I found the item squirrelled away in there somewhere. But I did get through quite a lot of rooms before coming across about 839427 Blue Darknuts, who swiftly killed me.

Zelda no Densetsu: The Hyrule Fantasy

Kill0riZ0rEd! Hurrah! Had a quick jaunt across the sea to an island, where Dungeon 4 lay. Got the Compass, and also the Ladder Thing That Isn't A Ladder As You Use It To Span Gaps Not Climb Stuff. With the power of the latter, I got the map, and then...

...came across the boss from Dungeon 3 again. GAH! And died. And died again on my second attempt. And then on my third. AND THEN, I was out of rupees (and so arrowless). Rubbish.

Zelda no Densetsu: The Hyrule Fantasy

TOO DAMN HARD! Either that, or I have underestimated my (now lost) 1337 64/\/\1n6 5|<1||z of yesteryear. I'm sticking with the theory that the Japanese version is actually much harder. Yes, that must be it.

Anyway, I can't defeat the Dungeon 3 boss. I did figure out that killing him with the arrows was a good idea, except forgot that you need one rupee per arrow. And, er, run out. Add to that the fact that Darknuts are bloody hard to kill without bombs (and sometimes bombs just don't seem to hurt them) and I didn't have any, and you'll see that I always seemed to end up at the boss with just one heart remaining. So I went off rupee-and-bomb collecting.

I AM TEH SUXX0R.

Pocket Slay

Yes, again. Played two more levels, and won them. Perhaps I should try playing on a harder setting, as it is a little easy...

Zelda no Densetsu: The Hyrule Fantasy

Or Legend of Zelda, to its friends. Yes, the Japanese version of the first Zelda game. In Japanese. For the GBA. And it's hard! Not only because it is in Japanese (that I can mostly handle - you don't need to be able to read much of what is going on, especially if you played the English version like I have), but it is actually harder than the Western version I've played before. I'm sure of it.

The first thing I noticed, after dying a few times, is that when you continue you don't restart at the entrance to the dungeon you died in. Oh no, you start right back at the beginning of the game. OK, so you have all your items and stuff, but still - there's the long trapse back to the dungeon to contend with (and, if you're like me, you'll die en route).

But it is Zelda, and therefore SUPARBEST. So far, I've done two-and-a-half dungeons. The first one had the dragon that spews fire at you (killed on my second go) as boss, and the second had the Dodongo that, just like all the other Zeldas, needed a few bombs in the face to defeat. Items collected so far include a bow (I bought some arrows too), a red boomerang which was swiftly upgraded to a blue one, a blue candle, some bombs, and a raft. Obviously. I have 6 Heart Containers too, after finding one in a Sekret Heeeden Cave. I am BEST.

Pocket Slay

Been playing this a bit today on my iPaq. It's one of those games I play a lot, but don't report on here very often as it isn't "mainstream". It is, however, ACEBEST.

It is sort of like Risk meets Paper, Scissors, Stone, where you have to take over territories, but do so by having ever more powerful fighters to defeat less powerful ones. Erm. That doesn't really explain it very well, but the website for the game (and there are Palm and Windows versions too) does a better job. Probably: Pocket Slay.

Viewtiful Joe 2 - VIEWTIFULLY DONE!

End of game boss time! Almost! A black almost-clone of Joe appears, who has a bit of a gloat, then gets into a HUUUUUUUUGE robot. You know the robot battle from Viewtiful Joe? Where your robots are about the size of earth? Well, this time you and "Ultra Black Behemoth Dark Kaiser" are bigger than the sun. In fact, the baddie spends most of his time standing on the sun, and you run around the solar system's asteroid belt avoiding the planets chucked at you.

Anyway, he was killed, and it was onto End Boss Part 2. You're back to normal size, but Kaiser has absorbed the Rainbow Oscars and become like a white Joe - "Dark Hero Jet Black". And Joe has no powers...

Until [spoiler]! And then he does! And Jet Black is defeat0rated! And the game is won!

After the credits (which included some "outtakes", and Frost Tiger saying "I'm Tony the Tiger, and these frosted flakes are Grrrreat!!"), I played "36 Chambers" mode. The main game unlocks the chambers at certain points, and each chamber has some kind of challenge. It was OK, but a bit dull. On to Viewtiful Joe 3 now then. Well, as soon as they write it, anyway.

Viewtiful Joe 2

Reel 6 - Do Androids Dream of Romantic Scene? I don't care, but what I do care about is the sodding SuckySuck(TM) bit that is the entire reel. Yes. Why do games designers think that recycling all of the game's bosses and throwing them at you one after another is a good idea? There is some stupid bit of story behind it this time, with "Miss Bloody Rachel" (no, that is her name) the android morphing into copies of all the previous bosses and attacking you. Until she learns about "heart" in a vomit inducing bit.

First off, she's Drill Sergeant Big John, then the gollum "Flinty Stone" (guh), then Cameo Leon, and finally Frost Tiger. All of which were harder than previously, mainly as you can only attack them now during their "intended" weak-point-exposed bit, rather than just hit them at any time (for less damage, though).

After her, Dr. Cranken attacks, as a Doctor Octopus rip-off (well, he is an octopus/plug hybrid) and then as a spinny drill thing. Luckily, he was easy, and it was on to Reel 7 - "Starship Viewties".

And guess what? It's set in space! And guess what else? The SuckySuck(TM) machine rolls on, with more Big John, and the giant statue thing from the middle of another level. There are also a few puzzley sections, where you have to kill baddies strategically (by kicking or punching them into things), and a bloody hard by-the-clock hit-all-the-buttons bit. There's a few auto-scroll bits too, including one into the screen, where you have to jump or dodge girders. Then a maze of spiked platforms. And MILLIONS of baddies. Finally, a save game point.

Viewtiful Joe 2

Reel 5 - Ice Edge. Look, even the names of the levels are like real actual films. How clever.

And, it's the obligatory platform game ice level. Snowballs and avalanches abound. On one bit of the level, you have to roll a snowball around to make it bigger, and then use it to block an air vent to pass by. There's a cable car section too, and then, the BEST THING EVAAR - an Ice Climbers bit. It even has an almost recognisable version of the Ice Climbers music. I wonder if the PS2 version has that? I can't see Nintendo being happy if so. But then, they are in bed with Capcom half the time.

A section of this reel was an underwater Six Machine shoot-em-up bit, which was pretty simple. Drill Sergeant Big John showed up again, but was soon dispatched.

The end of level boss was "Frost Tiger" - a snow-based version of Fire Leo from the first game. And, like many of the other bosses so far, really slow to kill off. I must be missing something, I think.

Viewtiful Joe 2

On to Reel 4 today - "Thunderboy Lives Twice". This level is set in ancient Japan, it seems, so plenty of samurai film references and stuff. There's a bizarre slide puzzle in the middle of the level, with each "block" being a room you can go inside, and you have to flip switches to shuffle the rooms around. There are three "artifacts" hidden around the level you have to get into one of the rooms. It was quite confusing at first, since you're given no clues as to what to do!

The boss was "Thunderboy" - Alistor from the first VJ game. However, after defeating him, the "power of the Black Film" turns him into some kind of monster and you have to kill him again. Although not difficult, he takes AGES.

Meteos

Well, I thought Forte was the best. It possibly isn't - Luna=Luna is also fantastic to play, and great for racking up Dark meteos too. It is similar to Forte in that you get time to combo, but the blocks seem to hover right near the top of the screen for a bit before they fall back down again - so, if you hold down the Speed Up button, you get millions of points. Well, a few more anyway. Best score so far is in the region of 120,000. Which is pants, according to Cyberscore.

Buy Meteos Now! You know you want it.

Viewtiful Joe 2

Well, that puzzle was a pain in the backside. After some cogwork in one section of a level, and then the platform game staple giant crushing machines, there was a safe to crack. And it wasn't easy, since you had to kick it (normally), then punch it (in slow-mo), then use Sylvia's Replay to hit it three times. And there was no way of telling what you were supposed to do, so it was all down to trial and error. Half an hour of trial and error. Tch.

Then Drill Sergeant Big John (the T-Rex from earlier) arrived, dressed as a policeman, driving a tank. Obviously. Killed him.

And then onto the proper boss - "Cameo Leon". Yes, a chameleon. Who was irritating, as he kept disappearing, and was fed health powerups by Dr. Cranken, a plug/octopus/mad scientist hybrid. You know the sort. Killed him as well.

Viewtiful Joe 2

I bought this about ten million years ago, and got a natty little weeble-clock thing with it. And then, I didn't play it. Even though I really liked the first game.

Anyway. This one is MUCH easier than the first game. So far, at least. I'm played through on Kids mode, as experience on the first Viewtiful Joe proved to me that Adults mode is impossible. I don't think all that many people managed the original on Adults mode either, so Kids mode is justified.

You can now swap between Joe and Sylvia at will, and, although she is much the same as Joe in many ways, her extra abilities (specifically the Replay move) mean you have to swap sometimes to progress. I've worked my way through to the third "reel" now. Each reel is based on a particular film or film genre, with Reel 1 being Jurassic Park in all but name, Reel 2 is Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (complete with never-before-in-a-game minecart section), and Reel 3 isn't yet obvious to me - some kind of futuristic city thing.

Bosses have been much easier then the first game so far too, with health pickups available during the fight too. Whether this is just because it's Kids mode or what, I'm not sure. The first boss, a T-Rex soldier who breathes fire, was pretty simple (even more so when I realised Sylvia's gun dealt him stacks of damage). Other bosses and "mini-bosses" have included a plane than transforms into a robot, and a giant stone gollum thing that turns into a flying snake drill. No, really.

The story is bizarre, as expected, but unexpected was the fact that Joe's dad appears to be Sylvia's uncle... Which is just plain wrong!

Manhunt: MANAGED!

Had a few hours play on this today, and, although the storyline improved from pointless killing to killing for a reason, the mechanics of the game didn't, really. There was some killing in a factory, then some killing in a lunatic asylum, then some killing in a prison, then some killing outside a prison. Then, killing in a street, killing in an apartment, killing on the Subway, killing on a railway sidings, then some killing in a big mansion.

Then there was a pigman to kill, and the game went wrong and I couldn't coax him into a trap as he refused to see me even if I punched him in the face, so I had to reload.

Then there was more killing, and the end "boss" was chainsawed to death. And the end happened. Thank god.

I had also unlocked a Timesplitters-inspired bonus level, where I had to escape from the zoo, which was filled with shotgun and machete wielding monkeys. Nice. Played that for a bit, and it was better than the whole of the rest of the game put together.

Manhunt

Well, after the zoo (which, like every other level, was abandoned bar the baddies), it was time for a Mall. Which, was abandoned. And it was pretty pants too, searching for a video tape, then a camcorder to watch it on, then a TV to connect to it 'cos it was broken, then the power switch to turn the electricity supply on... Then we got to see some member of Cash's family murdered, and he smashes up the TV. Great.

And then, the game is actually made slightly different. The next level requires me to escort a noisy drunk around, whilst still stalking the baddies - if they see you, they'll kill him. Sadly, this is still easy, since you can just leave him behind, scout ahead and kill everyone, and them come back for him when it's safe.

Manhunt

More of the same, it seems. They'd captured my family and tied them up in a zoo, so I had to rescue them. If I was seen, they'd be killed. Things were made somewhat easier by the use of a tranquiliser gun I "found", which allowed me to drop baddies from a distance before walking up, loud as I liked, and butchering them as they slept.

Yes, it is a lovely game.

Meteos

Rarrrrrrgh!! I've been dreaming Meteos now. Seeing patterns in my sleep. Launching blocks, rearranging columns and making rows while not actually playing the game. Which is a bit wrong, isn't it?

Anyway, I didn't unlock anything more today (except I "bought" two Time meteos), but I did beat some of my Deluge scores. But not Forte though. Got close three times - even being only a few hundred out on one attempt - but couldn't manage more than the 177,000-ish score I already had.

Meteos

YES. METEOS AGAIN.

Unlocked four more planets today - Gigagush, Hotted, Cavious and Luna=Luna. Although some of them are pretty good to play on, Forte is still best. Speaking of which, I improved my score there to 177,010, putting me up on the Cyberscore rankings by, uh, a place. Maybe two.

Also racked up higher scores on some of the other planets, including Geolyte and Florias. Played me-vs-3-CPU-players mode a few times as well, to get more Iron and Soil meteos, which I needed for some of the planets I unlocked.

Manhunt

Hmm. I'm getting the impression that Manhunt is actually a bit pants. More than a bit pants, in fact. Once you get past the SUPARBESTness of being able to bat a thug's head clean off, it all boils down to a poorly controlled stealth game. Not the sort of game I like, either.

Highlights today were the (two) magnetic crane sections, where you had to drop a freezer on some baddies, and the surprise-the-thug-on-the-toilet bit, where you chuck a brick through the toilet window.

Meteos

I seem to be somewhat addicted to this at the moment. I mostly just played Deluge mode tonight, and mainly only on Forte. Forte is a great planet, because it has pretty high gravity, meaning you can launch a load of blocks upwards and not have them shoot up off the screen. Be clever, and you can have an entire screen full of blocks launching over and over again, until you have a huge multiplier - I managed x21 at one point. When you're low on horizontal rows, set one vertical column up, and the whole lot will launch off the screen in one go! My high score for this planet is some 150,000-odd. Rubbish compared to Cyberscore's 400,000+, but higher than my 70,000 or so average for other planets.

Manhunt

I'd played this last almost exactly a year ago (7th August 2004, according to the saved game), and spotted it on my shelf when looking for something new to play. I'd left off just after the second level - "Doorway into Hell", so continued from there.

My stealth skills have suffered. Severely. I managed to work my way though to "White Trash" (level 4) by startling every single thug along the way and gaining no "proper" kills whatsoever.

It doesn't seem as good a game as it did last year either. I think San Andreas has spoilt it a little. That, and the fact it wasn't actually all that great to begin with, I suppose.