Phoenix Wright: Justice for All (DS)

NOT GUILTY!

I've completed the first case! Hurrah! The problem with talking about playing this game on my diary, is that it's all too easy to spoil things for my millions of readers who haven't yet played it. So there's not really a lot to say, aside from the fact it was actually a pretty simple case, and really quite short too. But then, it is more of a "training" case.

I've made a bit of a start on Case 2, which has Maya in it (and some other people from the first game), and some kid who is obviously trying to make me vomit due to her cuteness.

Needless to say, a murder is committed, and Maya is arrested. Looks bad for her too...

Phoenix Wright: Justice for All (DS)

OBJECTION!

Oh my. Phoenix is just ace, isn't he? This, the sequel to Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney (wot I completed last year) arrived today, and I couldn't wait to get started. So I didn't!

Straight off, Phoenix gets smacked about with a fire extinguisher and loses his memory. This conveniently allows a tutorial trial to take place, with you defending the lovely Maggey who is charged with killing her boyfriend. It was amazing how quickly I got back into the "action", and was soon through with the first section of the game. It's been ACEBEST so far!

Animal Crossing: Wild World (DS)

Kabuki is still ill. I think someone poisoned him. Or rather, I hope someone poisoned him. Once again, not much else was going on in Cheese. Octavian (who keeps saying "sucker", Mr. T style) asked me to deliver a letter to Purrl, I bought some clothes I hadn't seen before, and I pulled a billion weeds (again), but that was about it. None of my animals were particularly chatty.

Super Monkey Ball Adventure (GC)

Totally fed up with this game now. I've managed a few more things in Zootopia, including the flying-to-get-monkeys-in-balloons, the test-your-strength, and a couple of others, but two are really, really annoying me.

First up is the one where you have to go invisible and creep round a shooting gallery. You have virtually no camera control, so it's hard. And it's rubbish.

Secondly, is the one where you have to get eight balloons for a monkey. I'd started it accidently many times, and accidently picked up one particular balloon en-route elsewhere. However, when it came to collecting the balloons "for real", it simply wouldn't register that I'd touched it to grab it. I'd even got all 7 other balloons, and stood directly under the remaining balloon so that the string was inside my monkey, and it STILL wouldn't let me pick it up. Gah! It has to be a bug, surely?

Animal Crossing: Wild World (DS)

I have a new resident! His name is Octavian, and he's an octopus. Obviously. I don't know why he doesn't die though, what with the lack of water and everything.

Spent ages doing even more weeding, and then went to see K.K. Slider, who played me K.K. Technopop. It didn't really sound much like technopop, but anyway. After that, I ran a couple of errands for my animals, and chatted with everyone.

Kabuki is ill. He's actually been ill all week, but I'm seeing if he'll die.

Super Monkey Ball Adventure (GC)

Oooky monkey oook eek! IRRITATING.

So I've managed to get the warp spells for Zootopia and Moonhaven. Off I went to Zootopia, and managed to get all of about two "quests" done. I can't for the life of me do any more though. I also got the spell for turning invisible too. Great.

Then I thought I'd give Moonhaven a try. Nope. Could only find ONE errand to start, failed it as it's plainly impossible, and then couldn't find anyone else to speak to. Did, however, get a couple more spells - Scalarball and Stickyball.

Animal Crossing: Wild World (DS)

What a dull day in Cheese. None of the animals had anything of interest to say, I'd started playing so late that Nook's was shut, and the only thing I could really do was pick up more weeds. Rubbish. Looks like I'm coasting to the full year of play, then.

I did get into Pudgy's house though, and he's got an Arwing or something in there which I need. Sadly, there's no breaking and entering in Animal Crossing.

Super Monkey Ball Adventure (GC)

Ooook mook monkey ook eek mook ook EEK! Ook oooook monkey ei! ei! Oooook ei mook! EEK! Oook monkey ei ei monkey monkey oook! Ei! EEK! Mook oook monkey ook!

And so on. That's all the dialogue in the game. It is driving me mental.

Also driving me mental is the camera. And the fact that the game just isn't really all that great. And that I'm stuck - that doesn't actually help. I'm still on Jungle Island. I can't light the tower thing as I have no wood (except all the trees, huts, crates, barrels and all sorts of other things, obviously), and I seem to have run out of other things to do.

And Monkey Target is RUBBISH. They've totally broken it.

Super Monkey Ball Adventure (GC)

It's Super Monkey Ball, Jim, but not as we know it...

It's very odd. Very very odd. Firstly, there's an issue with the camera - I want to invert the X axis, but I can't seem to do that. Then there's the way the entire world tilts when you move. Yeah - that's how it worked before on the other games, but now you have an entire actual island that moves, and it's very jarring.

Anyway. I rounded up some bees and collected some bananas. I have no idea what to do next.

Animal Crossing: Wild World (DS)

Nooo! Rodeo has moved out! And he didn't give me his picture even though I was ace to him all the time (well, except for when I told him to eat more beef). Perhaps he's got a job at McDonalds or something.

Not a lot else was going on today. Gave Purrl a shirt, and delivered a letter for Pudgy, and also pulled all all of the weeds in the entire world ever.

Serious Sam: Next Encounter (GC): COMPLETED!

Erm, so there's only three "chapters"? Oh well.

The last one started off in some sort of snowy wasteland, then moved underground to the Lost City of Atlantis, then moved through some caves, some strange gravity-warping temples, and finally into an alien spaceship.

I can see, actually, that Prey nicked a few ideas from this game too, with the wall-walking and stuff.

The last few levels were pretty difficult, as health pickups became fewer and baddies increased in number (and size!) quite dramatically. Eventually, I reached the boss at the end of the game. I won't spoil it, but he was very easy due to the piles of regenerating ammo, health and armour. He did take aaaaaaages to kill though - easily half an hour. Good job I didn't die!
So, Game Over - WIN!

Serious Sam: Next Encounter (GC)

There's a pattern emerging in this game. Collect the item with the big yellow arrow above it, and you get attacked by a million baddies all at once.

Anyway. I managed to get through all of Rome, killing a huge thing with loads of arms, and then moved on to China. I wasn't aware that much of China was actually in the desert, but that's where most of this level has taken place so far. The baddies are much the same as in Rome, with a few additions (such as monkeys with knives). I found a few (minor) puzzles which broke up the action a bit, but mostly it was just running and shooting.

Finally, I reached the end of China, and killed a multi-headed thing, with each head attacking in a different way. It was actually pretty hard to kill, not least because of the lava pits in the floor that I kept falling in...

Then it was off somewhere else. I've done one level, in the snow, which at one point involved killing about a hundred bulls.

Animal Crossing: Wild World (DS)

Realised I hadn't played over the weekend, so time-travelled to Saturday (to visit K.K. Slider - he played me K.K. Rock), and Sunday (but forgot about turnips), before finally catching up with today.

I have a new animal - Podge the Bear. He hasn't said a lot yet, though. Katrina was in town today too, and I visited her for her usual garbage tarot reading which makes no sense at all. Then I picked $hlmun weeds.

Serious Sam: Next Encounter (GC)

I have about ten million known good games as-yet unstarted sitting on my shelf. Things like Metroid Prime: Echoes and Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance. I even got Fahrenheit cheaply this morning. So what did I decided to pick up and play today? Well, this obviously.

Graphically, it's nothing special. Originality is out the window. The puzzles are few and simple, and there's nothing much to recommend it. However, there's lots to shoot and the dialogue is genuinely funny. Best of all, it's not another FPS set in a grey and brown world.

Imagine Timesplitters 3 crossed with Gauntlet in brightly coloured areas. Swarms of things to kill. In fact, it's a mow'em down, not a shoot'em up, there's so many things to shoot.

So I've started off in Ancient Rome, filled with ED209s, green frogs with giant toothsome mouths, four-armed giants and men who expode. And centurians on chariots who shoot rockets at you. As you do, you know. I've worked through quite a few sections so far, having spent about an hour and a half on it. Some courtyard bits, a vineyard, a cave, a waterfall and some more parts of a castle. I'm heading to Rome, apparently.

Tony Hawk's Project 8 (Demo) (360)

Oh no! I thought I'd kicked the habit after my Tony Hawk-a-thon in the beginning half of the year. This was mainly due to the there not actually being any Tony Hawk games left for me to play (well, besides the awful GBC games which are nothing like the "real" versions, so they don't count). And now look what was on the Xbox Live Marketplace!

So, Project 8 then. The demo is a bit restrictive (in time, area, and goals), but it gives you a good idea of how the full game will pan out. The main addition is the "nail a trick" mode, where you actually control your skater's feet, manually kickflip and pop shove-it'ing. From the game trailers, I was a bit worried this was going to make the game hard, but it's mostly optional. Besides, I've got hooked on that now, and the better graphics and overall style of the game (and it's in HD, of course) really steps the whole thing up a notch.

I've pre-ordered the full game from Play Asia, where it's just £23. Aces.

Lumines Live (360)

No. Just no.

Even worse than usual today, with a staggering 13,000 points as my bast score. RUBBISH.

Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 (360)

Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 seems to be a "bonus" Xbox Live Arcade game, as it appeared last night, rather than on the usual Wednesday.

Played single player mode for a while, reaching Scorpion on level 5. All the fights before him were easily won by me as Sub-Zero, but I simply can't defeat Scorpion as anyone. I'm also not doing so great remembering all the moves. I used to know virtually every special move, fatality, babality and friendship finishing move in the game (well, for the non-Ultimate-only characters, anyway), but now all I can manage is a few special moves and Sub-Zero's 6-hit combo.

Did manage a few achievements, though.

Lumines Live (360)

Still no joy with actually getting a decent score. I have improved even further, but I'm still miles away from the quarter of a million needed for the next achievement. Managed to get past the skin I normally die on, but didn't last very long on the one after it.

Animal Crossing: Wild World (DS)

A pretty dull day in Cheese today. No-one was really doing anything, nothing special was going on, and there was nothing good to buy from the shops.

Kabuki kept asking me about a "mysterious otter", leading me to believe that Pascal was about somewhere, but he was nowhere to be seen. Stupid animals, getting my hopes up that something might actually happen.

Ridge Racer 6 (360): COMPLETED!

Although I still have quite a lot of game to work through, I managed to complete the rest of the route I was taking, netting me some gamerpoints and, most importantly, the end of game credits.

Now to make a start on playing through some of the other routes, which seem bloody hard. Wish me luck.

Lumines Live (360)

Bah. I'm still rubbish at this. Managed to get my score up to about 40,000, but that's nowhere near what I need for the next achievement (250,000).

My current sticking point is the skin with the red-circles-in-green-squares and vice-versa. It makes my eyes cry actual blood.

Animal Crossing: Wild World (DS)

Letters galore! All my animals replied, except Rowan (but then, I did swear in his letter so I'm not surprised). Sadly, they all sent me rubbish - wallpaper I already had and stuff like that. What a waste of time.

Finally got round to clearing out my house a bit to make room for the mush furniture. Had to dump a load of gyroids to do so, though.

Ridge Racer 6 (360)

Really made some progress on this tonight. Completed about 12 or so races, which takes me to just three races away from the bottom right of the map. I've unlocked another car (a Pac-Man one), but I don't want to use it as it's one of them non-standard drift ones, and I can't cope with them.

Lumines Live (360)

New game on Xbox Live Arcade day! Lumines Live is the XBLA version of the PSP game of the (almost) same name. And I'm rubbish at it.

I got 5,500 points on my first go, then managed arounf 100,000 on my second. I've gained an achievement for that, and another for getting rid of 30 blocks in 60 seconds on Time Attack mode. Had a go at the 180 seconds one, but didn't even get near the required 90 blocks.

Played online against someone random then, but the lag was horrific. So bad, in fact, that I could barely even move my pieces, let alone drop them where I wanted.

Animal Crossing: Wild World (DS)

Tuesday in Cheese is always Crazy Redd Visits And Tries To Rob You Of Your Money Day. Today, he tried to sell me stuff I already had, so none of my money went to fund his illegal schemes.

Not a lot else was going on, but I did find a load of stationary in the lost property, so I wrote abusive messages to my animals. I implied Rowan was gay, told Rodeo (a bull) to eat more beef, suggested that Kabuki may wish to kill himself, and made sexual advances towards Sally. Excellent.

Ridge Racer 6 (360)

Nooooo! Project Gotham has broken it! The handling on Project Gotham is so completely different, that I really struggled to control my Kilik Starnose thingie and it's wierd drifting mechanism. Try as I might, I just couldn't complete one of the tracks.

So, I changed my plan to do a "loop" on the map into a plan to make my way across the bottom of the map to the right. This meant that I could use my Gaplus car instead, and managed about 6 or 7 more tracks in that way.

I then had a go at a "reverse charge" track I'd opened up, which gave me two lots of nitrous to start with, but I couldn't figure out how to charge the bar up, so lost. Perhaps the manual would help.

Animal Crossing: Wild World (DS)

Ah, 'tis the end of the Acorn Adventure. The town was strangely quiet on the subject of acorns, as if the whole week just hadn't happened or something. I still had a few in my pockets, however, and it's just as well I did as Wendell was about today, and it would probably be the only chance I'd get to give him one. In return, he gave me a design - a ? Block from Mario. Aces.

Gladys moved out today. Or last night. But at some point since yesterday the stupid bint packed her bags and left Cheese.

Uno (360)

Now that the new Xbox Vision Camera is out, it seems lots of people are using while playing Uno. I don't have a camera, but thought I'd log on anyway and see what people are up to.

And it seems that everyone is too busy making silly faces, playing with the zoom control, and generally messing around to actually play the game. I managed to play four games, winning one, and quitting out of the rest as the game just wasn't progressing. Stupid.

Animal Crossing: Wild World (DS)

Aaaaand relax. The Acorn Festival is officially over. Today was the last day to go on an acorn collecting rampage, and my final collection total stands at 178 acorns. Cornimer gave me another bit of mush furniture, but said I needed 22 more acorns for the next one - no chance. I could only manage three, and I decided to save them.

In non-acorn news, Gladys the strange bird thing is trying to move out.

Project Gotham Racing 3 (360): COMPLETED!

Well. I didn't think that would come about so soon. OK, so most of the trophies I've won are bronze, and the rest are silver, but the fact remains I've completed all of the Career Mode events. Already.

Oh well. It was fun, at least. Some of the later Nurburgring events were a bit of a chore, what with them being so bloody long! One was a race on the entire 'Ring, which took a good seven minutes or so.

I also got a fair few achievements, including the Ferrari Owners Club, Exotic Car Owner, Photographer, and a few others. I bumped my Gamerscore over 5,000 points today as a result, and it now stands at 5,146. Excellent.

Animal Crossing: Wild World (DS)

More acorn "fun" today, racking up my total to about 160 acorns and getting even more furniture in the process. None of my animals had moved out overnight, and for the first time in a while none are trying to move out today either.

Went to see K.K. Slider at the museum cafe, and he played me K.K. Western. I must be getting close to having his entire playlist by now, I expect.

Project Gotham Racing 3 (360)

A bit more play on this, including some online matches. There weren't a lot of people online playing, and I didn't do so well when I raced either, but it was lag-free and pretty good fun anyway.

Back offline, and I'm up to Rank 8 now, have a couple of cheap Ferraris, and have about 14 of the trophies won. Most are bronze, one is silver, and one is steel.

Scramble (360)

Trousers (a guy on my friends list) and I had a go at cracking the get-30,000-points-in-co-op achievement today. It took a few attempts, mainly due to the horrific lag which kept causing problems, but we finally did it with a score of 31,000-ish.

Or at least, that's what we thought. It seems that although we broke the score needed, neither of us actually gained the achievement. Surely we don't need 30,000 each? That's plainly impossible in single player anyway, but in super-lag co-op? No way.

Project Gotham Racing 3 (360)

Still on the look out for more achievements, but I think it's going to be a bit of a long haul for this game. I've set about spending all my money on Lamborghinis to get the "one million credits worth of cars" and "Lamborghini owners" achievements.

Of course, I did a load of races and other events too. I've managed to rack up about 38,000 Kudos points now, and am on tournament 9 or 10-ish.

Phantasy Star Universe (Demo) (360)

OK, so I've got it all figured out now. Well, not all, but some. I was told that there are some missions in the Linear Line (or something), so went along to there and worked my way through two areas. After that, I found a party to join in a third area, and we made our way through that. It's quite good fun, but, like what I found with Phantasy Star Online on the Dreamcast, and Blue Burst on the PC, it isn't proper Phantasy Star. It's just a MMORPG with a stolen name.

And it's laggy as hell.

Animal Crossing: Wild World (DS)

Even more acorns today. I think I have about 125 of them now. I don't know how much Mush furniture you can actually get from Cornimer, but I must be in with a pretty good chance of getting the lot, I expect. I have 6 or 7 items of it now already.

Kabuki is still trying to move out today. I tried to convince him/her not to, but I don't really care any more. I haven't seen Bluebear for a few days - she's still on the map, but I haven't seen her. I expect that means she'll pack up and leave at no notice like other animals have done in the past.

Project Gotham Racing 3 (360)

Even though I broke my finger opening the box for this when it arrived today, I still decided to give it a go. My first thought is "it's not as good as PGR2", mainly due to having all the supercars from the off. I liked having all the different classes of car to work through, but it seems stupid that you might as well just buy a fast car and that's it. The game even seems to adjust the difficulty of the races and stuff depending on the car you choose, giving you opponents to match and suitable times to beat. This means that you only really need to buy one car, and it doesn't seem to matter which one. Tch.

But it still plays well, and is much more realistic than Ridge Racer 6 (not that that means it's better, of course). I've played through enough events (mainly on Bronze) to gain me up to Rank 9, and have about 20,000 Kudos points so far.

Phantasy Star Universe (Demo) (360)

Um. I have absolutely no idea what I'm supposed to do. I started, created by character (a female human), and then talked to some guide bloke who told me about the Guardians or something. Then the game crashed and I had to reload. I then wandered around the stace station looking for missions, only to be told I can't take part in any yet. Then I danced for a few minutes, and then went to another city, where the game crashed again.

BEST.

Animal Crossing: Wild World (DS)

Just a quick visit to Cheese this evening, mainly to collect more acorns (and get some more Mush furniture), but also to see if Sally had moved out. She hadn't, which is good as I haven't got her picture yet. Actually, I haven't had anyone's picture in quite a while, but then, I haven't been paying the animals much attention recently.

Oh, and Kabuki is trying to move again. Idiot.

Animal Crossing: Wild World (DS)

It's slightly disturbing the way that Cornimer shouts "Acornio!" at you when he tells your fortune. I keep reading it as "Acornholio", which is probably even worse.

So I collected a big stash of acorns, which gained me a few more items of Mush furniture. My animals were still on about acorns, and didn't want to give me any jobs to do or anything, so they're a bit boring at the moment. Kabuki didn't move out, but now Sally is trying to instead.

Dig Dug (360)

Although this was expected to be available for download about a month ago, it didn't appear. However, there it was on Xbox Live Arcade today for 400 points, so I downloaded it.

I'd never really played it properly before, just "in passing" when I happened to find an emulator with it available or saw it in the arcade for 10p a go or something. I also used to get this and Mr. Do! mixed up, as at first glance they seem to be the same game.

Anyway. I've played through as far as Level 12, and picked up about half of the achievements so far. I had a go at the "dig through the entire level" one, but I can't see how it's possible, as after a set amount of time the baddies all leg it off the screen and you move on to the next level.

Ridge Racer 6 (360)

Worked my way through more tracks today (with the Starnose, which took ages to get used to as far as drifting is concerned), completed another "circuit", and unlocked another car - the Gaplus car. ACE.

When you drive it, you get a remix of the Galaga (or, I suspect Gaplus) music. Which is also ACE.

Animal Crossing: Wild World (DS)

Acorn Festival! Hurrah! "Cornimer" (who looks suspiciously like Tortimer in an acorn mask) was about, and asking for acorns to be give to him. I collected up loads, but didn't realise you could tell which ones were rotten - and you're not supposed to pass them on. Anyway, I collected 37, which got me two lots of Mush furniture.

My conversations with animals today were mostly acorn-based, and so pretty dull. No Crazy Redd today, probably due to the acorn festival. And Kabuki is trying to move out yet again.

Ridge Racer 6 (360)

It's cheapy-cheap at Play, which is where I got it, but then realised I could have saved 15p by buying from Play-Asia. Bah. Make not the same mistake!

I didn't really know what to expect. All of the other Ridge Racers have left me cold, and the DS version is one of the worst games ever created, but this, is actually pretty good. In fact, it's not far off Outrun 2 good. Well, it may perhaps be 75% of the game Outrun 2 is, as it lacks something, but it's still not bad - especially for just £17.99!

So I've completed the first "area" in the bottom left, and am mostly progressing right-wards across the map. I've unlocked two new cars, including the Kilik Starnose. Yes, really. I'm having a hard time adjusting to the Ridge Racer style of drifting around corners, as it's not the same as in Outrun 2, and you don't have to brake slightly before beginning the slide - which I keep doing and then losing speed.

The tracks so far are very, er, shiny, and the lighting effects are excellent, so everything looks nice and stuff. It just doesn't feel quite as ACE as Outrun 2. Perhaps it's the lap thing, rather than the "open" track?

Animal Crossing: Wild World (DS)

My notice board says that the Acorn Festival starts tomorrow. ACES! My animals were not especially chatty today, although the not-moved-out Kabuki did want a shirt so I gave her (or him) a Blue Grid one I found on the floor.

Found a fossil for the first time in a couple of weeks, not that I need it as I have them all, but still. I haven't seen a pitfall in ages either. Perhaps the ten billion weeds have covered them all up.

Strider (GBA)

What went wrong here? Although I've never really liked Strider all that much, it isn't a bad game. It's also quite different to most platformers, as you can climb walls, hang from platforms, and that sort of thing.

Only, you can't. The NES version of Strider, it seems, does away with everything that is Strider and removes it. So now, it's just a generic crap platformer. Rubbish.

Mighty Final Fight (GBA)

Wow! This is great! I always kind-of liked Final Fight, but thought Streets of Rage to be somewhat better. I did wonder if a super-deformed version, on the NES, would actually be any good. And it is!

It's a bit simple, but there's actually more to it than the original game, as there are more moves and you gain experience points and levels improving your strength, health and move-set. It's a bit hard though, as a continue sends you back to the beginning of the level rather than just let you carry on like the original did.

I played as far as the boss at the end of Stage 4, where I died.

FIFA 07 (Demo) (360)

Two crap EA demos in two days. Who'd have thought it?

Firstly, what's with the stuttering during the set-piece cutscenes? It's like it's using the same engine as NFS:Carbon it's so bad.

Then there's the carding system. I managed to get three red cards and two yellows in less than 6 minutes of game time (not real time). I conceed that one of the reds was my fault (although the tackle wasn't exactly nasty), but one of the others was when they tackled me. In fact they tackled Ferdinand and Neville got sent off. My goalkeeper got yellow carded whilst all play was at the other end of the pitch, and the other yellow card came about when my player headed the ball from a corner.

And you seem to have no control over much of what your keeper does - if he gets the ball, he often reacts before you, and throws or kicks it away without you having any option as to what or where.

Overall, not impressed. The DS version is better by a mile, and PES (4, not played 5) plays a much better game of football.

Saints Row (360)

I started off by finishing a few of the recently-found Snatch missions, before moving on to pimping up my Mag (which I've been using as my car of choice for later Snatch missions as it's pretty durable and can carry three passengers). I then found a new Insurance Fraud activity, so set about clearing that one out too (which was pretty easy, even without the police-car-head-on tactic).

I also killed a load of people (starting with the DJ) in a club, using a crowbar. This gave me the "killed 50 pedestrians with melee attacks" achievement! Also cleared a few more Mayhem missions, and found a couple of CDs. I'm up to 17/60 now.

Had some interesting (although, not game-breaking) bugs today. Firstly, during one of the Snatch missions, I was driving a Nordberg full of hos at full pelt down a straight road. Then, for no reason, my car stopped dead (but didn't crash) and vanished, leaving me and the laydeez sat on invisible seats in thin air. A few seconds later, a car plowed into the back of us, my car reappeared, and continued on again at full pelt.

Another oddity was when I drove under a railway line, which was sloping to go underground, and the train couldn't make it up the steep incline. It kept trying, jostling, but couldn't move. I used my rocket launcher to put it out of its misery.

Finally, I was driving across the long bridge that has the train running down the middle, and that occasionally opens up. Suddenly, the bridge disappeared. It was still there, as I didn't fall, but I was driving on nothingness. Ace. It then faded back into existence and all was well again.

Animal Crossing: Wild World (DS)

Today's animal-wot-is-trying-to-leave is Kabuki. Again. He-she seems much more resolved to go this time, however, leaving no suggestion of staying even after multiple attempts at persuading him/her otherwise.

It was also a flea market day today. I went round a few animals' houses, but with Kabuki all packed to go and most of my other animals outside (and Bluebear refusing to sell me anything) all I picked up was a bed, which I suspect I already have in my catalogue. My notice board tells me the Acorn Festival starts on Monday, but I don't know what that'll entail. Apart from acorns, obviously.

K.K. Slider played me another song this evening too - "I Love You". I still haven't "put away" the track he gave me last week, actually, so I'm building a pocket o' music at the moment.

Saints Row (360)

Hmm. As I cheered the fact I'd completed the last Snatch mission, I realised that, in fact, there was another location to do with 8 more Snatch missions. Pah.

Set about doing some other stuff instead - a couple more Mayhem missions, hunted for some more CDs and tag locations (I found none), and generally just explored a bit more.

Need for Speed: Carbon (Demo) (360)

Oh lord. I thought the Sonic demo was bad enough. This is even worse. It's jerky, it lurches all over the place like grandad after he's been on the Guinness, and the handling is just all wrong. In Circuit Mode you can barely steer at all - it's like you push the left stick as hard as it will go and it just about registers as slightly off-centre, and in Drift Mode it's like you're on ice and a slight turn in one direction and you've 1080'd. Total and utter garbage.

Scramble (360)

Hurrah! Or at least, "Hurrah to some extent!".

I managed to get past stage 5, finally. That's the sort of scrolly maze thing which requires pixel perfect ship maneuvering. As a result, I reached the Base Stage, but didn't really know what I was supposed to do until I realised there was a thing I needed to shoot. I then remembered you could collide with the base, and you'd win (but not lose as life), so few at it, and missed.

My last life used up by hitting a wall. Bah. At least my score reached about 27,000-ish.

Saints Row (360)

Gngh! Too hard! I'm trying to work my way through all the Snatch missions, and although I've finished the Rollerz one already, the Vice Kings one, on level 8, is just too hard.

There's not even anything specifically difficult about it - I just can't do it. Usually my car gets blown up by a molotov, or I have to swap car and then my bloke just stands there instead of entering the car I'm standing right next to. I've had this problem a few times throughout the game, but it's never been critical before. Anyway, an hour spent on it and I gave up.

42 All-Time Classics (DS)

Played more games with my wife this evening. Found a version of Dominos which seems most "normal" ("Block", in case you're wondering), as well as many games of Spit! and several goes on Hasami Shogi. Played plenty of others too, though.

Animal Crossing: Wild World (DS)

Another somewhat lax day in Cheese. Did my usual stuff of buying things I didn't already have, and chatted briefly with my animals, as well as a load of weeding (which seems pointless now as it comes back with a vengance each day).

Also gave three of my animals some clothes. Do I look like a walking branch of Oxfam or something?

Robotron: 2084 (360)

Hurrah! I broke 100,000 points! Sadly, this did not gain me any achievements, nor did it get me to the top of the in-game high score table. And I managed it by only getting to wave 7. This game is too hard. FACT.

42 All-Time Classics (DS)

Played this with my wife for quite a while this evening. The Balance game got quite ridiculous as we had about ten blocks stacked up, lengthways, up the middle of the see-saw. I lost horribly at Bowling, Dominos confused us with it's silly "5 Up" rules, and the battleships "clone" was OK, but the one-square-big "ships" were rubbish.

Animal Crossing: Wild World (DS)

Well, Purrl didn't move out, so perhaps my animals do like me. Having said that, they're not all that interested in talking to me today. Redd was about, and I bought a merry-go-round from him for the alarmingly cheap price of 1,800 bells (or so). Maybe he was ill, or something.

And weeds! What's with them? Billions of them again today.

Hi Hi Puffy Ami Yumi: The Genie & the Amp (DS): COMPLETED!

Strangely, and rather like many of the Xbox 360 games I've completed this year, this game's last few levels seemed to get shorter and shorter (and the bosses easier and easier) until quite soon I'd done the final three stages and it was complete. It was quite fun, but ultimately pretty repetitive.

I did unlock a fish I could stroke though. Which was nice.

42 All-Time Classics (DS)

Played this some more, mainly in two player download play mode with my wife. It's really quite good in this mode, although I've found some of the rules to the games to be a little bit strange. It's probably because they're different variations than I'm used to, I suppose.

Also did the first three games on Stamp Mode.

Animal Crossing: Wild World (DS)

Don't my animals like me any more? I mean, I know I hate most of them and would gladly push some of them under a bus, but they have no reason to hate me, surely? Purrl was trying to escape Cheese today, you see, and I've lost a fair few animals over the last couple of weeks already. Rubbish.

Something exciting did happen today, though - Autumn came! And with it, slightly browner ground, and billions of weeds. Why doesn't Nook sell lawnmowers?

42 All-Time Classics (DS)

This arrived today. I played lots of different games, including a couple online, and so far it's pretty good. Bowling is too bloody hard though - I keep flicking the ball into the gutter with the last bit of the throw stroke. Bah.

Saints Row (360)

Went back and did the Zenith thing, and then managed to get the other car needed too, completing all the Chop Shop stuff.

I then went and shot down some more helicopters, took enough hostages to get me the 50 Hostages achievement (which got me 10 gamerpoints), and borrowed a load of money from the lone shark (to get another 10 points).

Saints Row (360)

With the game complete, I set about doing some of the activities, and trying some of the achievements. First up, destroying helicopters. Picked up three homies, and sat outside a Forgive and Forget shooting stuff. The police soon turned up, and I killed them, and eventually police helicopters arrived. After shooting several down, things got a bit hectic so I nipped in for a quick confessional, and the heat was off again. 13 helicopters down, 37 to go! This will take forever!

I then decided to finish off the Chop Shop missions, interspersed with some hostage-taking. I'd managed all bar two of the cars for the two locations, and then found then I could buy a Zenith, which I needed, from Foriegn Power. Except I couldn't, as my garage was full. I then found that taking cars out of your garage and blowing them up doesn't actually remove them from the garage. I then found, after half an hour of removing cars and blowing them up, that I'd been removing the same cars over and over again - they respawn in the garage. Bah. It seems there's a button to press to "remove" them instead. I am blind, it seems.

Anyway, so I bought a Zenith, had it pimped as required, and then had a power cut. Rubbish.