Command and Conquer 3 (Demo) (360)

Saw my brother was online playing this, so thought I'd join him.

Sadly, although you can play online with the demo, you can't pick who you're going to play against. Naturally, I was then randomly paired up against someone who actually knew the controls, and could group units together, and well, was generally capable of playing it without appearing to be a monkey at the helm.

He beat me in under two minutes, defeating me with just a commando unit. Pff.

Mutant Storm Reloaded (360)

I have no idea why I decided to play this tonight, but I did. Started out on Yellow Belt difficulty, and Level 1, and just played. I'd forgotten just how good Mutant Storm is, you know. It's great.

But I soon died too many times and so stopped. Highest score today? 600,000. Rubbish.

Lostmagic (DS)

Hmm. I'm not really sure if I'm enjoying this or not. The premise is great - draw shapes to cast spells - but the fights are too difficult as a result. You're under two much pressure to draw quickly and accurately, and your mana bar (which you use for spells) drains much too fast. Even the faux-RTS element with controllable monsters that you've captured is clumsy and hit-and-miss. There's just too much to keep an eye on at once.

Anyway. I've run away from the Diva of Twilight, had a few fights, killed an evil mage, and now I've found the Sage of Water. Only he's gone bad. So I have to kill him. But it's too hard.

Decided to play a duel online then, having given up on the Sage of Water, and got my bottom handed to me in under 10 seconds by someone on a much much higher level than me, who was accompanied by what appeared to be a pack of golden wolves. Oh.

Eets: Chowdown (360): COMPLETED!

Ta da! All 123 levels complete! Not only that, but I went back and made sure I had beaten the target scores and par times on those I'd missed, and now I'm ranked 34th in the world. Excellent! That netted me two more achievements too, which was nice.

Slightly less ace news on the Marsho Madness front though - I've dropped quite a few places in the rankings (although am still top of my friends leaderboard) and failed to improve on my best score today. Pah.

Eets: Chowdown (360)

Phew! I'm on the final run now, with just 16 of the levels remaining. Currently, my rank in the main game stands at 68th in the world - not bad considering I haven't even finished the game yet! It's getting very hard now though.

Mighty Bomb Jack (Wii)

This was new on the Wii Virtual Console last night, and as I had a look through the VC shop, I thought - why not? So I bought it.

I'm not really sure what to think. It is to Bomb Jack what Super Monkey Ball Adventure is to Super Monkey Ball. It had the Bomb Jack "idea", but then turns it into a scrolly platformer with standard Bomb Jack levels as the end of level "bosses". Sort of. There's also the addition of the Mighty powers, which allow you to do amazing things like open treasure chests from the side instead of the top (gosh!) and open orange treasure chests as well as brown ones (amazing!) - Mighty indeed!

I played it for an hour or so, but on my many plays I managed to reach only Level 5. I think there are 16 in total, and there's no save points, continues or even mid-level restart points. I remember when all games were like this!

Eets: Chowdown (360)

Hmm. I didn't like all the in-the-dark stuff of some of the levels today. I know it just adds another element to the puzzles, but it made my brane hurt. Anyway, I'm about a third of the way through the penultimate zone (or world, or planet, or whatever) now, and things are getting really brain-warpy now, with gravity flippers and levitation thingies. I have managed the "10 levels with two items remaining" achievement though, which is ace. And I'm 99th in the world on the leaderboard for the main game!

Things are a bit less impressive on Marsho Madness, however. I'm 313th with a score of 170,000-ish. I'd have done better, but all cognitive functions broke down at around 150,000 and I lost three lives in quick succession. Bah.

Eets: Chowdown (360)

That's Zone Three all done and dusted now too. Go me! Managed par for most levels, and had quite a few "one item left" successes, as well as a couple of "two items left" and one "three items left". I should be on line for an achievement for those now, I think.

Had another go at Marsho Madness too, but only got 120,000-ish. It does put me back into top-400 territory though, as I'd been bumped down to around 600 since I last played.

Pinball FX (360)

Most of this evening's pinballing was spent trying to improve my feeble score on the Agents table. I did, of course, but not to any great amount. I'm up to around 34 million now, a 12 million improvement, but I'm still quite low down on my friends leaderboard.

I did get an achievement though, but I don't know what it was for.

Eets: Chowdown (360)

I've now finished all of the second zone, and a few on the third. It's getting quite hard now, but I seem to be finding plenty of "wrong" ways of completing levels - mainly using fewer items than necessary. One level was completed with a single item instead of the four provided, and the time it took was under three seconds, compared to the 30 that par time was set at. Ace!

I then had another go at the brain-hurty Marsho Madness mini game, which is really difficult for me as it shows buttons you have to press. Problem is, in my head, I still think in terms of SNES pad button layout, so not only are the colours wrong, but the letters are too! I should be thankful, at least, that it isn't a Playstation game. "TRIANGLE!" - whuh?

Managed a huge score of 110,000-ish, which netted me an achievement and a top 400 in the world place. Sadly, I noticed another achievement requires a score of over a million. Chances? Nil.

Pinball FX (360)

And this was the other new XBLA title today. There's something very wrong with the ball, in that it sounds heavy and metallic, but it moves like it's a floaty ping pong ball or something.

You soon get used to it though. Pinball FX is no Pinball Fantasies or Digital Pinball, but it isn't bad at all. Even the so-bad-it's-good Extreme table with the faux-gangsta soundbites is reasonable.

The scores on the boards then: 56,000,000, 52,000,000 and 20,000,000-ish on the three tables, and two achievements get-gotted.

Eets: Chowdown (360)

Two new games on XBLA again today, and I bought both of them. First up was this platformy puzzley game which reminded me a bit of Bills Tomato Game on the Amiga. Game ideas are never new, you see, they just hibernate sometimes.

I've completed all of the first "zone", having no problems (although I don't have a faster than par time on one level), and I'm now half way through the second zone. I have four achievements already too!

3D Ultra Minigolf (360): COMPLETED!

Had much better luck with on the Explorer course today, managing to finish with 7 under par. I was actually 15 under par way through the first day, but that stupid carnival level with the card suits that flash over a hole messed up on me, as I kept rebounding off the hole, or got stuck in it only to be launched over the course entirely. Rubbish.

Having done that, I moved on to Adventurer, which is two days of all 36 holes. After day one, I was at 7 under, but I finished at just -1 on the second and final day as once again the carnival card hole dropped me 8 shots. Grr!

But, all done now - just in time for more XBLA release goodness tomorrow!

3D Ultra Minigolf (360)

Played through this on single player this evening for a while, finishing off the Traveller course in 8 under par or so. I then had a go at the Explorer course, and finished at 36 over par - not good.

Afterwards, I played a few rounds in two player mode with my wife, which was hardly fair as she'd not played it before. That didn't stop her getting a hole in one on her first shot, though...

Command and Conquer 3 (360) (Demo)

Firstly, the problems. Since it uses the Lord of the Rings: Battle for Middle Earth 2 engine (or at least, it appears to), most of the camera and user interface issues are replicated here. My main two gripes are the camera angles (you're too horizontal and and not "birds-eye" enough, and you can't see your troops unless you zoom right in) and the fact you can't "draw a box" around a group of units like you can in every other C&C game.

But, it's Command and Conquer, so it's instantly Actually Quite Good.

Monster Madness (360) (Demo)

The aim of this game is to shoot lots of infinitely respawning zombies, run out of ammo, and then die as you have no useful weapons.

What a fun game. Or not.

Lostmagic (DS)

Either this game is stupidly hard, or I'm missing something obvious. It took loads of attempts to complete the rescue-the-girl mission, but then the run-away mission defeated me several times too (not least because you're not given any clue as to where you're supposed to run to. Silly.

Anyway. I've now just found my "grandma" missing and loads more monsters to kill.

Lostmagic (DS)

I've had this game for aaaaages now. I bought it when it first came out in the US, and was really excited about the possibility of a decent DS RPG with art in the style of Studio Ghibli. It arrived, got put on my shelf, and then... nothing.

But I've completed all my recent DS games (except Final Fantasy III, but I've got the first two to make a start on before that), so I've dipped into my pile of older games.

So far: I've fought some stuff, learnt how to capture baddies, met Leonard, fought more stuff, and found a girl who fell from the sky. I now have to protect her, but can't as it's two hard and I die. Tch.

Crackdown (360) (Demo)

Last time I played this, I didn't really like it. It seems that, according to People On The Internet, I've been playing it all wrong. I shouldn't treat it as a GTA clone, but instead as a superhero jumpy-leapy-throwy game.

So I did.

And it's WAAAAAAAAY better! In fact, it takes the way I play GTA (try to go where you're not supposed to) into the actual proper way to play! Aces. I'm converted then.

3D Ultra Minigolf (360)

Hmm. I'm seeing some real problems with this already. Didn't they bug-test it at all? The ball is forever getting stuck on, in or under things.

The worst big today was while I was playing online against someone, and he was winning. Then, on one of the Wild West holes (the one on the train station platform, I think), his ball was launched up in the air and just stopped dead. In mid-air. And stayed there. It kept spinning, but didn't go anywhere.

After watching it for a good five minutes, he quit.

I did manage to get three achievements today though, so it wasn't all bad.

Castlevania (Wii)

GNnnNNnnnnnNNGGggggGGGGGggggH!

I reached Stage 15 again. Several times. And those bloody Medusa Heads killed me. Again. Wii controller through the TV screen time!

3D Ultra Minigolf (360)

There were two new games on XBLA today, this and Gyruss. For some reason, I felt compelled to buy this though.

It's good. There are issues with collision detection, ball physics, random acts of gravity, and camera angles, but it's a reasonably good fun crazy golf game with some totally bizarre holes - like ones set in space.

I played a few games online (and lost), and also played "Traveller" mode, coming 4th overall with a score of, erm, 32 over. Nice. I then had a go making my own hole, but the editor is impossible to use so I gave up.

Gyruss (360) (Demo)

You know, I don't think I've ever knowingly played Gyruss before. It's basically Tempest crossed with Galaga, and although pretty good, it isn't really me.

Mind you, I was never all that fond of Galaga, or Time Pilot, and I bought both of those. Hmm.

Guitar Hero II (360)

"Jordan" on Expert is impossible. I would just like to make that known.

I mean, everything on Hard is impossible (for me) anyway, but I though I'd just have a try of Jordan on Expert as it nets you an achievement if you beat it. 3% complete. 4%. 5%. Then 3% again. Not a chance in hell.

So I tried practising it. On the slowest setting. And still I couldn't really progress without nine out of ten notes being somewhat bum. Then, the solo near the end just made me cry. As I wrote elsewhere:

Even on the slowest practice setting, it weren't doing. Especially the bit near the end, where you seem to have to press three buttons at once, but randomly change which three every one thousandth of a second.

That's a no, then.

Then I decided to play on Easy for a bit. Having Perfected two songs in a row, I'd managed a note streak of 315 or so, then 460. I was going to get myself the 1000-note streak achievement, wasn't I?

No, I wasn't. Halfway into the next song, "Achievement Unlocked!" appeared. ACES! I thought. And paused the game to check. Only to find it actually said "Buckskin is Online". Unpausing, and I lost it. HATE.

I will be removing everyone from my friends list so that this will never happen again.

Castlevania (Wii)

Hurrah! I did it!

No, not completed it. That's a Whole Other Thing, but I did manage to get to and defeat The Creature. And it only took $hlmun attempts! It's his imp friend that causes all the problems, as The Creature itself doesn't really do a lot. In the end, I found it easiest to just dodge the imp and his rocks wot he chucks, and just get the occasional hit in to The Creature when possible.

When I finally killed him, I nearly messed it up anyway as I almost forgot about the two rocks still en route to my face. Luckily, one fell short and the other was destroyed accidentally by a dagger I threw.

Reached Stage 15, where lots of Axe Knights and Medusa heads made short work of me. Tch.

Guitar Hero II (360)

Played through a few more tracks today, mainly on easy but also unlocked Jordan and had a go at that on Medium, which wasn't too hard. I managed a couple more achievements too.

Shrek the Third (360) (Demo)

BIG FAT NO.

Contact (DS): COMPLETED!

I know I haven't played this in almost two months, but other things arrived and got in the way. Anyway. Today I played it for about two or three hours, which was long enough to finish the next few islands and complete the game!

Harbira Island was fantastic. A giant shop full of nerdy pop-band fanboys, complete with geek dialogue and two arcade games which you play as yourself. As in, a racing game where you run round the track. And fight the cars.

Overall, a really good, original, funny and bizarre RPG.

Legend of the Mystical Ninja (Wii)

Or Goemon, as we know it's really called. "Kid Ying" and "Dr. Yang"? Pff. Rubbish.

So it's mad, yes. And I've worked my way through four zones. Or five? I killed the thing in the fairground anyway, with all the lanterns on it. And now I'm in a place where I can rotate the room around with buttons.

And I played lots of mini games. Mole FTW!

Castlevania (Wii)

Gah. This is getting really annoying now. I can get from the restart point to The Creature without dying most times now, and often without even getting hit. However, that stupid imp that keeps hopping around the room once I get there kills be far too easily.

I even managed to get The Creature down to two energy bars - one more whipping would have done it. But no. I died.

Guitar Hero II (360)

It seems I gained another achievement today, for buying all the guitar finishes. Again, I haven't actually bought them all, but I got the achievement anyway.

Also tried a few of the "bought" bonus tracks, including Trogdor (which was a bit bloody hard). Played through some of the existing tracks as well, to bump my stars and scores up a little. Psychobilly Freakout is still impossible, however.

Boom Boom Rocket (360) (Demo)

So, it's Dance Dance Revolution, only with fireworks. And you play with a pad.

Rubbish.

The arrows are too small. The blue ones are almost invisible over the background. It's sometimes difficult to tell which arrow will hit the "bar" first, as they're often so far apart and seemingly moving at different speeds.

I won't be buying it.

Guitar Hero II (360)

With all the tracks on Medium now done, it was time to start going for 5 Star rankings on them all, and bump myself up the leaderboards a little. In fact, there's not much bumping up the leaderboards I can do, on my friends list at least - I'm first, second or third for almost every track, and am second overall for the career. Aces!

Anyway. I have at least the first 24 (of 48) tracks now 5 Star ranked, and bumped a few 3s to 4s. Psychobilly Freakout is plainly impossible, though.

Guitar Hero II (360)

Finished up the rest of the "missed" tracks from Medium today, and then started on Easy. Well, actually, I tried one on Hard and it made me cry, so I gave up on that mode.

Managed to get the 500 note streak achievement for perfecting three songs in a row, and then did one song "lefty flip", which was bloody difficult, even on Easy - my brain just refused to accept the new orientation of notes.

Guitar Hero II (360): COMPLETED!

In that, I've reached the end of Medium. Overall, it seems waaaaay easier than the first game, as I didn't fail a single track. A few at the end (Psychobilly Freakout for one) are bloody difficult, but I have at least 3 stars on every track.

I then realised I hadn't done the training, so did that to learn how to do hammer-ons and pull-offs - I can't quite get the hang of them, but I think I'll get there. Mastering them is the key to better scores and accuracy, it seems. Especially for fast songs. Practised a few tracks to try the "bass guitar" mode, and to have a go with these new-to-me techniques.

After that, I started working my way though Easy, and got my first perfect (and achievement to match!). Hard mode scares me.

Guitar Hero II (360)

RAWK TEH HELL ON!

Today, I bought Guitar Hero II. I already have the original game for the PS2, complete with guitar controller, so it made perfect sense to buy the 360 version and another controller for twice the cost it would have been for a fully usable PS2 copy. This was mainly due to the new guitar being ACES, but also because of the promised Xbox Live downloadable content (that's XBL DLC, abbreviation fans!) and online leaderboards.

So this afternoon, I rocked out for almost three hours solid. My legs hurt from standing up for so long. My left wrist hurts from excess frettage. My left little finger hurts from over stretching for the blue fret button (I was playing on Medium). But! I've done 33 songs, getting mostly 5 Stars and a few 4 Stars. Winnar!

Lumines Live (360)

Just a quick go today. Which means two hours or so.

Had a go on Advanced, and didn't manage to progress any further than previously, and then tried Skin Edit mode and got a feeble score of 800,000-ish for a single lap. Bah.

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (360)

With Shivering Isles all done and dusted (um, bar all the side quests of course), I've decided to mop up the remaining questlines in the main game. First up, was going back the the Dark Brotherhood.

I was given the task of killing an elf in the Imperial City, who was pretty easy to do in. He spend a few hours imbibing Skooma in an abandoned house, so all I had to do was find him there.

Then, I was sent out to a remote fort where I had to replace a bloke's medicine with some poison. Since I'd made myself a load of great sneak clothes and chameleon jewellry, as well as concocted a 30 second invisibility spell, it was really very easy.

After that, I had to attend a party with five other people in a house in Skingrad, and kill them all. This was also easy, as I just waited until they were alone and then sneak attacked them for instant killage.

Finally (for now), I as required to bump off a retired guard using the Rose of Sithis arrow. I was warned that I'd need to fire it at him whilst he was out of his armour, which I thought was going to be a pain, but in fact was simple as he was swimming without it when I first found him. Thwip! I then needed to remove his finger (mmm, nice) and plant it in his replacement's desk drawer as a warning not to mess with the Dark Brotherhood. Sadly, I was seen, so I had to make a run for it - and then found the guy at the Imperial City waterfront who could get me off the hook. Phew! Achievement Unlocked!

Lumines Live (360)

Achievement GET! Which is amazing as they're a bit bloody hard in this game.

I finally managed to complete one 'loop' of Base mode, scoring about 180,000 points. Somehow, this puts me at the top of my friends leaderboard and 141st in the world. Um, how?

The Elder Scrolls IV: Shivering Isles (360): COMPLETED!

Super marathon session today, resulting in the end of the Shivering Isles expansion pack and questline. I'm classing it as a separate game to Oblivion, in terms of completion status for several reasons: the size, the cost, the fact you don't need to have played the main game to "do" Shivering Isles, and it's an entirely separate, self-contained world. Plus, Bethesda list in on their site as a separate game anyway, so if it's good enough for them, I feel justified.

I don't want to go into details, as that'll spoil it for others who haven't finished it yet. And there's so much I did today that I can't really be bothered retelling the lot. However, I will say a few things.

Firstly, I predicted the "twist" in the story. It gets more and more obvious as it comes to the big reveal, but it's still possible to miss, I think. Not that predicting it changed my perception of the game or anything, but the whole plotline is a work of genius.

Things I did today included recreating the Gatekeeper from parts of my choosing, killing the head of a cult to find her eye, having a very bizarre encounter - with myself (which I tried to make easier by coming into the fight naked, hoping my clone would be too, but no), and using some friendly walking trees to halt the spread of Order. Yes indeed.

Oh, and I killed Jyggalag too. Hurrahs!

Castlevania (Wii)

FRUSTRATION FACTOR 10! Not only is it a bit bloody hard (I managed to get to The Creature, but died), but for some reason my Wii remote keeps cutting out. I've tried both remotes, new batteries, switching off anything that might interfere, switched the Wii off at the wall and all sorts. Nothing works. I had this problem with Sonic and the Stupid Rings a couple of weeks ago, but nothing since. Other games are fine, as are the other Wii channels. Gah.

Basically, I can't actually progress now.

Luxor 2 (360) (Demo)

Writing about Luxor 2 without mentioning Zuma is going to be hard. So I'm not even going to bother trying.

Luxor 2 is a direct clone of Zuma. Almost. Yeah, I know Zuma is a clone of ten million other games, but they're not on the 360 so don't count. It's like the Luxor people looked at Zuma and went, "We gots to gets some o' that". Of course, they carefully changed some stuff so as to avoid it looking like a Zuma clone. Like the balls. Oh, no - not them. They're the same.

In fact, the only really gameplay difference is that your ball-firing thing is limited to horizontal travel across the bottom of the screen, rather than pointing in a circle from somewhere in the middle. And, this makes it crap. Aiming becomes harder, catching power-ups has to be manually done, and the "bat" (since it's much like Pong really) isn't as well implimented as the ball-thing in Zuma.

But the best thing about Luxor 2 is the way they've "themed" it. You know how in Zuma everything is Aztec styled? With Aztec temples and Aztec music and Aztec pyramids? Well, the Luxor 2 programmers obviously thought "GENIUS! We need to theme our game too. Something like Aztec pyramids, but not! Something unique to us... like Aztec pyramids, only different. Hmmm... pyramids... OH MY LORD! Egyptian Pyramids! Amazing! We're aces, we are!"

And so it came to pass. And it's nasty.

The Elder Scrolls IV: Shivering Isles (360)

Played loads today. Loads. And loads. First off was relighting the great torch, which involved finding a place where there were two altars, one controlled by the Dementia Dark Seducers and the other by the Mania Golden Angels.

Of course, they didn't want to cooperate with each other to light both, so instead I had to wipe one lot out. I decided to kill off the Dark Seducers simply because they scare me a little. With that, I had the two altars lit, and it was back to the church in Bliss/Crucible to light a fire there. I had to choose either Mania or Dementia, so as a karma thing, I chose Dementia.

Sheogorath then appeared, and asked me to become one of his dukes. Which duke I became was up to me, but basically, it meant I had to kill off either Thalon or Syl and replace them. Again with the choices... I picked Syl, as I thought she might be easier to dispatch, as I expected just a straightforward fight. But no - she'd done a runner down some secret path and I had to go in and get her, killing more Dark Seducers on the way. Tch.

Once she was dead, I was made Duke of Dementia, and got an achievement; but then found out that there was an achievement for becoming Duke of Mania too - game reloading FTL. Did it anyway, and poisoned Thalon, became Duke of Mania, and got that achievement too. Then it was back to my "proper" save, and I carried on.

The Fringe had gone all grey! Because of the Graymarch, of course. And my Dark Seducers were defending it. Had to help out there, then enter an underground passageway to destroy an obelisk. Found a Passwall refugee down there too. After that, I went back to Sheogorath and he said we need a new Gatekeeper. Off I went again, to another dungeon to find the woman wot makes Gatekeepers, and she's now send me off to her sanctum to find "ingredients". Do I look like Igor?

The Elder Scrolls IV: Shivering Isles (360)

Off I went to the Burrow place to find (and eat) some felldew - a drug which slowly hindered my strength, speed, health and assorted other things. Well, once it started to wear off anyway. While I was still "under the influence" I was super-powerful.

The plan was to enter this place full of big spider things, and find a chalice to cure me of the felldew addiction which I'd encounted because I had to get into the place the chalice was in. Yes. It was all pointless. Unfortunately, as the felldew effects wore off, I had to search for another "hit" - the venom of one of the spiders. So began the lightning fast run through the dungeon splatting arachnids to fuel my drug frenzy. But! Chalice get! Duke of Mania pleased! Achievement get!

The Elder Scrolls IV: Shivering Isles (360)

I'm The Grand Inquisitor. LOLZ.

So I Inquisitored some people, with the 'help' of the torture bloke, and found out who was trying to kill Lady Syl. People died, I got a reward, and all was happy again. Probably.

After that, I nipped back to Bravil to dump my "spoils", and returned to Bliss, to start on the quest for the chalice for the Duke of Mania. Seems I'm almost 8 hours into this expansion do far. Cripes.

The Elder Scrolls IV: Shivering Isles (360)

First thing today was to head to Xedilian, essentially a giant trap, to activate it. On the way though, was Knotty Brambles - where there was supposed to be a cure for the illness the innkeeper in Crucible has. So I nipped in there first, got the cure, and went back to Sickly Bernice.

Then, it was back to the quest at hand, and a tour round Xedilian, killing goblin things (which aren't goblins) and activating the three crystals, and finally "turning the place on". After that, the caretaker appeared and told me Xedilian has already started drawing adventurers in, and I had to kill or confuse them by activating traps. I sent them all mad, and then got my pick of their possessions - including a great sword called Dawnfang (which turns into Duskfang at, er, dusk) which seems to swallow enemies, powering itself up. Ace!

I went to see Cutter the armourer, who crafted me some great armour with my Madness Ore thingies I'd picked up from baddies.

After that, I pushed a guy off a ledge (he wanted me to kill him), and then went to see Sheogorath again, who gave me the power to summon his servant Haskill, much to Haskill's annoyance. Shoegorath is the best NPC ever.

I've now been given two tasks - one for the Duke of Mania, who wants me to find "felldew" - a poison, and a chalice. The other is to find someone who is conspiring to kill Syl, the Dutchess of Dementia. She gave me the services of her torturer, who has helped me "extract" some information from the citizens of Bliss and Crucible. He's ace too!

The Elder Scrolls IV: Shivering Isles (360)

You knows it! I got it working! Actually, I didn't do anything - I just gave it one last shot, and lo, when I booted the game it told me there was an update for it. An update that didn't exist an hour previously. Bizarre. But none of that matters now, as I've made it into the Shivering Isles!

First of all, there was a chat with a creepy butler type bloke who asked if I wanted to enter the portal. Of course, I did. So I wandered on through (sort of...) and found the little village of Passwall, and the Gatekeeper. Had to talk to some people to find out how to actually kill the Gatekeeper (to get the keys to make it into the rest of the Isles, but he was easily dispatched once I'd got it figured.

Then I had the choice of the Mania door, or the Dementia door. I chose Mania, as it was described as more happy and colourful. I slowly headed my way to the city where Sheogorath was residing, killing strange baddies on the way, picking very strange mushrooms, plants and other ingredients, and finding a few locations. The world here is most odd.

Eventually, I walked into Crucible, a city, and chatted with residents and shopkeepers. One guy wants me to kill him. A woman who runs a museum wants me to find "odd" things - like what? Everything is odd here. Found the entrance to Sheogorath's palace, and went in.

He's mad. I mean, I know he's supposed to be mad, but he's a complete loon. And his accent is something else. Anyway. He has given me a quest - to go to some place and put judgment things in some other things. Or something. Hurrah!

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (360)

Get really quite annoyed at this now. I've spent about £20 on this expansion, but can't get it to trigger. Waiting, sleeping, talking to people, clearing the cache, re-downloading the file, all sorts. Nothing works. I want to play The Shivering Isles, dammit!

Jetpac Refuelled (360)

Just for a bit, to try and get a higher score on Refuelled Mode. Which I did - around 300,000, in fact. That netted me an achievement for 250,000, and I also got the Squidport Pacifist achievement too. That score also bumped me up my friend's leaderboard two places, only to be knocked down two again instantly by people playing at the same time but doing better than I did. Hate!

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (360)

I bought the new expansion for Oblivion the other day: The Shivering Isles. I decided today to make a start on it. So I loaded it up, and...

...nothing. At all. Well, aside from a message on the title screen saying "Loading Addtional Content". I was expecting a message or something when I started playing to say that the portal was open. But no.

So I went to Anvil, where I thought the island might be. It wasn't, but I did complete a quest on a pirate ship there instead. Then I headed back to Bravil. Someone on t't't'tinternet said I had to sleep for 24 hours to trigger the expansion, so I did. And nothing. I gained a level though (now on 14), and then found out that the portal is supposed to be on an island near Bravil. But it wasn't. Killed some minotaurs instead. Bah.

Lumines Live! (360)

Is it actually possible to get one complete cycle of Base mode? I think not. I had a bloody good go at it, and beat all my previous high scores, but still didn't manage to complete a full "loop".

Then I played Advance Mode, and managed to get far enough in to break 100,000 points, and also unlock three new skins. After that, I played Heavenly Star (I think it's called that, anyway) for a while until I died.

Jetpac Refuelled (360)

So Mr SomethingWitty thinks he can waltz on in and blow my Retro mode score away, does he? Oh yes, he did. Bah.

But! I managed to get 42,000-ish on the same mode - some 2,000 points higher than his, putting me 110th in the world and top of my friends list. For now.

Castlevania (Wii)

Also too hard! Well, not as hard as Dragon's Curse, but certainly not easy. I'd left the game "saved" (using the Wii's game state save function) on Stage 7, but stupidly didn't continue when I died so had to start from the beginning again.

Luckily, I reached 7 again quite quickly, and then moved on past it - to Stage 10, killing two mummies on the way (and only just whipping them before they killed me too). Apparently there are 17 stages, so I'm most of the way there now.

Dragon's Curse (Wii)

Too hard! It really is very hard indeed. I think I'd missed something in the desert - in the pyramid, it seems, so I went back there and found a passageway with lots of shooting things on the floor and ceiling. At the end of the passage was a door, and behind that, a dragon.

Who vomits green stuff and killed me. Back to the town we go! Gnnh.

Dragon's Curse (Wii)

Once again, it's a Sunday, and once again, it's New Game Time! Hurrah!

This week, it's Dragon's Curse on the Wii. Or rather, on the PC Engine on the Wii Virtual Console, if you see what I mean. Or even, Wonder Boy III: The Dragon's Trap on the Master System on the PC Engine on the Wii Virtual Console. Yes. That.

It's a bit bloody hard, isn't it? I've killed the dragon, been turned into Lizard Man, escaped the castle, ended up in the town, explored the beach area, found a key, found two hearts, been in the desert, and generally died a lot. I've bought some better armour, but I have no idea how to get through the lava section without dying, as each hit I take wipes out most of my energy.

Also: Castlevania has broken this game, as I keep trying to slash the candles to get hearts. Which (obviously) doesn't work.

Dragon Quest Heroes: Rocket Slime (DS)

With the game complete, I set about clearing Tank Masters mode. There are C, B, A and S ranks, and I was up to the second (of three) fights in A rank.

None of those fights remaining were difficult, and my tactics were either bombard-with-stuff or infiltrate-and-destroy depending on the tactics of my opponent. Even the final fight at S rank, where the other tank had 1,500HP (compared to my 950) wasn't difficult.

However, things were made a bit harder when a "final" final fight was sprung on me - me vs Hooly, with no crew for support. And Hooly's tank had 3,000HP. Erk. And Hooly had loads of really powerful ammo. Net result? My HP was depleted completely within seconds, and Hooly still had 2956 left.

But I won! Every time Hooly came over to try to smash my engine, I killed him, buying me time to load some ammo into my cannons. Since he was only interested in my engine, he didn't attempt to stop them from hitting his tank, so I slowly drained his HP and then nipped over to his tank (killing him en-route) to smash up his engine. Winnar!

Castlevania: Symphony of the Night (360): COMPLETED!