Lego Star Wars II (360): COMPLETED!

It might only be three days of play, but my saved game says 12 hours. Cripes.

So I finished off Episode VI. The first three missions were really long, but the final couple were really short - a fight with the Emporer, and a Millenium Falcon strike on the new Death Star. And after that? It was complete!

However, there's more to collect and stuff. So I went back to Episode IV, Chapter 1, and completed it in Free Play with Darth Vader and Boba Fett. Ace.

Lego Star Wars II (360)

Worked my way through all of Episode V today. I'm not really enjoying the spaceship flying/shooty sections all that much. They don't gel all that well with the rest of the game. The sequence on Hoth was OK, but it wasn't made clear as to what you were supposed to do. This resulted in my shooting down AT-STs and drone things for a good hour before I realised you had to blow a hole in a wall with a bomb you could tow. Duh!

After V, it was onto VI, and I've done the first two chapters there. I've spent ages around the cantena too, getting studs and buying characters and extras.

Mad Tracks (Demo) (360)

This was today's addition to Xbox Live Arcade. And it's rubbish.

I was hoping for something along the lines of Micro Machines, but instead, we got something worse than the monstrosity that is Hot Wheels: World Race.

Disappointing.

Mario Strikers Charged Football (Wii)

OK. First up, it's not really football. You have a ball, and you score goals, but there the similarity ends. You have powerups, special moves (some of which let you score six goals at once!) and it's totally insane.

Anyway. I played through the tutorial section, which actually took the best part of an hour, and then dived straight into some online games.

I really should have practised offline a bit, though. I played two people, both in Best of Three bouts, and lost two games to none both times. Bah.

Lego Star Wars II (360)

I don't much like Star Wars, and Lego stopped really interesting me when I was 13. And everyone knows that all film tie-ins are rubbish. So I bought it anyway.

To be fair, it was only £16, and it has had some really good reviews.

And you know what? It's actually pretty good. It's not fantastic, but it's original, funny (more so if you've seen the films) and fun to play. So much so, in fact, that I sat and completed Episode IV (that's the first third of the game) in one sitting.

Had a few niggles with it so far, like the targeting sometimes causing you to bitch-slap your comrades, and sometimes you not having a clue what to do next (when in doubt, smash everything), but overall it's great so far.

Moero! Nekketsu Rhythm Damashii Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan 2 (DS)

Flew through a load more levels today, without struggling on that many. I even unlocked the second bonus track, and then went back to Normal Mode to finish the two unlocked bonuses. I then had a stint on Easy to bump up my overall score a little, but actually found it quite difficult as it's so slow!

Returned to Hard, and now I'm stuck on the Women Who Save Jin level, which I think is the last one before the end.

Moero! Nekketsu Rhythm Damashii Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan 2 (DS)

Having completed Normal Mode the other day, I made a start on Hard Mode today. And bloody hell, is it hard. I'm sure the jump from Normal to Hard is bigger than that on the first game.

Anyway, I've managed a few tracks, and unlocked the first bonus track - Monkey Magic! Managed to complete that too, although it took many attempts.

Eledees (Wii): COMPLETED!

Most of today's levels (from 13-ish up to 29, the final one) took place in a theme park, with rides and stuff. And lots of giant biscuits, chess pieces and dice. No, really.

I had two bosses to contend with too - a big fat one who kept collecting baubles off a Christmas tree to power up, and then bellyflop me, and then, after the last few levels (during which I managed to lift entire fairground rides!) it was the end of game boss.

Who, as is commonplace so often now, came in two forms. The first one was easy to dispatch, requiring you to just smack it with scenery a bit. The second form was also pretty simple, if a little odd. The boss entered the body of a giant robot, complete with guns. You have to unscrew all the giant bolts holding it together, literally with a screwing motion of the remote. Ace.

Anyway, he was soon killed, and the end of game sequence ensued. BEST!

Eledees (Wii)

Out of the kitchen, and into the garden, and out of the garden and into the garage. And then back into the garden. And kitchen. Then everything started floating around, and I had to go back to the bedrooms and study, and then into a secret room. And then back in the garden and finally the street!

After that, there was another boss battle, which was pretty easy once I'd figured out what to do.

Tony Hawk's American Wasteland (360)

I think I've pretty much exhausted this now. I've cleaned up on missions and ranch pieces, done all the BMX "missions", found all the pros and impressed them, and completed a pile of tramp money challenges and graffiti challenges only to find they never actually end. I've done all the Sponsor Challenges too, but it still shows only 40/70 done, even though all my stats are full and no shop has any challenges left to offer. Bizarre.

Then, I went through an 100%ed Classic Mode, and then went and did high score runs on Free Skate, getting scores of at least a million in each area.

Finally, I played a load of games online (and was surprised to find so many people playing, considering the game is now almost 18 months old and has been superseded by Project 8), and won at least one match on each map.

Overall then, I think I've pretty much milked the game now. It's a shame that for some reason it hasn't given me the 100 gamepoints for 100%ing the game, but I'm suspicious that it's actually a bug or something as there's nothing left to do!

Assorted 360 Demos (360)

I played through a bit pile of these today, so thought I'd bung them all into one post.

Blacksite:
Urgh. I don't really like FPS games. I also don't like squad-based shooters, and marines-vs-aliens shooters are, in my opinion, dull. So imagine my joy when I realised that Blacksite is a shad-based FPS with marines shooting aliens. I could barely contain my excitement.

Colin McRae's Dirt:
Where I come from, "dirt" is a synonym for "poo", so this game is basically called Colin McRae's Excrement. Thankfully, it isn't as bad as it sounds. You get three styles of driving - rally, track, and off-road. Track was a bit dull, but the other two were great fun. Even if I did manage to lose a door, two wheels and my engine colliding with a rock on the mountain climb stage...

Forza Motorsport 2:
Doesn't look half as pretty as I was expecting, and the simulationness of it just puts me off. I prefer arcadey racing games, like Outrun 2 and Project Gotham, and this is just too... boring. Like Gran Tourismo is, in fact.

Rush'n Attack:
Still as impossibly hard as I remember it. I don't think I even managed to reach the bit after the red steel bridge. Too hard for me to bother with buying, actually.

Xevious:
Well, it's not awful, anyway. There's nothing actually wrong with it, it's just that it's nothing special. Too many later vertical shooters have made this just decidedly average, unfortunately, so I won't be buying it. Besides, I've already got it for the GBA...

Moero! Nekketsu Rhythm Damashii Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan 2 (DS): COMPLETED!

Yeah, already. But it's impossible to put down, isn't it? Besides, I've only done it on Medium and the real game isn't until Hard.

But I loved it. Every single track is fantastic, the final "level" is suitably epic, and it's basically Ouendan++. Which isn't a bad thing.

Tony Hawk's American Wasteland (360): COMPLETED!

Into the Casino I went, and collected loads of skate pieces and chips, before making the mad dash back to the ranch avoiding the police. Which was really easy. I'm convinced it was bloody hard last time, but obviously not.

Either that or I have Mad Sk8 Skillz now.

And that was it. Green Pipes Point was mine (or rather, Iggy's), and the credits rolled. Hurrahs!

Moero! Nekketsu Rhythm Damashii Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan 2 (DS)

Oooouueeenndaaaaaaaaaaan!

Hurrahs all round! Ouendan 2 is here! It arrived today and I've spent a good hour or so on it. And... it's the best game ever made. Ever. Since the last one, anyway.

I was pessimistic about the tracklist, but I needn't have worried - every single one (so far) has been excellent. In particular, "Go My Way" by Yaida Hitomi (she of "Over the Distance" from the first game), and the "I wanna be a popstar" song. Total aces.

I'm playing on Normal difficulty, and was completing tracks with ease, until I reached the one with the boy who wets himself. I failed before I was even halfway through. Bah!

Tony Hawk's American Wasteland (360)

Well, the BMX bit was easy. Like, really easy. In fact, I did it by accident. My memory clear isn't right.

Anyway, with that out of the way, and Boone rescued from the drainage pipe he was stuck in, it was off round all the locations to convince all the pro skaters to be in my video. A couple of them were a pain (like the Collect the Shoes one), but nothing too difficult.

Off to the Casino next!

Tony Hawk's American Wasteland (360)

Finished off the Oil Rig by collecting some more bits for the skate park, and then skated back to the park myself to fix the crane with my spray can.

No, really.

After that, it was back off to Downtown to try and join the Black Widowz, which involved getting myself a tattoo, then spending aaaaaages trying the "manual through the million flags" challenge (which was really hard as I couldn't keep up my momentum, until I realised I could liptrick the wall behind where you start to give a speed boost), then had to run round all of LA "bombing" things (that's graffiti, not explosives) and now I have to get trained on a BMX. Which I'm not looking forward to...

I'm also stuck trying one of the daily stats-boosting challenges. It says "do four fliptricks in one combo", so I do, and nothing happens. Then I thought, "ah, maybe not kickflips - perhaps it's backflips and stuff?", and so did that instead. And that didn't work either. In fact, a single combo with ten kickflips and seven front flips didn't work. Rubbish.

Tony Hawk's American Wasteland (360)

Still working through Story Mode on this. It seems a lot easier than I recall, but then, I haven't reached the bloody hard biking bit yet. I'm dreading that, as I'm sure I almost exploded with actual rage last time.

So today, I walked the Vans competition, got Iggy locked up, joined Skate Club (the first rule about Skate Club, is you don't talk about Skate Club), impressed Tony Alva, wrecked the Big Wheel, and reached the Oil Rig via Mega's boat. I've even fed his shark. Ace!

Tony Hawk's American Wasteland (360)

Seeing as I've run out of Tony Hawk games, and the 360 version of this arrived last week having been bought for peanuts, so I've decided to play it. Yes, I've got (and completed) the Xbox version already, but that was over a year ago and I can't wait until Tony Hawk's Proving Ground which is supposedly out later this year.

Anyway. So I've reached Vans, which (IIRC) is about a third of the way through the game. I've yet to learn how to pivot though, which I'm sure I should be able to do by now.

Crackdown (360)

Hmm. Bumping up my driving stats was a real pain. I had to restart the game with all the gangs resurrected (to give me some to mow down), but I'd wiped out all of Los Muertos and most of the Volk before I managed the 4 star rating. That gave me four stars for everything, though.

Then, I set about getting some of the achievements for stunts in cars, managing a few of them by taking an SUV up the lift in one of the Shai Gen buildings and jumping off the roof. Ace!

Halo 3 Beta (360)

No, I'm not impressed. Halo and Halo 2 both left me cold, and after several days of Crackdown this just feels slow, clunky and, well, dull.

FPS games aren't really my thing at the best of times, and deathmatch type things even less so. Unless the full game has an outstanding single player mode (and to do this, it'll have to be different to the previous two games), I don't think I'll bother.

As for how I got on with it today, I played several games online, and came 3rd or 4th each time. Which isn't bad seeing as I kept grenading myself by pressing LT to lock on. Which doesn't work in Halo 3, unlike in Crackdown...

Crackdown (360): COMPLETED!

None of the remaining Shai Gen generals were that difficult to defeat, although the guy in the big dome thing took a few attempts, and the geneticist was difficult to reach (although not kill) as I missed an entrance to his "prison" complex. The kingpin was alarmingly simple, but then, I did skip most of his skyscraper by entering near the top instead of from the bottom.

And that all netted me three more achievements, and I gained another for killing loads of gang members with explosives and another for Rampage, which I don't quite understand.

The ending had a twist, although I've played enough games now to expect what the twist actually was, so it didn't come as a surprise.

Overall, a great game. I will probably go back to max out my stats, but I don't think I can be bothered with all the races and stunts.

Crackdown (360)

Yes, I finally got round to scanning the boxart in, as you can see...

Anyway. I wiped out two more Shai Gen generals this evening, and attempted another (but failed). I managed a few achievements though, including ones for juggling a body with explosives, and juggling a car with explosives. Both were made easier due to the homing rocket launcher I acquired.

In fact, everything is made easier due to the homing rocket launcher I acquired...

Crackdown (360)

Volks DEAD! Hurrahs!

And more agility orbs got. And some more hidden ones. And my driving skill was boosted too, although I'm not sure how as I don't "do" driving. And I've taken down one of the Shi Gen fellas too. Busy!

Eternal Sonata (Demo) (360)

After the shady doings of t'other day (where I used a US XBL account to download Aegis Wing), I followed up with a Japanese XBL account to get hold of the Eternal Sonata demo from the Japanese marketplace.

"But why?" I hear you all cry, "It's a Japanese RPG! How on earth will you understand it?". Well, because when you play it using a UK account, it's all in spangly English! Hurrah! And a little strange!

So I played it for a while, and it's actually very good. It's a very pretty game indeed - especially the flower field where there's a girl who thinks it's fun to pick flowers then crush them to make flower powder. Or something. No, really.

Aside from talking to her and the other residents of the village I found, I killed a load of Pumpkonions and a couple of Dodos, before dying. It seems there's no way of healing without using items or my girl character's heal spell (which you can only use in battle, it would appear). Speaking of which, everything and everyone seems to have a hilarious musical name. And all my characters (you have three in your party) seem to have musical instrument/weapon hybrid items. SONATA, you see? Ace.

Full English release now PLS KTNX.

Crackdown (360)

Two more Volk generals down, and loads more Orbs got!

In fact, I've not maxed out my agility and strength stats, meaning I can jump about a million miles, and lift and throw entire planets. Almost.

I'm having problems killing the general in the mines though. If I actually manage to make it into the mine, I'm killed instantly by rockets that juggle me. I can't see a way of preventing it from happening, either. Bah.

Soltrio Solitaire (Demo) (360)

I can while away the hours with a decent solitaire game quite easily. In fact, even relatively poor ones (like the basic Windows one) can hold my attention for a few hands. I had a PD (remember that term?) game for my Amiga called Demon, on which I must have easily wasted over 300 hours over the years. It only played one solitaire variant - Canfield, but it was perfect in every way.

Sadly, although Soltrio has 21 variants of Patience (for we are not Yanks), none of them are Canfield. This alone is reason enough not to buy it for the (frankly staggering) 800 points, but when you add the fact that the controls are rubbish (no pointer - you "lock" from card to card) it makes it difficult to even be tempted to buy it. Badness.

Double Dragon (Demo) (360)

Urgh. This has aged really badly. The new graphics don't look quite right, and the game mechanics were superseded long ago by the likes of Final Fight and Streets of Rage, so even with the new lick of paint, Double Dragon is just old and tired. I won't be buying it.

Aegis Wing (360)

Hmm. Now, I know I'm not a fan of shooters (generally, anyway), but this was free. I did have to log in as a US Live user to download it, though, as it isn't on the UK XBLA yet.

And, well... it's not very special. I understand that there's more to it if you play it in multiplayer mode, but the only lobby I managed to join sat with three of us there for ages whilst the host waited for a fourth joinee, who never came. So I had to play it single player.

There's nothing wrong with it, it's just a bit plain, that's all. Anyway. I reached level 3 before dying. And then turned it off and I don't think I'll play it again.

Wario Ware: Smooth Moves (Wii): COMPLETED!

It's my birthday today, and one of my presents was this from my wife. And very most ace it is too. So ace, in fact, that I sat down and completed it.

Of course, I haven't even attempted the high scores or unlocked half of the minigames, but I did get the end sequence.

I think I like this more than Touched, as there's a lot more variety to the games. Some of them are totally inspired too, like the 3D "flap your arms" Balloon Flight, although the final "game" (the dancing one) totally confused me for many goes until I realised that yes, you do actually have to dance along. Just shaking the remote isn't enough!

Played some of the unlocked minigames after completing it, and worked through the "bonus" Orbulon and Crygor levels, as well as the first Elephant bonus thingie.

Oh, and Jimmy T's dancing cats FTW.

Eledees (Wii)

What what what? Eledees has boss levels?

Clearly yes, yes it does. Thankfully, the first one I came across wasn't actually too difficult. In fact, it was very easy and I caught all the Fantasia inspired splitting eledees with minutes to spare. Ace!

And now I've progressed a bit further. It's getting a bit difficult now with all the things I can't do (make noise, drop things, get hit by tanks and guns - no, really - and accidently shoot black spiny eledees), and I failed a level set in the kitchen due to the spiny eledees constantly getting in the way of my gun. Bah.

Crackdown (360)

Los Muertos killed! All of them! All gone!

Was actually pretty easy too, as I found a way into the kingpin's mansion area where no-one could really shoot me but I could shoot him. Oh, and the rocket launcher I'd found elsewhere helped somewhat too...

As well as that, I'm well over 250 agility orbs in pocket now, and even managed to scale the Agency Tower, despite it making me feel ill half way up and looking up even further. Urgh. At least it got me two achievements - one for getting up there, and another for jumping off and into the water.

Crackdown (360)

And again with the loon jumping. Lots of it too. I'm up to 180-ish Agility Orbs now, and have killed all bar one of the remaining Los Muertos generals. I've also explored a load of the Volks territory, and killed one general there.

I also jumped around like, you know, an actual loon.

Crackdown (360)

More jumping around like a loon today! I don't think I even went near any of the generals, spending all of my game-time searching for orbs and chucking things around a bit. I've got about 140 of them now, but only found another two or three hidden orbs.

Eledees (Wii)

More New Game fun and frolics today! I seem to have had a huge pile of new games arrive in the last few days. One of those that came today was this - Eledees. For some reason, it's called Elebits everywhere else, but not in Europe. Strange.

And it's great. Really great. Although very different to Katamari, playing it feels remarkably the same. You point at things in a house, shake them, move them, etc. and find Eledees. These provide you with power, and when you have enough, you can operate electrical devices. This, in turn, provides you with Power Eledees, which you collect and, if you obtain enough, you're rewarded with the ability to lift and move heavier items - thus revealing more hidden Eledees. And so it goes on.

So far, I'm on Chapter 7 or 8, and haven't had too much difficulty yet. I've progressed out of my bedroom, through my parent's bedroom, the bathroom and the landing. I've completed the kitchen, and also the dining room and lounge.

I'm kind of hoping that as things progress, eventually I'll be able to light the huge ferris wheel I've seen a few times!

Crackdown (360)

Yes, I bought it. It was absurdly cheap at Play Asia, so it was rude not to, really. Besides, I had previously changed my mind on the demo having realised it was 28364 times more fun to play if you leapt about like a loon rather than played it as a serious third-person shooter.

Anyway. So far, I've leapt about like a loon a lot, found about 60 agility orbs, 5 hidden orbs (and know where two more are, but can't reach them yet), shot loads of Los Muertos baddies, killed two generals (I think they're called generals, anyway), and jumped around like a loon.

Haven't found a use for vehicles yet though. Jumping everywhere (like a loon) is way more fun.

Assorted PlayPal Games

I have a PlayPal. It arrived today. Basically, it's a handheld console with a load of (licenced) 8-bit Sega games built in. You can even connect it to a TV (or in my case, my lovely new Dell 2407 monitor) and play it on the big screen. Ace.

So I've not really put any proper time into it yet, but I have had a few goes on some of the games: Alex Kidd in Miracle World, Snail Maze (yes, that secret game built-in on some Sega Master System consoles), Fantasy Zone, Fantasy Zone: The Maze and Sonic Triple Trouble.

It's a lovely machine, but the sound and screen brightness are both somewhat weak. I suspect this may be due to the crappy batteries I found (it takes three AAAs), and I've not had chance to try any others yet. Of course, on the TV everything is just ace.

Catan (360)

I actually got to play online! Hurrah! It took AGES of waiting about in the lobby for others to join though. Finally had four players, although one quit instantly.

And then, as soon as someone was two points ahead, someone else quit. Idiot.

However, I did finish the game with the remaining player (a German guy) staying in right to the end, even though it was clear he had no chance of winning for the last 20 minutes or so of the game. So well done for him for sticking around anyway!

Sadly, one of the (moderate) AI players won, having two secret Victory cards meaning although I thought I was winning, I obviously wasn't. Bah. I only needed one more Ore card and I'd have won.

Wario: Master of Disguise (DS)

Yes. The reviews are a little off-putting, but I'd tried the Japanese version a while ago and enjoyed it, so I bought the US version a while back and it arrived today.

It's better than I remember, mainly because I actually some idea of what is going on. Wario enters TV programme, steals magic wand owned by master thief, become a thief himself, and can transform using different disguises that give him different powers.

So far, I have the thief disguise, the laser astronaut one, the artist one, and the genius one. Puzzles so far haven't been that difficult, although the having to swap clothes (done through drawing shapes on the screen) several times in quick succession is a bit of a pain. I've completed the first two episodes, both on the ship, and killed both bosses.

Pretty good so far!

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (360)

I can't seem to stay away from Cyrodiil, can I? I had given it a break for a couple of weeks as the Shivering Isles expansion apparently introduced a bug that corrupted item drops, inventories and all sorts, so I was waiting for a fix. That fix came in last week, so I continued my quest to scale the ranks of the Dark Brotherhood!

And blimey. What a nasty job was next! Lucien Lechance ordered me to slaughter the everyone in my sanctuary. Yes, the lot. All because one of them may be a traitor. Bit drastic, no?

So I killed them all, which was easier than expected as even killing one in a room full of others went completely unnoticed. I did stop the killing briefly to finish an open quest one of my victims had given me (to find his Shadowscale brother and kill him) before finishing them all off. One had done a runner to Leyawiin too, which was a pain as they were wandering round in plain view for hours. In the end, I trapped them behind a tree, and murdered them in secret. Ace.

Then it was back to Lucien, who promoted me to Silencer (Achievement Unlocked!) and gave me a scary black horse with eeeviiil red eyes. Called Shadowmere. And who appears to be indestructible. He then gave me another task (via a dead drop) to kill a necromancer who was trying to turn himself into a lich. All I had to do was pickpocket him and steal his hourglass, which killed him. Easy!

Now I'm in Chorral, and have visited another dead drop which has told me to go and slaughter an entire family. Nice.

Wing Island (Wii): COMPLETED!

"Whaaat?" I hear you say, oh dedicated reader, "But you've never mentioned this game before - how could you possibly have completed it already?".

Well, you're right. I haven't mentioned it before, because I only bought it four hours ago. I started playing three hours ago, and completed it about half an hour ago. Oh yes.

Firstly, impressions: it's fun. The graphics aren't great, but they're not awful and are certainly functional. The controls are excellent, using just the remote and buttons to fly your plane(s) and perform aerial acrobatics with relative ease. The missions are surprisingly varied, from "pop balloons" to "catch cows" to "photograph whales", but strangely for a flying game, there's no shooting.

Anyway, so I still have some unlocked missions to do, and scores and times to improve, but basically I've completed the things necessary to complete the game, and have seen all three islands, bombed rocks, freed an airship from sky pirates, and put out fires on a cruise ship. It was short, but fun. I'll almost certainly be mopping up the rest of the missions anyway.

Guitar Hero II (360)

OH. MY. LORD. Not only did I manage to complete a track on Hard mode, but I then went on to complete FOUR more afterwards! To you rock gods, this is like walking and talking, but to me it's like flying and shooting lasers from my eyes. Amazing!

And I also completed a couple more bought tracks on Medium, finding them alarmingly easy in the process.

Catan (360)

I'm still struggling to get games working online. I can't even join lobbies half the time. Tch.

It's a good job, then, that the offline mode is so great. Played through twice this evening, once on Easy and then again on Moderate, winning both times. I avoided the can't-make-roads problems of previous games by ensuring I had access to a steady supply of bricks and lumber from the off, but in the Moderate game my opponents kept putting the soldier on my bricks square (uh, hexagon) preventing me from getting any.

But I won, so it doesn't matter! Got me another achievement too.

Centipede and Millipede (360)

Aha! Mr The Rev is DEFEATORIZED on the Centipede score table! Only just, though. My new score of 32,000-ish also puts me 81st in the world. Which isn't too shabby.

Had a go on "Throttle Monkey" mode then, which is basically the same, only you need 15,000 points to get an extra life instead of 12,000. Oh, and the game plays 6000% faster, making my score of 5,600 hard fought.

Things did not go well for me on Millipede either. I managed to beat my previous score, but sadly not The Rev's. I did get an achievement for having three lives 'in hand' though.

Centipede and Millipede (360)

But mainly Centipede. There's not a huge difference in one game to the other, with Millipede offering more baddie types, but the same basic game.

I don't really know why I bought this. I don't really like shooters (as I keep saying, but then, look at Geometry Wars, Mutant Storm, Time Pilot, Galaga, et al...), but I have fond memories of an old Spectrum clone of Centipede called, predictably, Spectipede. And it was on XBLA at that magic I'll Buy Anything For 400 Points price point.

Anyway. The only other person on my friends list who seems to have bought it is The Rev, and he is doing considerably better than me on the score tables. I did get one achievement, at least!

Catan (360)

Had another run through on Easy today, and won without much difficulty - even if Ore cards were somewhat had to come by (only one player could actually pick them up, and only if an 11 was rolled). Unlocked a couple of achievements along the way as well. I was going to try playing online, but didn't bother in the end as for some reason everyone on my friends list who was playing Catan stopped the moment before I was going to invite them. Tch.

Catan (360)

I spent very many minutes trying to actually get online and play this today. Someone on my friends list invited me, but it wouldn't let me join. I invited him, but he didn't get the invite. I found someone else I knew hosting, and it wouldn't let me join. I hosted, and people joined, but it wouldn't let me start the game. I joined random people's games, and it wouldn't let them start either, and on the one occasion when they could, they got disconnected almost instantly. Pah.

So I played offline instead, on Moderate difficulty. It's certainly harder than Easy (well, duh), but it also takes quite a lot longer to play. I was on 8 points after 40 minutes or so, but then something came on TV I wanted to watch and the game won't let you save and quit, so I had to just quit.

Catan (360)

Due to technical reasons (that allow you to unlock the full game for free), the trial version of Catan (which I really should stop mentally adding "The Forever Man" to the end of) wasn't available to download today. So I thought, bugger it - it's only money! And bought it anyway.

And I'm glad I did, as it's great! Imagine a cross between Civilisation and the card game Rummy, with added board game Hotel. No, I'm serious. You have a hexagonal board, where you obtain resources depending on where you've got settlements and the roll of a dice, then you trade your resources with others, and build roads and more settlements and cities with them, which nets you even more resources.

I played through the "learn as you play" mode, and won after about 40 minutes play. Ace!

42 All-Time Classics (DS)

Played this two-player with my wife for a bit, until my DS battery started to run out. First up was 301 darts, which ended in quittage as neither of us could hit the required finisher.

Then, dominoes in "5 Up" mode. I won, but although I was miles ahead when I reached 35-ish points, somehow by 50 there was nothing much in it.

Mutant Storm Reloaded (360): COMPLETED!

It seems I hadn't actually completed this previously. I thought I had, but it seems I'd only reached level 60-something. Obviously, I then had to do something about that!

So I did, and lo, I completed it. Level 87 seemed to be the hardest one in the whole game (I died completely there several times), with 89 being mercifully easy (I didn't have any spare bombs or lives at that point). What aceness. I even managed to net two more achievements today. Go me!

After all that excitement, I had a go on Tally Mode, but I'm not sure of the point. You play one level, then stop? Then play the next? But you get scored on a per-level basis? I don't understand why.

Super Mario Bros (Wii)

Back in the day, I completed this zeventyfazillion times. I could do it with my eyes closed. I could do it upside down in a bucket of water. I could do it by shouting instructions over the phone to someone else holding the controller.

Now? I can't get from 8-1 to 8-4 without losing at least two lives, can't get past the water bit on 8-4 at all, and am generally just crap at it.

Clearly, Nintendo have hardified it since the NES era. FACT.

I've left the game saved at the beginning of 8-4 as Super Mario and with two lives remaining. No doubt when I come to continue, I'll fall in the lava pit immediately to my right twice in quick succession.

Castlevania (Wii)

I have decided that this is officially the Hardest Game Ever (except for Game Over on the Spectrum). I'm still getting trounced by the axe armour and medusa head combo en-route to Death. Which is ironic, don't you think?

I did actually make it to Death. Once. But I only had one notch of energy left and one of his sickles materialised exactly on my head, so I lasted less than a second.