Fish! (Spectrum)

I'm stuck.

I've entered the final warp (unless there are more later), and I seem to be in a forest near a smithy. I've figured out that there's a mould in a birdcage in the smithy, and the parrot in the cage is actually a bomb (so you have to let him out and run away). There's a clearing in the forest where a guy called Micky hangs around, but he randomly kills you. He also randomly leaves, meaning you can get the gold disc from the tree stump he's sat on, but then he randomly returns and nicks it and/or the mould from you.

So I know what I need to do (I suspect I have to melt the disc into the mould in the smithy), but I can't seem to get there intact with all the required items without Micky interfering.

NiGHTS (Saturn)

Noes! What went wrong? NiGHTS is supposed to be great, and yet... it wasn't!

I finished the first "dream" for each kid, and killed the first boss on Claris' dream and failed to kill fat bouncy woman on Elliot's dream, but the boss fights were fine - it's the main dream levels that seem to have lost something.

Of course, I wasn't playing with the "3D" (i.e. analogue) pad, which didn't help, but I was just getting overly frustrated with it. I couldn't see the difference between some of the Nightopians and the baddies. I was annoyed that I couldn't tell which hoops were background, and which I was to fly through. I was irritated by the popup and jerkiness. I hated the on-foot controls. All in all, pretty nasty.

But I did get some fun, and with an analogue pad it'd be way easier to control, but this isn't the game I remember so fondly.

Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo (Saturn)

Played this some more with my wife. I realised (or rather, re-realised) what the "Counter Gem" pattern does. It's the pattern of gems that fall on your opponent's screen when you send gems their way. Knowing the pattern your opponent has chosen is handy, and you can actually use it to your advantage by placing gems in places where counter gems will land and match up.

Cunning!

Fish! (Spectrum)

Well, that's another warp done now. I was stuck on the bit with the gargoyle for ages as I didn't know how to get it as wrapping the cord round it and pulling did nothing... until I realised you had to pull it from another location.

Saturn Bomberman (Saturn)

Best Bomberman ever? Of course. It has all the greatness of the SNES incarnations, but with the addition of extra battle maps, characters, and best of all, simultaneous players. Ten, in fact.

Thing is, there was only me and the wife, so ten seemed a bit of overkill. We started with five instead (three CPU players, if maths isn't your strong point), and after a few rounds bumped it up to eight.

However, I eventually set it to wide-mode and the full ten. Oh my. It hurts the eyes even on a proper widescreen 32" TV. God only knows the ocular damage I suffered when younger, playing it on a 4:3 20" TV.

Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo (Saturn)

Probably the best two player puzzle game ever made. Ever. Even better that Puzzle Bobble or Puyo Puyo, in my opinion, and my opinion is Right and Good.

So I played it with my wife this evening, with me winning most of the rounds, and there being rather too many incidents of just-about-to-die suddenly becoming I'M WINNER! Which is always ace.

Digital Pinball (Saturn)

It's still Retro Week on ugvm, and having spent the last few days on NES titles, I thought I'd move over to Saturn games today. First up, the lovely Digital Pinball.

Sadly, the saved games on my Saturn have long since vanished, so I had no high scores to attempt. I launched (see?) straight into the Gladiators table, as it's the best one. "I'm coming for ya, you'd best be ready for me!", "ESS! PEE! QUEUE! ARR!", "MUH-MUH-MUH-MUH-MULTIBALL!" and so on. Aces.

And it is too. More so than I recall, actually. Perhaps that has something to do with having a 32" TV now, and a proper RGB cable instead of the RF one I used to use?

Scores? Well, I managed 915,000,000-ish. I seem to recall I used to get in the region of 4,000,000,000, though. Bah.

Maniac Mansion (NES): COMPLETED!

Oh! I had everything I needed! All I had to do was show the purple tentacle the police badge, and I had access to the main lab, and Dr. Fred, and the big off switch!

Wendy saved, plot foiled, game overed!

Maniac Mansion (NES)

So it seems the water from the pool can be given to the plant to make it grow, and by getting one kid caught by Ed you get a few minutes to raid his room. That helped me progress a bit, and I even managed to get the meteor arrested, and have access to the lab!

However, I can't find an envelope (which I think I need to send this demo tape off), and I can't get into the safe, so I'm stuck again. Bah!

Maniac Mansion (NES)

Isn't the NES great? Well, aside from mine which keeps resetting, anyway. Thank the baby Jesus for my NeoFami, eh? Anyway.

This is another point-and-click adventure that I never completed "back in the day". I thought I'd see how I fared with Man Brains. Interesting Trivia about Maniac Mansion: I first played the game in Germany, on my German exchange partner's C64. He had it on disk, and it took fourtyeightyteen weeks to load. The best bit, was it was all in German, and I kept forgetting the difference between "Gehen" and "Geben". Amazingly, it probably taught me more German than the rest of the trip.

So I picked Bernard the Nerd (I recalled that you need to fix stuff at some point, and he'd be the man for the job) and Syd the Musician (for no good reason). And I've progressed loads. However, I'm now stuck at two points.

Firstly, I can't get into Ed's room. I didn't grab his package in time (I clicked the stamps on it by accident) to I don't think I can coax him out of his room any more. Also, I can't get the plant to grow. I suspect I need the chemicals, but I fed them to the green tentacle earlier. Oh, and I'm not sure how to get the arcade machines working either. I've fixed the wires in the room next to the plant, I think, but there's still no power. Tch.

Shadowgate (NES): COMPLETED!

Never done that before! In fact, I don't think I've ever got further than the Room of Fire With The Firedrake In before now. Mind you, I haven't played it for probably 10 years or more, so I could be putting down my younger self, intelligence-wise.

Some really obtuse puzzles marred it a bit, and the constant burning out of torches (although I found if you don't die, they last longer) was a pain as I felt rushed, but overall it was enjoyable and I feel like I've achieved something in completing it. Not least because I won the King's daughter at the end. Aces!

Fish! (Spectrum)

OK, so it's not on an actual Spectrum. I'm playing Fish!, a text adventure co-written by ex-YS chap Phil South on Fuse, a Spectrum emulator. On my Mac. Yes, it is complicated.

So far, I've become a goldfish (or perhaps I'm a fish all along?), spent ages trying to figure out how not to be swimming upside-down ("turn upside-down" seemed to do the trick), and completed the first of three "warps". How about some screenshots to show you, eh?



Amazing scenes.

Adventures of Lolo (Wii)

I was stuck on one level for aaaaaaages, but then I had a stroke of genius and moved on. I'm on Floor 6 now, on the 3rd or 4th level there. Things are getting a bit tricky, because not only do you have to navigate the "get the hearts" phase, and the "get to the chest" phase, but sometimes you now have to look ahead to the "leave the level" bit - I'd inadvertently blocked myself in a couple of times.

Shadowgate (NES)

I recall that this point-and-click adventure game was hard. Mainly due to the lack of logic in the puzzles, and the try-every-item-on-every-object gameplay.

So far, I've not been stuck, mainly because I can do some of it from memory. However, I don't know how to get past the wraith (I thought it was use the slingshot, but no), so I've saved for now.

Snake, Rattle 'n' Roll (NES)

Ah, Rare. Remember them, back when they were good? Before they'd even started work on Kameo, which was about selventyfourten years ago? When they first became Nintendo game developers? Well, this is the sort of thing they wrote.

Sadly, this hasn't stood the test of time as well as Rescue Rangers. It looks fine, and the music and title screen is great and all, but the controls are terrible. Most of this is due to the floaty way the snakes jump, and the isometric angle. In fact, the angle causes all sorts of jumping problems, especially when you have to jump round corners but can't tell if you're jumping round-and-up, round-and-down, or round-to-your-death. This makes it overly frustrating and not really much fun.

I did reach level 8 though, both properly and using the warp on level 1, but then the NES reset itself again. I switched to using my NeoFami instead of the NES, but the slight speed increase (the NeoFami is 60Hz NTSC, the NES 50Hz PAL) just made things worse so I gave up.

Chip 'n' Dale: Rescue Rangers (NES)

Next week on ugvm (the newsgroup, that is) has been designated Retro Week. In preparation, I fished out my NES and some games. This was one of those I decided to try.

And, it's pretty good. Yeah, it's a standard platformer, but there's nothing wrong with is so far as I can see. Well, aside from the nasty limited continues and the go-back-to-the-start-of-the-level when you continue thing, but that's normal for games of this era. I reached the first end of level boss, but then my NES decided to reset itself. Tch.

Adventures of Lolo (Wii)

Just a brief play on this today, managing to complete another three or so levels. No real problems as yet, either.

Earth Defense Force 2017 (360): COMPLETED!

Well, level 52 threw pretty much EVERYTHING at me - every type of baddie yet seen (aside from the huge walker and dino-mechs), all at once, and then sent in a second wave just as I thought it was all over. But I managed it, after a few attempts, and then it was finally time to take down the mothership. And take it down I did.

Of course, it seems the whole of the rest of the world has been totally destroyed, and virtually every EDF soldier is now dead (aside from Storm 1, of course), so I'm not really sure what that achieved. But anyway - completed!

And, just for fun, I then tried the first level on Easy (and it was a walkover), Inferno (impossible, as even the drone ants take two full rifle clips to kill - each, and two hits from their acid makes me die) and then Hard (which was easy).

Earth Defense Force 2017 (360)

The war has certainly turned. Every level is now a mop-up of all the baddies I've previously had to retreat from, and some new super-giant giant spiders and flying ant things sent out as a last resort by the Ravagers. And lots, and lots, of things to kill at once. Fahsands, in fact.

And I'm up to level 52. Just this and the next level remain. EDF! EDF!

Or something.

Earth Defense Force 2017 (360)

Yet more giant ant/spider/robot destruction today. Considering how repetitive the game sounds, it's amazing how different each level can be. In one, you'll be in narrow caves full of ants and a flamethrower is a must, and then the next, you'll be in a city shooting down UFOs whilst avoiding spiders on the ground.

It's really rather addictive. So much so, in fact, that I'm now up to Level 40 after some extended play this evening.

Adventure of Lolo (Wii)

Next week on ugvm (the newsgroup, not the magazine) is Retro Week. I've decided. So, in preparation, I downloaded this from the Wii VC library. I vaguely remember playing it once before, and, in fact, I thought I owned it for the NES, but perhaps not.

It's a bit like Sokoban, only with less pushing and more baddies. Sort of. The idea is to collect all the hearts on the screen, which activates a treasure chest, and you reach that to open the door to the next screen. But you have to navigate the screen "mazes" in certain ways, avoid things, and try not to block yourself in.

It's actually pretty good. Anyway, I reached level 3-5 (I don't know how many there are in total, but there's 5 on each "floor") without too much difficulty.

Earth Defense Force 2017 (360)

Still delving deeper and deeper into this abyss of insects. Only completed two levels though - the one where you start of surrounded (the trick is to dive into a tunnel, flamethrower-first, and turn around), and the one after it. I'm still only 10% complete on the game though. How many levels are there in this thing?!

EDIT: Oh, 53.

Band of Bugs (Demo) (360)

It's Final Fantasy Tactics! Only with insects! Sort of!

Played the first few levels of this, and it certainly looks like the sort of thing I want to pay for. Ace.

Project Sylpheed (Demo) (360)

Rubbish.

The end.

Earth Defense Force 2017 (360)

Aha! Killed them! It seems that rockets are mostly a waste of time on the Hectors, as rifle fire can actually stop them charging their lasers. The upshot of that was me getting past that level.

I had a level full of red ants at the beach then, which was easy. I actually completed the level three times as the armour drops were plentiful and I made use of them. Then, more ant/red ant/spiders in the city with nests to blow up, and finally back into the giant caves full of insects.

Earth Defense Force 2017 (360)

SPIDERS! Big spiders that hop and fire webs! And go splat when you shoot them!

And then! A HUGE walking spaceship thing. And I mean HUGE. It has to be the biggest moving thing I've seen in any game ever. The graphics, especially in terms of how much is going on at once, are waaay better than I previously thought. No wonder my character looks crap and the buildings are bland when there are ninezwelftyten thousand hunter killers and Hectors and this giant walker and explosions and bullets and rockets and laz0rz and everything all going on at once with virtually no slowdown.

And! I killed a load of ants and spiders in a nest, and then killed a bit metal plated dragon! And flew a helicopter!

I'm stuck now though, on another level full of hunter killers and Hectors and a walker. Too hard, suddenly.

Earth Defense Force 2017 (360)

Hector.

Giant great robots with gunz and laz0rz and stompy feet wot squash you. And they're called Hectors. Jesus.

Anyway. Killed a load of them, then a load more, and then it was into a nest of ants, rapidly followed by a retreat. Tch, EDF cowards!

Forza Motorsport 2 (360)

Still plugging away at this. Decided to upgrade my Porsche 914 to the heady heights of Rank A, with a PI of 834 currently. I can't see how to push it any further, unless a new engine (and then starting again with the upgrades associated with it) will help.

Anyway, with that car I then took part in a couple of races, before deciding up up the opponent AI from Medium to Hard. Where "Hard" means "Cheating", clearly. Suddenly, C and D rank cars both accelerate faster and reach higher top speeds than my high-end A rank Porsche. CHEATING.

And my auction fell through, as no-one had bought it. BOO and HISS.

Put it back up with a reduced buy price and starting price, and dumped a few unwanted prize cars up too.

Oh, and here's a picture of my green and red Trueno:

Forza Motorsport 2 (360)

Bought myself a heavy car, and finished off the Proving Grounds races. I've also upgraded some useless car I'm been given to make it S rank, given it a red and green paint job, and stuck it on the auctions to see if I can make a profit. I'm guessing not.

Completed a few more races in the other serieseses too.

Pac-Man CE (360): COMPLETED!

Went after the final achievement to finish off the game this evening. I needed to get 400,000 points, and had been informed that Extra 3 was the mode to choose to do that. And indeed it was, as I managed it on my first attempt, reaching 448,000 with some ease.

So that's all the modes survived, and all the achievements got. Winnar!

Forza Motorsport 2 (360)

Plowed through more races today. I'm alarmed to see that not only have I not lost a race yet, but I haven't actually finished in any position other than first. Even after crashing. Hmm.

In an effort to improve the credits I get for each race, and to make it a little harder, I had a tweak with the difficulty settings, and now I don't get any penalty for easiness. Not that it's made much difference. In fact, since changing that, I've have the achievement for winning a race a whole race section ahead of everyone else.

Anyway. I've done all the races in the Proving Grounds now (having to buy an American car - I plumped for a Ford Focus - to enter some of them) except for the final series. I need a heavy car to do that, and since the required weight is about 1750kg and my heaviest car is only 1450kg-ish, and I can't afford or haven't unlocked anything heavy enough, I'm stuck there.

So I entered a few amateur races, hoping they'd be a bit harder. But they're not. My current car of choice (the Focus, which I've tarted up now) is up to Class A, so thrashes everyone else who is still C or D.

Tried playing online again, but still no joy finding a race with low enough cars, and setting one up myself resulted in someone joining, saying "What? No S? Weak", then quitting.

Forza Motorsport 2 (360)

Plowed through more races today. I'm alarmed to see that not only have I not lost a race yet, but I haven't actually finished in any position other than first. Even after crashing. Hmm.

In an effort to improve the credits I get for each race, and to make it a little harder, I had a tweak with the difficulty settings, and now I don't get any penalty for easiness.

Dead or Alive Xtreme 2 (360)

What a no-game this is. As in, there's no game. I did expect this though, having the first game already, but this is just more of the same with added jetskis.

I'm on Day 6, and so far, I've done: nothing. Well, I've played volleyball a few times, and got annoyed at the controls, lack of control, and the camera. I've played the arse fighting game, which is rubbish. I've played the pool hop game, which is impossible as I don't know which button is which on the controller. I've played the casino games, most of which are limited versions of real casino games (you can't discard cards in poker, for instance). I've been down the water slide, and not made it to the bottom yet. I've raced the jetskis, only to find the water to be the worst water in a game ever and the racing to be far to easy. Oh, and I've taken photos, badly. And bought stuff.

But I still say, I've done nothing.

Forza Motorsport 2 (360)

Despite only being dispatched at 3.30pm today, this had arrived in this morning's post. Amazing.

Now, I didn't think a lot of the demo, but since Gamestation had the full game on offer for £15 (if you bought any other 360 game), it seemed silly not to get this and Dead or Alive Extreme 2 together for £30. £10 cheaper than getting Forza 2 on it's own.

And I'm glad I did, because it's great.

I've played through about half of the "Proving Grounds" races, having bought a Mini and using that until I won a Porsche. This Porsche, in fact, which I customised:



Yes. It does look rubbish.

Best of all, was what happened 45 seconds after taking those pictures:



Bah.

I then watched a race online, and tried to play online but couldn't find a single race with cars in a low enough class for me to have a chance. My best car is still only Class B, and every race was full of S or U cars. The same thing happens in just about every online racing game, sadly.

Second Life (Mac)

I stumbled across this just now and found there was a Mac version. Downloaded it then, and played it for about half an hour.

Um, am I missing the point, or can you do nothing but chat and walk round a tiny island?

And why is everyone naked?

Earth Defense Force 2017 (360)

Since it was my birthday a month ago, I got this from my brother today. Bless.

And... it's good. Virtually every level is "kill giant ants!", and the graphics, animation, voice acting, sound effects, music and slowdown are all horrific. But it doesn't seem to matter. As well as kill lots of giant ants, I've killed some Hunter Killers, seemingly stolen from Terminator, some ant-carrying UFOs, and more ants.

I'm only on level 9 or so, but have spent almost an hour and a half on it so far with just 3% complete. Amazing.

Pac-Man CE (360)

Crown Get!

Someone on rllmuk tipped me off that Extra Mode 2 was the best one to try for the Crown, and lo, he was right. On my first go I got loads of them! Managed a score of 381,000-ish too, so I was prompted to keep trying for a 400,000 score, but every further attempt just got me less and less. With my final go I just scraped 92,000. Weak.

Prince of Persia Classic (Demo) (360)

This was new up on XBLA today, so I had a go of the demo. It's good. In that it's faithful to the original (with new graphics and slightly easier gameplay), but I never really liked the original all that much as it was too hard.

As a result, I'm a bit confused as to whether I should buy it or not. If it was 400 points, then yes - I'd give it a go, but at 800 and with reservations? I'll pass, I think.

Canis Canem Edit (PS2)

Tim has been playing this recently, and it reminded me that I'd bought it a while ago but not actually started playing it yet.

So I started playing it. Yet.

Or at least, I tried, but it was a good half an hour between turning the PS2 on (having removed the inch of dust covering it) and actually doing some proper "game" as the intro and chat takes ages.

Anyway. I've started school. My first two lessons were Chemistry and Art, gaining me the abilities to make firecrackers and get kisses from teh laydeez in return for chocolates and/or flowers. I beat up a load of bullies, played the arcade game in the boys' dorm, threw firecrackers at girls, and had a sleep.

The next day, I beat up a prefect (and was busted), took my English class (and passed), and beat up some nerds. I then followed some guy to the "auto shop" which was neither a shop, nor containing any "autos", and was ambushed by some bullies. Beat them up, then chucked bricks in the face of the one I chased, and gained a catapult. Used that to shoot some rats, made some more firecrackers, skived my afternoon lesson, and finished the day in bed.

So far: Not bad. The PS2 pad is making me cry (especially the Chemistry "rhythm game" as I don't know the location of any of the buttons on the pad), and the jaggy graphics actually hurt my eyes a little, but it's not a bad game. Yet. I can see the lessons really getting in the way of things sooner rather than later, though.

Mario Strikers Charged Football (Wii)

I've come to the conclusion that this is the hardest game ever made. I played a few games online, and lost every since one by at least three goals. Not only that, but I'm incapable of finishing the second (novice!) challenge in Challenge Mode.

Rubbish.

42 All-Time Classics (DS)

My wife has been playing this a lot recently, and it shows. We played two player, and she beat me at everything - backgammon, billiards... everything.

Bah. That's all wrong.

Kameo: Elements of Power (360): COMPLETED!

Dear Rare: Please give me the nine hours and thirty-three minutes I spent on your awful game back. KTNX, love deKay xxx

I have very little good to say about this game. But I'll try. Well, the number of things going on at once is pretty good, but that only adds to the atmosphere, and doesn't change the gameplay. Dull, linear, tedious, surprise-free, awkward gameplay.

Lord Drok (is that his name? Big metal bloke with mallet) was easy, but took aaaaages to kill as he was so awkward. After that, there was an airship level (why do so many end of game baddies have airships?), which was pretty crap. Then, finally, a fight with Thorn. He took ages to kill too, as his energy bar went down reeeeeaaaaaalllllyy sloooooooooooowly. Until I thought I'd actually use some of the fruit I'd been collecting and fed them to Thermite to upgrade his powers. And then Thorn was stupidly easy and died so fast I didn't even get all the cut scenes with Kalus summoning stuff.

And the end was a bit abrupt. It seems to imply a sequel (Jesus, no), as there are loose ends, namely Mystic who just disappeared. Seems to me like instead of finishing the game properly, they just cut it a level short and made it look like they plan a follow up. If they do, it'll no doubt be 2014 before we see it...

As an aside, my Gamescore now stands at 11101. I need to find an achievement to get for 10 points!

Tenchu Z (Demo) (360)

Never really enjoyed the other Tenchu games. Well, not the two I played on the PS1 anyway. I just don't like hide-and-seek simulators, ninjas or no ninjas. Probably explains why I don't like Splinter Cell either.

Anyway. I realised you can skip almost the entire "level" in the demo simply by swimming around the harbour rather than sneaking through the town for leaping across rooftops. So I did that, steath-killed a few people guarding the boat you have to reach, and then got on board.

Some emo-ninja (complete with string vest and gelled hair, nice) killed my mark before I got a chance to, and then I had to fight him. With no energy bar, I couldn't see how dead he was, and after a good 40 or so hits, he still wasn't dead. Then I died. Oh.

Kameo: Elements of Power (360)

Tedious. That's what Kameo is. Tedious.

I've found the old bloke who may be my uncle or grandfather or something now. I'm not really paying too much attention, to be honest, as I now just want the game over and done with.

Pac-Man CE (360)

Challenge Mode 2 WIN! Only with a crap score as I spent most of my time hiding rather than actually trying to eat pellets or ghosts. But I did it!

Had a go at aiming for the Crown too, by playing Challenge 1, but only concentrating on one side of the maze. It didn't work.

Shadowrun (Demo) (360)

I don't really like referring to this game as Shadowrun, because as far as I'm concerned, it isn't. It's a FPS with World of Shadowrun paint. Yeah, some clever ideas to lift it above a generic FPS (magic, teleporting, hovering, etc) but in the end, it's still a FPS.

And I don't really like those. So in all, I found it meh.

Overlord (Demo) (360)

It's Evil Pikmin! Ace!

Played through the demo twice (well, one and a half times - it crashed part way through the first time), killed sheep, destroyed a farm, smashed pumpkins, killed halflings, and beat up a giant troll thing. It's great this!

Kameo: Elements of Power (360)

I can't believe how mediocre this game is. Yeah, Rare have pulled some real stinkers out of the hat before (Grabbed by the Ghoulies anyone?) but this was so hyped, and so long in the making (it was originally a N64 title!) that it's amazing that it was released in this, clearly unfinished, state.

Earlier today, I posted this at rllmuk:

I'm five hours in, and have just done the catapult bit. Having no proper way of rolling the ammo for them was a pain. As was rolling the egg bombs before it. But that's just the most recent set of niggles I've had...

CONTROLS!
Especially aiming controls. Why is it, that Flex/Chilla/Ash/Deep Blue all have different aiming controls? Some use the left stick, some the right. Some you have to hold the trigger to keep aiming, some it's a toggle. Some you have up-is-down, others up-is-up. Gah! In fact, using the triggers for attacks at all is bollocks and makes no sense at all for any character other than Pummel Weed, and even then it wasn't necessary. And Deep Blue in the water is just totally uncontrollable anyway. And pressing LT+RT at the same time to do Kameo's kickflip only works 20% of the time as you jump or hover accidently. The reverse is true for Pummel Weed, as you "box" with LT and RT alternating, and trigger the LT+RT move inadvertantly. Stupid.

GRAPHICS!
It's all in slime-o-vision. Everything looks too shiny, or like it's made of hot wax. There's no continuity with the quality of textures - 99% of the Badlands looks like it hasn't been drawn properly. The "fungus-grass" in caves looks like a 2D sprite, as you can rotate around it and it seems to stay facing you, a-la-Doom corpses. It's impossible to tell the difference between warriors on your side, and trolls, until you're actually punching them. And there's slowdown when you smash crates and stuff sometimes too.

SOUND!
The regional accents are funny for five seconds. Why does the music get all dramatic as you approach the entrance to the Snow Top Mountain area, and then nothing dramatic actually happen? Also, Ortho got in a speech repeat-loop just before I entered the Water Temple. He did his speech about now I had Deep Blue I could enter, then some bystander said something, then Ortho repeated his bit, then he repeated it again, and again, and again, until I actually entered the hole under the waterfall.

TARGETING!
Specifically, Pummel Weed. Can *I* choose who I want to fight, please? The troll right next to me is more important than the troll behind a rock who is fighting an elf.

REPETITON!
How many times do I need to use Pummel Weed to duck under vines? Or Major Ruin to spin up a ramp? Or Ash to light three torches to unlock a door? Or Rubble to chuck rocks in things' mouths?

SURPRISE-FREE!
Every room you walk into, you know what's going to happen. Look! A big round area with lava fountains! I wonder if those fire demons I have to hose down will... oh look! There they are! Oh! I've opened another bit in the Water Temple, and I have to swim round the water area again. I wonder if... yes! There's another boat to destroy! And all the Shadow Trolls are exactly the same! Oh, there's a bomb-egg dragon flying round, I wonder if I'll... Joy! A rock blocking my way! And I'd guessed three seconds after meeting her that the witch lizard woman with the crystal eye would be a baddie, am I right? Don't tell me!

STUPID PLOT DIALOGUE!
Ortho says "Hmm, I'll bet we need to find an Elemental Spirit to help us negotiate this mountain!". How do you know? I've only just got here for the first time ever! "I've just remembered! These plants are called Lickathingies, I'll bet Flex can grab their tongues!". "You'll need to get up there and see if you can find some catapults of our own, and look around for something you can use as ammo!". Wow - what a coincidence - catapults *and* ammo, just standing there! "Horses are scared of villages and castles" - WHAT?

The whole thing seems rushed. Clearly, they've not had much time to spend developing it. Although wasn't it supposed to be an Atari 7800 launch title at some point? I'm not that pleased I paid £7, to be honest. I'd be gutted to have paid £50 at launch.

Naked War (Demo) (PC)

John Pickford, one half of The Pickford Bros, has been shilling this on rllmuk for quite a while now. And, since Parallels for the Mac now supports Direct3D and OpenGL and fancy stuff like that, I could potentially play it on there, so I'm now interested in taking a look.

First though, I thought I'd test it on my PC. Downloaded it, started it up, and jumped into Sandbox Mode. Took three turns, and the game crashed out with a Memory Access Error or something. Bah.

Pac-Man CE (360)

Improved on my score for Extra 1 today, and also finished off Extra 2 and Extra 3. Tried to beat my Challenge 1 score (and failed), and my CE score (and failed), and beat Challenge 2 (and, uh, failed).

Tch, eh?

Pac-Man CE (360)

You know, I never really liked Pac-Man all that much. It was OK and everything, but I wasn't one of those people who could play it over and over trying for better scores and stuff. I rarely touched it in the arcade, and much preferred Pac-Land over the original, which I realise is probably blasphemy.

So why, then, have I not only bought both Pac-Man and Ms Pac-Man from Xbox Live Arcade, but now I've bought Pac-Man Championship Edition too? I didn't mean to. I thought I'd have a quick look at the demo, laugh at its rubbishness, then never play it again.

But I didn't. It's ACE.

It's exactly what a proper Pac-Man sequel should be - the normal game with morphing mazes, chainable ghost eating (pop powerpills in succession before the previous one wears off to keep eating ghosts), and a time-limit to encourage risk-taking for high scores. It is amazing.

Not only that, but there are five more game modes over the CE mode! I "completed" (that is, survived until the time ran out) the CE mode, as well as Challenge Mode 1 and Extra Mode 1. Tried Challenge Mode 2, but the maze walls are all invisible, meaning once you've eaten the dots, it's hard to see where to run. And then the maze morphs!

Excellent.

Kameo: Elements of Power (360)

Blimey, this game is dull. I killed the tree man (saving Uncle ForgotHisName), and then made it back to The Badlands, where I had to kill two tanks using one half of the technique used to kill the tree. Then it was off to Waterfall Place, where I found another Shadow Thing, which I had to kill using the exact same method as the previous two I'd found. I've now got Major Ruin back, in addition to Ash the dragon given to me by Kameo's uncle.

I'm now en-route to the next Shadow Thing, having to light loads of torches on the way. No skill involved, just lots of torches to light. Joy.

Kameo: Elements of Power (360)

"What is this?" I hear you cry, "He's bought Kameo? Even though he has publicly slated it on many occasions, and absolutely hated the demos?". Yes, gentle reader, this is correct.

In my defence, it was only £6.95 and I can't resist a bargain, no matter how crap the item is (see Lady Cruncher). And I thought, it's only fair to actually play the full game if I'm so hard on it.

And oh, was I so right.

OK. It isn't crap. It's just not the flagship launch title Microsoft said it would be. It's reasonably pretty (although you can't help feeling everything is covered with slime, and the distance haze is hiding some technical limitations), but isn't what I'd call "next-gen". Most importantly, however, the controls are broken.

Pressing the trigger buttons to pull off attacks just feels wrong. And as for pressing both together to make Kameo kickflip - no. Just, no. 90% of the time it doesn't work and you end up jumping or hovering instead. And the camera! It just swings around and goes into fixed mode for no reason than to try and show off the scenery, causing you to die. And the targeting! I'd like to choose which baddies I want to punch please, not you, Mr CPU. And the repetition! Yes, working out that you have to use Pummel Weed's duck under things to, uh, duck under vines was great. Having to work it out (or rather, not) for the 357632nd time is not great. Ditto working out about throwing rocks in statue's mouths. Ditto working out how to dispatch baddies hiding under shells. And so on.

Anyway. I've reached the tree boss holding some bloke (my cousin? Uncle?). And guess what? Rocks in the gob! Amazing.

Hour of Victory (Demo) (360)

WWII FPS = yawn.

This one more so than others. I mean, you get three characters to choose from, but only one is capable of opening doors. Cutting barbed wire, yeah - you need the guy with bolt cutters. Climbing a rope, OK, so mad climbingz skillz might be required. But opening a door? So much for realism.

And Germans who spawn right in front of you is hardly realistic either.

Lego Star Wars II (360)

Getting bored with this now. I've got 43 gold bricks, and need 60 to open up Lego City, apparently, but getting there is pretty soul destroying. Basically, I have to redo all the levels I've done previously to get a True Jedi rating, then redo them all again in Free Play (and get True Jedi there too), then redo them all yet again in Super Story mode. And then, if I've missed any Minikits, I need to do the levels again to find them.

I'm all for extra play modes, and the Free Play mode does mix things up a bit, but it's still basically playing the same levels over and over and over and over, essentially killing the fun element of the game leaving behind the flaws. Oh well.

So I did redo Chapters 3 and 6 of Episode IV, found a whole Minikit on one and got another True Jedi thingie, but my soul is being drained somewhat now. I think I need to give the game a break for a bit.

Lego Star Wars II (360)

Played some more this afternoon. Firstly, I had a go in two-player, working though some of Episode IV. My wife was player two. And, there are problems. Not with her, but with the camera forcing one or the other player to be pushed into holes, or behind or under things preventing either player from progressing. In all, it was pretty hard work just to get to the end of the second chapter.

Later, I played through the rest of the Bounty Hunter missions. Managed to complete the remaining nine missions in under 20 minutes in total, so they weren't exactly difficult. Got two more achievements for my trouble, though.

Lego Star Wars II (360)

With the main story complete, I'm mopping up the extras now. First up, was the Super Story version of Episode IV. Which was crap.

It's basically just all the chapter