It’s Retro Week on ugvm! But, it would appear that I’m out almost every night this week. Thank the lord for a spare hour today, and my OneStation. In case you’ve forgotten, the OneStation is a portable Famiclone, not much larger than a Game Boy Micro. Anyway – the games. First up was Pinbot. I was impressed that the ball physics were much better than I was expecting. Most 8-bit pinball titles are pretty poor in this regard, but Pinbot …
Imagine if Downwell’s graphics were applied to Super Metroid, only you were a cat? That’s Gato Roboto. How could I not buy it then complete it in one afternoon given that description? Turns out it’s really very good too. There’s absolutely more than a few nods to Metroid (there’s one area which even has a similar layout to part of that game), but it’s a lot shorter, a lot easier, a lot weirder (cats in mech suits are just the …
I finally figured out how to fix Pine on my Leopard box! For, well, ever, it hasn’t let me post any news messages to my local leafnode server. Every time I tried, I’d get an error stating my post was rejected due to error 441, which is an invalid error. I eventually tracked down that the actual invalid header was the message-id header, which was being generated as something like: Message-ID: Pine.OSX.4.64.098263998623986.75543@myimac Which is wrong. The bit after the @ …
A bit of a catch-up post this. I’ve played it a lot in the last few days, but haven’t posted. I’m getting quite lax in posting these days, it seems. I’m thinking of packing in the gaming diary entirely and just posting updates on my blog. Maybe. Anyway. I’m now on level 62-ish. I’ve played online quite a bit, both in other people’s gardens, and also opening up my own. I did have one guy come in and ask “tchoutchou?”, …
It was all about the Camellos and S’morepians today. I managed to make more of each resident, then Master Romanced both species. I made a fortune selling the Camellos once I’d done too. I’m now on Level 51, and have wiped my garden almost clean ready for the next species!
Well, we played it for a bit, at least. Got a couple of competitions done (I won both), but then it crashed. And that was it. It no longer plays at all. I put the disc in, the screen goes black, and the 360 freezes. When I take the disc out, it’s marked. If I clean the marks off and try again, exactly the same thing happens and the disc gets marked again. Gah! I think my 360 is knackered.
And I’m now on Level 90. There really isn’t a whole lot left to do, I don’t think. Master Romanced Lickatoads (which I thought I’d done already, but obviously not), and Macaracoons, and also found all the variants for both species. Apparently, 108 is the maximum level you can get to. I have no idea how I’ll get that far with so little else to do, though.
Yes, I know Pinball is generally a high-score based genre of gaming, but Gottlieb Pinball Classics does have a single player Tournament Mode, which is essentially a set of levels. So I’ve taken this as a “story mode” or something, and after many attempts this week, I’ve finished it. There’s a bug in the game though – I’m sure of it. The “points” you gain from each table when qualified and completed are generally in the range of 1-10. For …
Oh shush. Just because I already have 65453435674346 unplayed games doesn’t mean I can’t buy another one, right? Right? So I got this this morning. At first I was confused that a game requiring just three buttons necessitates both the Wii remote and the nunchuk. That’s not a problem, it just seemed a bit odd. Anyway, so I’ve played through Challenge Mode a fair bit, unlocking several tables, but getting stuck on the Tee’d Off table. I’ve also ploughed most …
I’ve decided to keep my pinata species count down to just three: Whirlms, Bunnycombs and Mothdrops. None of them seem especially vicious towards any of the others (although there were a few fights today, and even some between two Bunnycombs), and the garden was much easier to manage as a result. I still had to watch out for Pretztails on the prowl for my Bunnycombs, but since they usually appear at night, and I now have a Bunnycomb house, that …
It’s an explosion of cute, right in your eyes! Despite the fact that Rare haven’t made a decent game in about 10 years, I went ahead and bought Viva Pinata anyway. Mainly for my wife, but also because it’s a bit Animal Crossing-y and Harvest Moon-y and I liked both of them. And it’s great. And cute. I put about two hours into it so far. I started off with a ruined, untidy garden, and some woman called Leafos gave …
I bought a points card today whilst out shopping, so decided to spend some on this. I’d played the demo before and thought it pretty good, and it is. It’s a bit bloody hard though! I’ve managed a few achievements, such as “complete wave 1 without moving” and “complete waves 1-3 in under 45 seconds”, but can only get as far as wave 7, so reaching waves 30 and 100 are likely to not happen…
Wandered around outside as Nico, solving another crate puzzle (or rather, the same one again), and got myself a card. I then went back inside and got it validated, and it was into the basement. Walked through it a little, and then a shadow appeared… …and play swapped to George, trapped in a laundry room. Bashing open the door, I find myself in the basement too. Where George and Nico meet up again. Found Bruno, although Susarro is with him, …
I do love the SteamWorld series of games. And the world they’re all set in. Of course I was going to get this, although my interest was slightly tempered by the fact it’s the first SteamWorld game not made by the core staff of the previous ones. Would that be OK? I’m pleased to reveal, that yes. The style, humour and world have all come out unscathed. The references to other events in the series – particularly SteamWorld Dig 2 …
