deKay's Gaming Diary

So since I last played, I’ve made my way to Windhelm (although didn’t do much there apart from get roped into a quest for an orphan who is a psycho), and then onto Winterhold from there. In Winterhold I joined Hogwarts, and went excavating some ruins or something. Read about zleventybillion books in the college, and then headed back to Whiterun for a bit.

I then realised that somewhere along the way, I’ve lost Lydia. No idea where, but I think the last time I saw her was when I was attacked by a dragon. She’s probably dead, but there’s no way of knowing if she is, or if it’s just a bug or something. Oh well.

I then went over to Riften, via a few mills and villages, and got attacked by a lot of bears and spiders. In Riften I completed a couple of quests, including killing the evil orphanage ruler for PsychoBoy, and now I’ve been given The Black Hand note. I think this is going to kick off the Dark Brotherhood questline.

I think I’ve also started a Thieves’ Guild one too, having stolen a ring and planted it on someone, as requested by some other guy in Riften.

I also now have 986289150962357 open quests. I will complete them all. YES.

Finally: I have no idea what I’m doing in the primary story quest any more. Or even which quest is the primary story quest.

At last, I’ve been able to get hold of a version of VVVVVV I can actually play! Yeah, I could have played it on the PC, but PC gaming is such a tedious chore I really couldn’t be bothered. I decided to wait (and wait, and wait) for the UK release on the 3DS, and here it is. Pretty sure the US got it months ago. Tch.

Is it ace? YES.

Is it hard? OH GOD YES.

Look at my game record just there. 446 deaths. 446! And most of those were in the same section of the game – the “Doing Things The Hard Way” section. But, with perseverance, I managed to rescue my whole crew and complete the game.

Yes, I still have 6 (actually, 5 now since that screenshot) trinkets left to get, but I’ll get to them, I’m sure. Once completed, I then went on to play (and complete) Notch’s VVVV 4K version of the game (which, along with a load of other versions and modes is included), which was also excellent. And not as hard, thankfully.

Well looky this. Another PS3 game. My PS3 must think it’s Christmas or something. Little does it know I’m euthenising it come Boxing Day. Ho ho ho! Not really.

If you’ve ever seen anything about 3D Dot Game Heroes, you’ll have noticed it bears more than a passing resemblance to Zelda. Albeit in fancy 3D block pixel form, anyway. Surely it doesn’t play like Zelda though? That would be a bit brazen.

Oh. It plays like Zelda too, and not just a bit: EVERYTHING is Zelda. The sound effects. The music. The plot. The baddies. The overworld. The dungeons. The weapons. Sure, some of the save features are a bit different, and of course the graphical style isn’t quite Zelda (although there have been many different styles in the Zelda series so it could just be another one…), but it’s Zelda in everything but name.

I even nearly called my hero “Link”.

It’s not just a clone of Zelda either. It even references Zelda directly in dialogue. The king gives you a sword, telling you it’s dangerous to go alone. A man in a cave says “it’s a secret to everybody!”, and so on. Brazen. Brazen!

There’s non-Zelda humour too, like in another cave where all the From Software (the game’s developers) folks hang out. There are also numerous references to Demon’s Souls, and how hard it is.

Of course, I’ve actually been playing it as well. I’ve got two pieces of Triforce^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^HOrb of Light (or whatever), and am near the dungeon where the third is hiding. It’s been great so far, if a little easy.

Back in the day, I must have completed this a billion times. It’s not a hard game, but there’s something very satisfying about nuking the enemy before they’ve even had a chance to build any catapults.

WE’VE NUKED THEM!

So that’s what I’ve done a lot this week. That, and cornering the enemy in a useless sector of the map, with nought to defend themselves and no resources to create anything, before slaying them horribly with four pikemen, a cannon, and 150 jet fighters.

WE’VE WON!

Also, Mega-lo-Mania is the best source of soundbites ever. “We’re running out of elephants” (actually elements, but the quality isn’t great), “No I don’t think so” (in a super-camp voice) and “Towwer cwitical!”. Awesome.

Completed it overandoverandover this week. And not once did any of the CPU players manage to hibernate any men for the final battle. Tch.

I don’t know why I’ve been playing this throughout the week. I didn’t touch it when I downloaded it for free last year as part of the Nintendo 3DS Ambassador Programme. Not because it isn’t any good, because it’s great, but just because I have so many other things to play.

Anyway, I finished it today. I was surprised how many of the tracks I still remembered – even those that haven’t resurfaced on later Mario Kart games. Strangely, though, some of them’s very existence seems to have been wiped from my brain. Sky Garden? I was convinced that was a Konami Krazy Racers track. Yoshi Desert? Er, don’t remember that.

Oh yeah, and once I’d completed it I realised that I’d never used the jump button (there’s a jump button?!). Oh well!

Unlike previous Bethesda RPG titles for the 360, which I had to get IMMEDIATELY, even paying through the nose for the special editions (£70 for Fallout New Vegas? YES.), I couldn’t warrant the £120 the Skyrim special edition was. Especially since the vanilla versions of all the other games were down to £15 two or three months after release. I was still excited, though, even if the price barely dropped.

And so it came to pass, that last week I bought some cheap games from one shop, took them straight to Game to trade in for £10 for more than I paid for them, and walked out with Skyrim for a net spend of £17. Bargainlicious.

Is it good? No. It’s awesome.

I was a bit concerned that, after Fallout and New Vegas, I wasn’t going to get on with the lack of VATS combat, no guns, and no excellent 1950s radio station. I mean, I loved Oblivion, but things have moved on. Thankfully, it has been nothing but amazing so far. The combat is fine. Dual-wielding magic and swords feels great, and picking every flower, berry and mushroom is a wonderful return to Oblivion OCDness. I don’t even need them as I’m not really going the alchemy route. Not yet, anyway.

What I am doing is trying to stick to the main story. What I’m also doing is failing this, having deviated to find some dragon claw or something at some old Nord temple just 50 minutes into the game. Oh well.

I’ve slain my first dragon, learned some Words of Power (shouting at things can kill them? uh…) and done lots and lots of turning iron daggers into fine iron daggers. Oh yeah, I’m a blacksmith as well as a magician swordfighter who can destroy by shouting. Lovely.

Oh, and the Nord accents? Utterly superb in their rubbishness. Some of them are the worst Norwegians ever! It doesn’t matter, of course.

To begin with, Fez is a Cave Story-looking 2D platformer. Then, about 5 minutes in, a thing happens and suddenly everything is 3D. Sort of. It’s still 2D but with four 2D planes, each mapped to the sides of a cube which you can freely rotate.

Then it becomes a different sort of platform game, which is more puzzley (you have to figure out how to rotate the playfield to progress), and somewhat explorey as you search for  cubes and bits of cubes which eventually open doors.

As you wander the game world, which is mostly lovely with bouncey-bright colours and blue skies and stuff, you take in the architecture. The markings on the walls. The pictures and posters in the rooms. Then you realise – they’re not just for show. They’re telling you things. Secret things.

In fact, there’s a whole alphabet to decipher, a counting system, and even a set of shapes that correspond to buttons on your controller. Figuring these all out, and what to do in certain rooms with these clues and others, is where the real game is. Getting 32 cubes and seeing the end? That’s just platforming. Exploring and getting 100% is a totally different game, with a different way of playing and even a different set of rules and ways of looking at things. Two games in one, pretty much.

It’s funny too, and filled with references to other games. One of the areas of the game is all original Gameboy monochrome too, and accessed via a pipe. The way your hypercubeic guide says “Hey, Listen!” in a homage to Navi was great as well.

Getting the first 32 cubes to complete the game, like I did today, is fun and mostly simple. There’s no real fear of death (you always respawn instantly on the last solid platform you were on), so you don’t have to worry about pixel-perfect jumps. There’s nothing especially tricky, and you don’t even hit many puzzles before the end sequence. After that, in New Game+ (where you restart the game, keeping everything already gained and with the map kept as “open” as before), the puzzles and real quirky stuff starts properly. I’ll certainly be trying to get 100% in this, as it’s fantastic.

Sadly, the game is tinged slightly with silly bugs and performance issues. It’s too easy to “fall out” of the world, especially inside rooms. Moving from area to area is often really jerky, and the sound frequently breaks up. It’s easy to get stuck in a “death loop” where you respawn in an area that instantly kills you, and at least twice I got killed by acid at the same time as being sucked into a black hole, which hangs the game. Still, you never lose more than a few seconds progress, so it’s just a bit disappointing when the rest of the game is so very, very good.

Another round-up post, I’m afraid!

Batman: Arkham City (PC)

Despite the hassle it is to set up (all those cables and adapters and begging Windows to let audio go out the HDMI port please), and the fact it’s a PC game, I’m still enjoying it. It feels like driving a car when you know one of the wheels is going to fall off at some point. You enjoy the ride, but are on edge that at some point you could well end up in a ditch on your roof.

I’m also finding that, even though the world is clearly much more open than in Arkham Asylum, and obviously massively bigger, the game feels much more linear and is apparently just a set of fetch quests. There’s no real Metroidvania-ness like in the original either. That said, it is still utterly compelling to play, and I’m really enjoying it. I just feel that if it was on the 360 I’d be enjoying it even more!

In terms of progress, I’ve just completed the terrible, terrible trials bit given to me by Ra’s al Ghul (the only bad bit of the game so far, really).

The Sims 3 (3DS)

Look. It was £8 in Sainsburys. We shall say no more.

Except that it’s still fun setting fire to your house, calling the fireman, waiting for him to enter the house, then getting rid of all the doors.

Super Pokémon Rumble (3DS)

Still shallow. Still fun. Getting a little bit hard now, too. Especially since I was defeated by a boss, and thought – no way can I beat him. Only to find that you’re not supposed to yet and it’s all part of the story.

Motorstorm RC (PS3)

Pretty much the only thing I play on my PS3. It’s awesome. Not done all the tracks yet, but every now and then I sit down and clear a few. It’s getting pretty difficult now though, with a good half an hour on one of the tracks spent not even clearing bronze, let alone anything better!

Zen Pinball (3DS)

I haven’t played this in a while, but have got back into it this week. I’ve purposefully avoided the Shamen table (which was my favourite) to try and improve my scores elsewhere, and have focussed mainly on Excalibur. I think I may have passed a point where I know how to actually play the table now, so I expect great things. Or not.

The Legend of Zelda (3DS)

DAH DAH DAH DAAAAAAH!!

I have no idea why I picked this up last night, but I did. And got as far as the first piece of triforce. It’s lovely.

Rhythm Thief (Demo) (3DS)

I think I may actually use up the number-of-plays limit on this demo. It’s utterly fantastic. It’s like a mix of Space Channel 5, Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan! and Rhythm Heaven, with a sort of Moonwalker/Smooth Criminal vibe. Really, really want the full game. And it’s by Sega?! Hell has frozen over.

The ending of this was much less dramatic than at least the last two Layton games. It didn’t matter, especially since this is a prequel, but I kept expecting something… more. That didn’t happen. Never mind though.

Something else odd was how much easier the puzzles were in this one. I’ve not done them all yet (I think I’ve completed about 105 out of the 155 main ones), but I’m sure that the final few puzzles in the other games have been worth 80 and 99 picarats. Highest here was just 60, and I don’t think I’ve seen any over that yet either – not even the (usually harder) hidden puzzles. I might be wrong, but I certainly didn’t struggle on any.

Aside from two side puzzle ones. Oh my do I hate those. I’m still stuck on the UFO SOS one, but one involving pipes, which could supposedly be completed in about 30 moves, took me over SIX THOUSAND. Urgh. Hate them.

I’ve a few more train and fish (um, that makes sense if you’ve played the game) puzzles left, about half the weekly puzzles, and of course the remaining 50 or so main game puzzles, but as usual I’ll leave them for a while and come back another time.

No, that isn’t a mistake up there. Nor an April Fool, despite the date. I really did say “PC”. Technically, it’s a Mac, but under Windows. Anyhoo.

With a machine capable of playing it, and an offer of Arkham City for £11.60 (when the 360 version is still £20+), and a promise that you can just use a 360 controller and plug it into a TV, I was tempted enough to get it. And yes, all those things work.

I’ll get onto the game in a minute, but even with all the 360-fication of this PC game (controller, “Xbox” Live, TV), it still feels wrong. It doesn’t feel like I’m playing it on a console. I’m not even sure that, graphically, I’m far ahead of the 360 version either. And let us not forget the journey getting here.

Thankfully, the game is great. I wouldn’t say worth it, as I get the nagging feeling I’d rather be playing it on the Xbox, but yes – it’s great. It took a while to click, as I was still in Assassin’s Creed mode, and so took three hours to stop pressing RT to run (it just makes Batman crouch) and pressing the wrong buttons to bring up the weapon (or rather, gadget) selector.

But I’m mostly over that, and swinging round a room, taking out baddies one by one, scaring the bejesus out of those who remain. Lovely. Less lovely are the Catwoman sections, but they’re not too bad as to ruin it. They may yet though – I’m only up as far as finding Mr Freeze.

I was so torn about getting this. I nearly bought the US version simply because it has Professor Layton’s London Life included (the UK version doesn’t), but then I’d have to put up with “Last Specter” (shudder) on the box, and Luke’s US voice, which may cause me to snap something. The obvious solution would be to buy both versions – this for the main game, and the US one for London Life. This may yet happen.

I’m not very far in yet. Just 5 puzzles, in fact (6 if you include the puzzle with the ropes that isn’t a puzzle), but it’s all very familiar so far. Which is good, because I like Professor Layton games

Finally done with this now. I must say, the final couple of hours soured my experience a little, what with the wandering round waiting for money to generate just to get the last few books, and the awful first person sections, and even having done all them there were still no Revelations.

Anyway, that’s pretty much all the non-multiplayer achievements done, aside from a few I really can’t be bothered with (not least because some of them involve playing the first person bits again!), so time to move on to something else, whilst waiting for Assassin’s Creed III…

Never before have I played a game to completion, without any clue as to what the hell I’m supposed to be doing for pretty much the entire duration. And I certainly didn’t expect it to only take an hour to do so. Still – it was an experience, f’shaw.

Here be spoilers:

You start off on a sand dune. You’re some sort of girl (possibly) wearing a scarf. There’s a mountain in the distance which you have to walk to. On the way, you find some flying pieces of rag, which power up your scarf and make you able to jump and glide until the Magic Scarf Energy runs out – after which you need to charge it up again. I think. I’m not entirely sure.

There are what seem like ancient ruins. Sometimes things trigger if you press the Shout A Glyph button near them. There are glowing things that make your scarf longer. Every so often there’s a sort of altar or something which you sit in front of and Kaonashi from Spirited Away appears, nods at you and you get some sort of tapestry story telling you vaguely about the next bit of the game. Probably.

Along the way, other players who you cannot communicate with appear, and you can walk with them. If you walk closely to each other, you recharge your scarves. Apart from that, they seem to serve little purpose.

There are bit of rag, rug, carpet and scarf everywhere. When you “arouse” them by Glyphshouting, they do stuff. Some become creatures, some become bridges, and others just sway or let you jump up them.

You progress through different areas “solving” incredibly simple puzzles, mainly by (again) Glyphshouting at… things. There are a couple of snowboarding sections in the game too, for reasons I don’t understand. Eventually you reach the foot of the mountain and there’s snow and wind and you almost die whilst walking very, very slowly up it.

Then you complete it, and get sent back to the beginning ready to do it all again.

An utterly incomprehensible game, and for that reason I’m going to rate it six and a goose quarks out of lime.

You know, sometimes it would be much easier to just read what the achievements are, and how to get them, before starting the game. Saves hours of repetition after completing the game, if I’d just thought to, say, do a few thief tasks or something at the start and then the achievement would just pop up through normal play. In this case, thief looting. If I’d unlocked it earlier in the game then I could use it to loot 50 guards as I went through the story, whereas now I have to pick fights and carry thieves round with me while I do. Ho hum.

Besides that, I’ve now collected all of the Animus data fragments (thankfully, once you’ve found 50 the other 50 appear on the map), all the Memoir pages, all the books bar those horrifically overpriced ones in Cappadoccia, which I’m now saving up for whilst buying the last few buildings in Constantinople. All the shops are mine, and I’ve finished the Vlad the Impaler’s Prison DLC too.

Awesome.

Dear Ubisoft,

I am a big fan of your historically almost-accurate hood-wearing murderous free-runner simulators, but despite having played your three most recent in relatively quick succession and anxiously anticipating the finale of the “Ezio Trilogy” and its associated Revelations, I was shocked to discover that you seem to have forgotten to include any.

Unless, of course, I have to unlock them by playing this poor Welltris/Mirror’s Edge minigame to completion, which, frankly, isn’t going to happen. Not least because it is the worst thing in all of creation.

Once I’d sat through the 462 minute long end credits sequence, where you name each and every person who ever existed throughout the entirety of time and space, before switching on a random name generator and churning out another 14 billion people who never existed throughout the entirety of time and space, I was still awaiting any form of revelation. But none came.

Unless no revelation was the revelation? How very meta of you!

Anyway. Keep up the good work. I hope to be completing Stabby Hood Tomahawk Man Death III later this year.

Love,

deKay xxx

This is a sort-of sequel to a WiiWare game called, er, Pokémon Rumble. Which I played the demo of, and was impressed enough to consider getting the full game. Until this 3DS version was announced, and I decided to hold fire and get instead.

I saw it cheap yesterday, and picked it up.

And it’s lovely. Sure, it’s shallow and repetitive. I’ve not done much so far other than wander round smacking A and sometimes pressing X to swap pokeymen. You know what though? It’s fun just doing that. Collecting (“befriending”) other toy pokeymen and getting better pokeymen and smashing their cute little faces in.

I’m just about to enter the second Battle Royale now, so not far in yet. I’m hooked though.

Oh Tony, Tony, Tony. Where did it all go wrong? Why, after the utter perfection that is THPS3 did you let your amazing series of amazing games turn into the shambles that is Ride and Shred? Oh Tony! Why have you forsaken me, your most ardent of skateboard game fans? Me, who has completed every single one of your games, before that sorry pair, so many times on so many platforms. I even completed the original game on the N-Gage! The N-Gage!

With THPS HD on the way soon, I was itching for some proper THPS gaming in preparation. So I dug out my Wavebird, a GC memory card, and THPS3, and jammed them all in my Wii.

GLORIOUS GAMING ENSUED. RAPTURE.

I do wonder if THPS3 is actually the best game ever made ever. Ever. Ever.

I started this at the weekend, having found it cheap (and cheap sooner than I anticipated!). For the first couple of hours, I didn’t really like it. It was too different to the previous game, both with the weapons (you have bombs now) and the controls (they’ve shifted stuff from X to Y, and Y to LS), as well as there seemingly being no glyphs, a bizarre Tower Defence section, and no “outside the Animus” bits. Somehow as well, I need to believe that Subject 16 (from the previous games), despite being dead, is still “alive” inside the Animus as some sort of living AI. In fact, not even AI – he’s “real”. Jars a bit.

After a few more hours, though, I’m finding it excellent again. I’ve adjusted to the controls and new weapons (I don’t bother with the bombs), and it’s all become business as usual. Marvellous.

Until I unlocked and decided to do a “Desmond Chapter”. Oh dear.

Who decided that a first person platforming puzzle game would be a good fit squeezed into a third person free-roaming stabby stealth action game? This and the tower defence bits of the main game just don’t fit. Silly.

After walking the ninety billion miles required to get the necessary coins to buy warriors to slap ghosts and demons about a bit, I finally completed Streetpass Quest II. And got a lovely wig for my trouble. Hurrah!

Also: me so pretty.

Short, apart from the absolutely NAILS final level (with surprise boss!), but utterly glorious. It’s something different to any other platformer I’ve played, yet feels like a load of old 16 bit games like Metal Slug and stuff. Fantastic, and well worth £5.40 of anyone’s money.

Yes, the original Super Mario Bros.

Yes, I’ve completed it before. Lots of times. But I’d not completed it for a while (how did it get harder?!) and certainly not on the 3DS, where I’d barely played it. So today I completed it. And very lovely, and hard, it was too.

This is not the time or the place to bring up that I said I wasn’t going to buy it. Nor is it the time or the place to say I played and completed the 3DS version, which was pants, already. All it is sufficient to do is say this: Mistakes Were Made.

Let us begin with how rubbish the 360 version is. Let us say how many times I ran through walls or fell through the floor and died. This many times: 7. Let us now say how I died once for no discernible reason, by having lots of rings, running along a badnikless corridor, and suddenly the game loaded again and put me back at the most recent checkpoint. Let us also tell you how at one point I couldn’t progress on the Planet Wisp level because even though I had the Rocket Wisp power, pressing Y did nothing, and I had to quit and reload the stage. Let us tell you all these things.

Let us now complain about the Modern Sonic levels. Let us anguish over how, despite being far, far better than most Modern Sonic games previously, they still end up not actually being very good. Even the very best Modern Sonic level (Green Hill Zone) is worse than the very worst (Crisis City) Classic Sonic level.

Let us take a moment to recount the horror that is the requirement to replay bits of previous levels, as “challenges”, just to open up the Boss Gates. Let us try hard to forget the Vector the Crocodile level challenge, for it is the worst piece of videogaming created in the last 25 years. Let us never have to homing attack musical notes while the camera spins like a drunken mouse dancing on a Wonder Stuff LP as it plays, ever again.

Let us burn from our eyes, and especially our ears, the array of beastly chums Sonic has dragged along. Let us hope in the next game when they get sucked into a Time Vortex, that time they stay gone forever.

Let us briefly mention how poor the bosses are. Let us also mention how they get worse through the game, and how with all the amazing bosses Sega could have plucked from the Sonic series, they managed to pull exactly none of them into Sonic Generations. And the final boss is a shambling, random mess of polygons and purple with graphical glitching and seemingly irrelevant controls.

Let us list all of the good things about the game: The music. The nostalgia. Some of the Classic Sonic levels. The inclusion of the original Sonic game. This is all.

Somehow, this version was even worse than the 3DS game. It improved in some ways (Classic Sonic remains Classic Sonic, so the later levels still feel like two different Sonics – this was not the case on the 3DS), but broke it in others (mainly the Boss Gates and the challenge level completion requirements).

Let us say this, however: Sonic Generations is the best home console based Sonic game in years. Given the other games out in that time, though, that’s not really a complement.

Fable III (360)

It seems the best way to make money is to buy all the houses and shops, then just leave the Xbox on all day. So I did that. Now I have over 8 million gold, can pay off all my debts, and progress with the story. In doing so, I’ve revisited Aurora, pilfered a diamond from a cave, bought more shops and houses, and am now on the trail of a white Balverine in Silverpines.

I also changed my gun for a different one, because I realised that being able to do 79 damage was certainly better than just managing 33. Makes a bit of a difference.

Kirby’s Block Ball (3DS)

I’ve not bought a 3DS Virtual Console game in a while, but since I had to add some more money to my account to buy Mighty Switch Force (see later) I thought I’d pick up some. One was this, a Kirby Breakout game where some levels have paddles at the top and sides of the screen, and have baddies wandering round. After reaching World 4, I also realised you could activate Kirby’s powers by pressing B. That would have made earlier levels somewhat easier, non?

Trip World (3DS)

This was another 3DS VC game purchase. The video on the eShop made it look like fun, but I’ve no idea what I’m doing. You control (well, you try to control) a little cute catbunnyblobthing. Thing is, he doesn’t jump very far and there are spikes. I did, through random button mashing, did manage to turn him into a fish (useless) and a thing with big ears (which can sort of fly but then drops to the ground for no discernible reason), neither of which I can reproduce nor were they of any help.

Mighty Switch Force (3DS)

ACEBEST. So good, in fact, I rattled through the first 14 levels in half an hour. Then I found there are only actually 16 levels. This was a bit disappointing. However, I’ve spent over an hour since then and haven’t finished it yet as Level 16 is nuts.

In case you know nothing of the game, it’s a platform shooter puzzle game where the main “gimmick” is you press a button to make blocks move between the foreground and background. You can’t pass them when they’re in the foreground, but you can stand on them, and you don’t want to be moving them to the foreground when you’re standing in front of them. Unless they’re a special type of block. It’s all excellent though, and different to anything that looks vaguely similar.

Shinobi (3DS)

Picked this up cheap from The Game Collection the other day. It’s very much a 2.5D spiritual sequel to the Megadrive “Revenge of Shinobi” game. The graphics are sort of stark and plain, but it’s fun. For some reason it reminds me of the DS launch title Spiderman 2, though. Maybe it’s the graphic style and all the fire.

I’m stuck though. Went on a raft into a cave, then wall-jumped up to a higher level. Now there’s a huge gap to the left too big to jump, and I can’t latch onto the cave roof to get across that way because there are spikes. Hmm.

Samurai Warriors: Chronicles (3DS)

Very much a Mash Y And Sometimes X game, but it’s fun. There’s a hook to get me back in with the RPG elements (leveling up your character, merging weapons to make better ones, and so on) though, and you do have to have a bit of strategy in the game to ensure your allies aren’t overwhelmed by foes and die because you’ve wandered off to cause carnage elsewhere or because you didn’t run to their side when they asked you to. Well worth the £7 Morrisons (yes, them again) wanted for it anyway.

And it was AWESOME.

Many people complained that it wasn’t a proper follow up to Mario 64, with big open worlds and a world “hub”. Some people complained that it wasn’t a proper 2D Mario game, like New Super Mario Bros. And some people complained it was basically just Super Mario Bros. 3 in 3D.

Pff to them all. They’ve clearly not played it, for if they had, they’d realise it doesn’t matter. It’s a new Mario game, close enough to older games to be Mario, different enough to be a new entry into the series. Yes, it has the raccoon suit from SMB3, and even some of the Koopa Kids, and the airships, but it isn’t even close to being like it in any more than a nod in its general direction. Sure, you collect big coins like you do in NSMB, and yes, it’s 3D (as in, you can run into the screen) like Mario 64 – but it’s new. All new.

And anything not new is done differently.

Anyway. It isn’t important what it is and isn’t like, because it’s fantastic. And I’ve completed it, which means I’m about 30% through the game.

Why is this? Well, spoilers! But lets just say that once you’ve beaten Bowser on World 8, there’s a completely separate Special set of worlds that opens up. And, someone else to play through the whole game as. Then I have all the missing coins to collect too. It’s the game that keeps giving!

I’m now King.

That came about far quicker than I expected it to. I’ve not done that many side quests though, which might be why. I don’t know how far from complete this means I now am, but I’m guessing I’m half way there, perhaps?

First things to do as King: decide whether to execute my brother or not (I didn’t), then decide if I’m going to be an evil-for-their-own-good ruler or a loved-but-may-end-up-getting-everyone-killed ruler. This was mainly determined by my decisions on spending the castle funds, and since I went the “good” route, I’m now horribly overdrawn and somehow need to raise not only 6.5 million gold just to “win” against The Darkness (no, not the band), but also the 1.5 million or so I’m overspent by.

Or millions will perish. Sigh.

Now begins a tedious and dull run of making money before I can do the next bit of the story. Who thought that would be a good idea? Oh yeah, Peter Molyneux. Tch.

In other Fable news, I got married before becoming King, had a child (called Dave) and then moved my family into the castle once I was crowned.