deKay's Gaming Diary

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.

However ill-advised it was to buy this, it was a(nother) Morrisons bargain and, well, how bad could it be?

It’s actually quite good so far. I’ve not played Fable II, so some of the initial story of this is lost on me. In addition, I have played the original Fable, and this doesn’t really play much like it. At least, it doesn’t seem to. It has been a while though.

So far, I’ve recovered my father’s music box (uh, right), and beaten the mercenaries (sparing their boss, who now seems to be an ally). Mostly though, I’ve been shaking hands with people, holding hands with people and trying to take them to bed, and playing Lute Hero. As you do.

I’m enjoying it, I think.

Goldeneye 007 (it’s important to add the 007, apparently) was another of those games I picked up cheap from Morrisons just after Christmas. I’m not sure why I chose to play it, but I did. And it was surprisingly good. Was? Yes, because I completed it. It was quite easy and short.

Bad points first, then. The default controls (with the remote and nunchuck) are rubbish. Thankfully, I have a swanky black Classic Controller Pro, and that works much better. Secondly, Pierce Brosnan has been replaced with cardboard actor and presence-less tool Daniel Craig. He’s so useless I found myself siding with Trevelyan, and was actually a bit disappointed that I had to kill him. Oh well. Finally, the use of the smart phone to hack and photograph was woefully underutilised and could have added so much more to the game.

Thankfully, none of that was really very important, and I enjoyed pretty much the whole game despite them. Even the took-me-by-surprise QTE bits, which I really had no idea were in the game. The action was fast, I didn’t get any slowdown, and some of the levels looked utterly fantastic. Juggling soldiers with the rocket launcher on one of the final levels was amusing too. I completely forgot it was “only” a Wii game. Definitely worth the fiver I paid for it, and probably worth several times that, in fact.

I haven’t played multiplayer (partly as I know it’ll be full of cheats – all Wii games are online), but I expect it would be ACE, simply so you can shoot Daniel Craig.

Back in the day, I completed this on the GBA. But that was about 8 years ago, and it is such a good game that I really got into playing it again when I got it for free on my 3DS.

It is still excellent, and still the best Wario Ware title. Not that the others were bad – just that this one is the most pure. Or something.

Completed it today, and found it far easier than I remember it being on the GBA. I suspect that’s because part of me remembered what I was supposed to do in each game. Or I’m just a better gamer now (not true).

You know how I said it was a bit meh to start with? Well, it got a lot better and I was really getting into it. And then the final level happened. What follows is spoilers, so you may wish to look away.

The last section of the game takes place in Central Park. Which has mostly been raised into the sky. As you walk (or run) through it, bits crumble away so paths are cut off and stuff. Except that barely affected anything. There are baddies to kill, or stealth past and ignore. Then you get to a section where there are stealthed baddies, except I had a suit upgrade that negated that, and they’re stupidly easy to kill – any that got close were punched in the face, and most got stuck trying to jump up to the platform I was on so were easy pickings for my gun. I don’t think I took any damage at all.

Finally, a tunnel opens. “The final boss?” I thought, “Or a huge fight at least?”. No. Nothing. Game completed.

Like they forgot to include a whole level or something. Damp squib. Oh well.

Although I’d have ended up buying this at some point anyway (it’s a Mario game, so obviously), there was an issue doing so due to last year’s £18 Rule – and Mario games almost never dip much in price. That rule has now expired though, replaced with the far more gruelling Pound-A-Mile Rule, which still encourages finding the lowest price for anything without the limit. Instead, there’s just the limit of how far my little legs can cycle.

But I digress.

As a reward to myself for a full week of biking, I bought this with my hard earned miles. And it is lovely. I expected it would be nothing less, of course. I’ve played it a bit so far, and have just opened up World 4. It’s been very easy up to this point, although I’ve not managed to collect all the big coins in each level yet, and I missed one or two flags too, so I’m going to have to go back.

Really loving it so far. It’s a 2D-style Mario game, on a 3D game world. That is, it’s more like New Super Mario Bros than Mario 64, but it works really well. Nice blue skies too, which is always a plus point, as you don’t get them much these days…

I decided to plod on with this some more, mainly because it wasn’t terrible and I’ve not got anything else on the go at the moment. I’m glad I did.

Despite not really changing the formula all that much (aside from there being fewer soldiers to shoot and more aliens), somehow Crysis 2 has gone from mediocre to pretty actually fantastic. I’m not sure why.

I am now drawn into the story, and often with me a decent story is enough of a carrot to get me to progress. It’s not necessarily a great story but I do want to know what happens next, at least. I’m also on top of the controls, which are now not so overwhelming. I’m not struggling with ammo so much either, as I generally kill everything with stealth melee attacks rather than shooting stuff. All in all, much more fun than it was previously.

Currently, I’ve just caused the Otis building (I think?) to collapse. I don’t know how far into the game that is, but judging from the number of remaining locked cutscenes, I’d have to say I’m about 80% of the way through.

Just one main issue I have with it now: Why is it, that when you get shot too much, you die, but when you get launched a billion feet into the air, land on your head, get shot at by aliens, stomped on, then start to get organically deconstructed by a giant cockroach, you simply have to wait for your suit to reboot and all is well again? Hmm.

My first completed game of 2012! Unlike Super Street Fighter IV, I didn’t class this as complete by beating the final boss as every character. Instead, I’m basing it on completing Story Mode (or Chronicle, as it’s called).

In this mode, you play through the plot of all the Dead or Alive series, one after another. Well, I say plot – it’s all a bit bizarre and doesn’t make a lot of sense. Mind you, I’ve never really played Dead or Alive much previously so perhaps that’s why.

The 3DS game is fantastic. It looks amazing, and the fighting is fluid and as complex as you’d expect from “big console” beat ‘em ups. Lots of moves, combos, special moves, and techniques (blocks, throws, counters, etc.). I really enjoyed it. And not just because of the boobs and knickers. If I’d have known it was this good, I’ve have paid more for it and bought it earlier, but the £7 from Morrisons price? Bargain.

A roundup of some of the games I’ve been playing in the last couple of weeks:

Pullblox (3DS)

Completed this a while back, but have gone back to finish some of the bonus levels that you unlock, and some of the user generated ones I’ve found strewn across the internets. It’s still lovely.

Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood (360)

Returned to mop up a few more achievements and actually play some of the side missions and games I’d totally missed. There are still Cristina and assorted faction side missions to do, but I think I’m done with the game for now. It was excellent though – I just have other things to play!

Crysis 2 (360)

This was £7 in the Morrisons sales. I’m about 3-4 hours in, and haven’t really got used to the controls yet – every button on the pad seems to have seventy-three uses in various situations, or whether you press it or hold it down or double-tap it. The game itself seems like a mix of Half-Life 2, The Conduit, and Aliens vs Predator, with various sections, plot points and cut scenes ripped from each. It’s not bad, but I’m not feeling it yet. Mind you, I’m not a big fan of FPSes generally anyway. We’ll see. It looks gorgeous though.

Zen Pinball (3DS)

I’m useless at this. Shaman is my favourite table, but my high score is only a feeble 14 million or so putting me well down my friends’ leaderboard despite everyone else barely playing it as they all hate it (compared to the other tables, anyway). How do I get score multipliers? How can I stop being rubbish at it? Tch.

Mario vs Donkey Kong (3DS)

The GBA game, which I got free for being a Nintendo Ambassador. It’s a direct sequel to the Donkey Kong (’94) Game Boy game I was playing on the 3DS earlier in the year, and is very good indeed. There have been further sequels, but they’re a different sort of platform puzzler – more like Krusty’s Super Fun House. I liked that game, but I don’t like the others in the Mario vs DK series for some reason. You can see the way the series is going in this iteration, as one level per world is a “mini Mario” level, similar to what would become of the later games. I can cope with that though. Up to World 3 so far.

Despite enjoying the original Scribblenauts, I didn’t buy the sequel (until I saw it for a fiver in Morrisons this week) for several reasons. Firstly, the later levels on the original were too hard. Not hard to find the items you have to draw, but more hard because of the fiddly controls (mainly moving Maxwell) and trying not to knock stuff over or position things slightly wrongly. There were also a lot of platforming sections, or “peril” situations where it was all too easy for you or someone else to die inadvertently, even when you were doing things “the right way”. Not to mention that 90% of the levels could be completed using the same 4 or 5 items – usually a rope, a ladder, a helicopter, a gun and/or some meat.

This fixes pretty much all of that. The levels are now more about creating the right items, rather than how or where you use them, and there is very little in the way of platforming. Since you now have adjectives to work with as well as nouns, there’s a lot more variety too, and I spent a good half an hour or more just on the title screen, creating “giant scary radioactive zombie dinosaur” and “tiny evil dead pink cat” and stuff like that.

It’s easier than the original (although I’ve completed it there are still a third or more levels left to do so it might get harder), but importantly it was more fun, and varied, and clever and funny. The fact you can choose to now control Maxwell directly with the d-pad rather than tap-to-move improves things exponentially too.

I got this for Christmas, and it’s the main thing I’ve been playing then and all this week. I’ve come to the conclusion that it is the best Mario Kart game yet. It doesn’t have the silly gimmicks of the GC and Wii games. It’s graphically better than all previous titles. It doesn’t have the big empty tracks of the N64 version. And it has a return of the coins from the GBA and SNES games. It also seems that the powerups are distributed a bit more fairly too, especially with regards to the blue shell – it’s rare to get more than a couple each race now, rather than get hit over and over and over by them.

Although I’ve played online a bit (which was fun and worked really well), I’ve mainly been playing offline, completing the Grand Prix races. Today, I won the final 150cc cup, having done 50 and 100cc previously. It seemed a bit easier than the last Mario Kart games (the Wii one) I played too, but that could be due to me carefully choosing kart customisations.

Fantastic game, and will get a lot more play from me still even though it’s “over”.

Another game series ruined by Sega. The first two Super Monkey Ball games were awesome, but they slid down to this – an overly simplified, challenge-free entry into the series. Levels have barriers or “grooves” so you don’t die. There are no tricky turns, no jumps, no difficult levels at all. In fact, I found myself finishing most worlds with more lives than I started with.

Still, it was fun. Ish. Shame it didn’t carry on with another 8 worlds that were harder, as without them it was just too short and easy.

14 hours in, and the main 198 levels are, finally, completed! There were some real head scratchers in the last few sets of puzzles, but thankfully my “tactic” of leaving a level I was finding impossible, then returning the next day, seemed to help.

Of course, there are now the 50 or so bonus levels, and untold user-made levels to work through, so it isn’t the end really.

Fantastic game, well worth the £5.40 or whatever it was, and far more fun and much longer and more playable than Sonic sodding Generations.

I was expecting to be disappointed. After all, how could I be anything but? Although if you’re set up to be disappointed and your low expectations are pretty much met, how could you actually be disappointed? Deep.

Things started out surprisingly well. Classic Sonic’s first few levels were pretty good, actually, even if they did still feel like the physics were on the wonk. Even Modern Sonic’s levels were bearable for a while, but as the game progressed things just got worse and worse. I think the breaking point was when the game proudly punched me in the face with the line “Classic Sonic can now use Homing Attack!”. Sigh.

Things were at their worst for the re-rendition of Sonic Colours, particularly for Classic Sonic, with the level being full of bottomless death pits and required homing attack-to-grab sections where the moved failed to work properly half the time.

And the end boss? Not epic like in other Sonic games – just tedious. I did have all the Chaos Emeralds though (the special stages are not only endlessly repeatable whenever you want, but laughably simple) so had Super Sonic(s) for the fight. If that makes a difference.

Sure, there have been far worse Sonic games (pretty much all of them since Sonic Adventure 2, bar the GBA and DS titles), but that isn’t really a positive thing given how bad all the others were. Poor.

There was an update to the 3DS last week which added a few features (like 3D video recording and marginally better friend list management), and as part of it there was a new Streetpass Quest II “mission” for the Mii Plaza. Hurrah!

Unfortunately, you can’t do it unless you’ve completed the first Quest twice, when I’d only done it once. So, armed with 300 play coins, I set about doing it again. Surprisingly, I managed it with “just” 240 coins used, mainly because I had a White Cat exactly when I needed one, whereas before I wasted 100+ coins waiting for one. I also had a decent strategy too, using a Purple Cat (when I had one) first to poison the enemies the maximum number of times (one for each Hero), then Orange next (if possible) to add an extra attack to each of the remaining 8 Heroes, and finally using magic on any armoured ghost when my Heroes were only Level 1.

I also got lucky with some Green magic attacks – managed to wipe a load of HP off some of the ghosts (including the final one!) while they were napping. Ace.

Now I have all the original hats! Hurrah!

Actually, this isn’t awful. Well, it is in that it isn’t anywhere near as hard as the original two Gamecube games, but it’s actually playable and fun.

For the first two worlds, at least. I’ve no idea if it gets any better or worse after that as that’s as far as I got before I decided to return to Pullblox.

It may be completed, but while bad people remain unfacestabbed, the assassinations must continue!

I’ve spent most of my time plundering the Lairs of Romulus, and also finishing off the remaining Leonardo’s Machines bits (although one still needs to be done), as well as mopping up all the feathers, some Borgia Flags, and lots of treasures. I’ve also tried completing the Shop Quests, but I’m still a few items short.

Alongside all this, I’ve also been sending my assassins off on missions, and they’ve all reached the highest rank now. Oh yeah, and I’ve grabbed a few more achievements – including the one for killing a guard with a broom. Ace.

TOO MANY GAMES.

That is, too many 3DS games. Too many! Who’da thunk that a few months ago? Other than me, I mean.

Pullblox is a simple puzzle game where you “pull” shaped bits of wall out of the back of the screen, then climb up them, pushing them in and pulling them out as necessary to progress. And it’s wonderful. It’s a great idea, it’s lovely and happy blue skies and stuff, and it even has a level editor where you can share levels with other people via QR code. Levels like these!

The former is really easy, and the latter is pretty hard!

I don’t know what to say.

At some point in the game, it says “Classic Sonic can now use the Homing Attack!” and I died inside.

I don’t want to talk about it.

Well, I wasn’t expecting that.

I mean, I was expecting to finish it, of course – but I didn’t expect to play though Sequence 5 and get to the end and have “Sequence 9 Complete” come up. Turns out I was much further through the game than I thought. Since I’ve spent about 80% of the game “off-story”, that means the main story was very, very short compared to Assassin’s Creed 2. I don’t really mind as there’s been plenty to do (and I still have lots of Lairs and Machines and some of the DLC left as well), and I’ve spent well over 20 hours on it so far, but if I were just going for the main plot I’d be a bit disappointed, I think.

Still, it was fantastic. Although I hated the end bit with Desmond. It was like that bit in Prey that I didn’t want to play all over again. Tch.

Jumped straight back in and continued sending my recruits on missions and buying up property. Aces.

On the eShop today was this – Zen Pinball. I’m quite a fan of Pinball FX (by the same devs) on the 360, and have put far too much time into some great handheld pinball titles like Metroid Pinball, Pokémon Pinball, Sonic Pinball Party and so on, so was really looking forward to Zen.

And it doesn’t disappoint.

The 3D is fantastic, and really adds to the game. The physics are spot on, and it feels like a real table. The graphics are pretty good too. So far, I’ve only played the Eldorado table (and there are three more), but I can see this getting a lot more play. There are online leaderboards and friends’ scores to beat and stuff too, which is excellent.

And it’s only £4.50! BUY BUY BUY!

In many ways, this is just Assassin’s Creed II. The fighting is the same. The moves, the same. The basic assassination techniques, the same. You still have towers to scale, and tombs to raid, and armour to upgrade and paintings to collect. There are still treasure chests left randomly across the map and guards on rooftops who tell you to get down. Even the doctors still go on about lead-based cures for things and how a weekly bleeding is good for you and prevention is the best cure, and bystanders wonder about my wall clambering being illegal or not and commenting that they should do something to stay in shape.

Yet, it’s also very different. For starters, there’s the whole Assassin’s Guild thing. You “save” people from nasty guards, and they pledge to follow you. They then become your apprentices – so you can use them in battle, trigger them like a smart bomb to blanket the guards with arrows, or send them off on missions in far off exotic locations to rough up traders, protect nobelmen, or steal stuff from Templars. Then, like it’s an RPG or something, they gain XP and level up to become more proficient and can take on harder missions. Not that you take part in these missions – they’re all done in the background and you just see the spoils at the end. Strangely, it feels like playing Championship Manager or something, and I am somehow addicted to this part of the game.

Another change is the way you can upgrade and rebuild parts of Rome. OK, so you did the same in Monteriggioni in the previous game, but here it’s essential. You can’t shop without opening shops to shop in. You can’t get at your earned cash from the bank without building a bank. And more than once I’ve been in the situation where I need money, have loads in the bank, but there’s no bank nearby except for ones I’ve not yet restored and I don’t have the money to pay to do that. Gnngh!

Perhaps more important a change to all of these is the introduction of the Borgia Towers. Whereas in ACII you could just climb to high places and synchronise in order to get the map for an area, most of these high places are now protected Borgia towers. Anything in the same region as a tower is under Borgia control, and you’re prevented from renovating buildings nearby until the tower is destroyed. To do that, you have to find and kill the captain of the tower, who is usually hidden or protected. If he sees you, he’ll run – and fail to catch him and you’ve missed your chance until the next guard shift change when you have to try again. Kill him, and you can scale the tower and torch it, releasing the region of it’s Borgia influence and opening it up to rebuilding and stuff. I hated this at first, but now I’m really enjoying the tower parts of the game.

In terms of how far into the game I am, I’ve just assassinated the French captain bloke. It’s maybe a third of the way into the game, I think, but I’ve spent so much time on side things (like the towers) that I would have completed it by now otherwise!

Really enjoying it, although perhaps not quite as much as the last game. I’m not sure yet…

All done!

I don’t know whether or not the final episode was shorter, or if the puzzles were just more obvious, but it didn’t seem to take me very long to save Hell (and by extension, the world). A very Soda Poppers (sorry, %$&* Poppers) heavy episode, but that was OK given the outcome. Is that spoilers?

I might give Sam and Max a bit of a break now though, until the next series is found cheap somewhere!

To look at this game one way, it’s just the NES game “Kirby’s Adventure” on the 3DS.

To look at this another way, it’s OH YES! “KIRBY’S ADVENTURE”! NEEEED!

Yes, I have played it many times. And yes, I have completed it almost as many times. And yes, this is just that game again. But! It’s in 3D!

Of course, it’s not in proper 3D. It’s just the fore- and background layers have been peeled in and out, so the levels have depth. And that’s it – it’s just the same otherwise. Only somehow, it feels better. Maybe it’s the super-sharp graphics, which now appear like those fancy HD remakes with redrawn hi-res graphics you get on the Xbox 360. Or maybe it’s the smoothness, with no janky NES-o-vision scrolling and busy-screen slowdown. Maybe. Whatever it is, it looks and plays fantastically, and I loved it from start to two-and-a-half-hours-later finished. Every bit of it. As always.

I still maintain Kirby’s Adventure is one of the best platformers ever made. FACT.