Pinball FX (360)

Been a while since I last played this, but the Street Fighter II table for it was released recently and, in an attempt to break free from the evil clutches of Fallout 3, I gave it a go.

It's a pretty good table, actually. Better than most of the others in Pinball FX, anyway. It's difficult to light the lights above the top-left bumpers as they're hidden, but aside from that it's very nice. Except Trousers is already above me on the scoretable, beating my score of about 5 million with one approaching 9 million. Boo!!

Assorted Xbox Demos (360)

Demo catchup time again:

PDC Darts
Crap. But with amazing northern loons doing "commentary".

NBA '09
Crap. You can't even shove. And there's no BOOMSHAKALAKA.

Beat 'N Groovy
Impossible to control and crap. Why is the green "note" X? And the blue one the d-pad? What?

Crazy Mouse
Awful. Worse than crap.

Age of Booty
OK, but looks like it'll be a bit tedious. It's like a RTS only with no S.

Duke Nukem 3D (360)

Episode 2 COMPLETED! Hurrah!

The last couple of levels were pretty short - the boss one especially. The boss himself was somewhat easy too, thanks to run-mode circle-strafe and a full compliment of rockets and devastator ammo. Excellent, though.

Duke Nukem 3D (360)

And another couple of levels done. Still enjoying it, still loving the level designs, still getting completely flummoxed every time there's a place I could use a jetpack as I keep forgetting such an item exists...

Must be near the end of the episode now though, right?

Mega Man 9 Demo (360)

Yes, I know I bought the Wii version this morning. I just thought I'd try it and see how it fares on the 360.

Of course, it's virtually identical. I'm glad I did buy the Wii version though, as the 360's pad isn't designed for digital control - the dpad is in the wrong place, and the stick has too much dead-area. As well as that, the added XBLA bits on the menu break the retro-game illusion too.

Duke Nukem 3D (360)

Completed another couple of levels on Episode 2 this evening. They're certainly longer this episode than last, and there appear to be more of them too - I've just finished E2M5, and the first episode only went up to E1M4.

I'm also further into the game than I ever got on the PC or Saturn :)

Duke Nukem 3D (360)

First episode completed! Didn't find any of it especially hard, although did get a bit lost a couple of time meaning my completion time was something approaching far too long. The end of level (episode? world?) boss was a bit of pain too, until I realised you could use the raised bit of floor to block his shots.

Duke Nukem 3D (360)

Shake it, baby!

No messing around here - straight in, bought it, played it for an hour. And only completed as far as the end of the bit with the submarine. 37 minutes for one mission? I'm so slow.

But it is excellent. As it always has been.

Ticket to Ride (360)

Four games against my wife today, with three wins for me.

I also got the "underachiever" achievement, for playing 10 games without getting an achievement. What a strange achievement to get.

Xbox Live Arcade New Game Day Demos (360)

There were three new games on XBLA today, and I tried the demos of them all. Oh, what a bad week...

Shred Nebula
Rubbish shooter with wonky controls.

Pirates vs Ninjas Dodgeball
Rubbish fighting game (well, it is!) with stupid too-far-away camera.

Gin Rummy
Rubbish card game. Well, OK - it isn't rubbish, but it's not very exciting.

Weekend Catchup

Played a few things this weekend:

Beautiful Katamari (360)
Me am cry. If I play the final level on Eternal mode, and collect absolutely everything (including The King), I can only get my Katamari up to 1,450,000km. Meaning 1,500,000 is, in fact, impossible - black hole or no black hole. With this revelation, I set about redoing levels again, making more and more planets so that I'll have some more to collect next time I try. Assuming the black hole doesn't eat me.

Galaga Legions (360)
I'm getting worse at this. I can barely make it as far as Level 3 now, let alone complete it. And I still can't complete Area 1 or 2 without losing a life. In more positive news, I'm still at the top of my leaderboard, but that probably just reinforces how difficult the game is.

Geometry Wars Evolved 2 (360)
Thankfully, nobody on my "to beat" list (that's parm, SomethingWitty, That Rev Chap, Lufferov and Zomoniac) has managed to overtake me on any of the scoreboards. I had a go at improving my standings on the Sequence and Pacifism tables, but didn't.

Ticket to Ride (360)
Four games against my wife, two won each.

Mr Driller Online (360)
Attempted Russia (3000m). Managed to reach 1800m. Rubbish.

Tiger Woods '09 Demo (360)
Golf: Tee it Up has better camera controls, and the speech and between-hole golfer animations just get in the way. PGA Tour hasn't been the same since it left the Amiga, and I won't be buying this when other, better, golf games exist.

Castle Crashers Demo (360)

It's Guardian Heroes in cartoon form! Almost!

I played through to the boss (where the demo ends) and enjoyed it very much. It's very slick, very pretty, and lots of fun. But it's also 1200 points, and I'm not sure I can fork out that much for it. Yes, I realise that I paid the same for Braid, but that seemed... special somehow. Maybe another time I'll rethink it.

Galaga Legions (360)

Well, having sorted out the multiplier issues I've been having (it would appear that "1G" is actually "16" and therefore the multiplier and not something else), I managed to get a score of just over 2.2 million. This takes me back to the top of my (now extended) friends list, but I still can't complete Area 3.

Galaga Legions (360)

I've said it before, and I'll say it again - I don't like shooters. Except Defender. And Geometry Wars. And Smash TV. And Side Arms. And Parodius. And Sol Feace. And Space Invaders. And Galaga. And Dominator.

But generally, I don't like shooters. So why did I buy this? Because it's BIG and SHOOTY and makes my eyes bleed, only bleed slightly less than GWE2 does. And it was by the Pac-man CE team, and that was amazing.

This is less amazing. But I'm enjoying it. I think I may be missing some basic game mechanic, though, as people on the 'muk are posting about multipliers and stuff I haven't even seen. I've managed to reach Area 3, though, and I'm top of my friends list - without thinking about multipliers, so I must be playing it half-way competently.

A bit of a catchup

I haven't posted in a few days, but I have been playing things. Just been a bit busy and tired and stuff. Anyway, here's what I've been up to this week:

Fable II Pub Games Demo (360)
Marginally entertaining collection of gambling games. If I was interested in buying Fable II (I'm not), and it was 400 points, I'd buy it. So I'm not, then.

Bionic Commando Rearmed Demo (360)
Quite good fun, although I can't get used to having no jump button. Had the same problem with the original though. Looks good, and the "This is a demo! Buy the full game!" messages are excellent. Again, if it was 400 points, I'd get it, but at 800 I don't think I'm tempted. Besides, I have no points because I spent them all on...

Beautiful Katamari (360)
...DLC for this. I've bought all the levels now, and played it quite a lot. I've mainly been trying to get the achievement for an Astronomic Katamari, but that involves not falling in the black hole too soon. And it takes 20 minutes to redo the level! Gah!

Ticket to Ride (360)
About time the next expansion for this was released, yes? Not that we're bored of Europe - far from it - it's just we want the next one now. Managed another achievement in this during the week too.

Geometry Wars Evolved 2 (360)

Many, many, many attempts to beat my Pacifism score this evening, but I only managed a feeble 27 million.

Of course, 27 million is higher than certain other people's scores. People I have mentioned here before. But, it's nowhere near the 373 million the guy at the top of my friends leaderboard has.

Ticket to Ride (360)

Three games tonight against my wife, and three wins. I finished two of the three games using all my trains too.

Also managed my highest score so far - 176, which included 10 destinations!

Braid (360): COMPLETED!

Well, I don't know what happened, but everything I was struggling with last night clicked today, and bar a couple of head-scratchers, I didn't have any real problems completing the rest of the game.

It was very lovely, and there is some "find the stars" thing I could still do which is completely impossible without a guide, but at just over two hours long it wasn't really the epic puzzler I was expecting.

But is it art? Oh yes, definitely.

Braid (360)

Brane! Hurting! So... very... confusing.

Braid is a 3D platform puzzle game. Only instead of depth being the third dimension, time is. So you go left and right, up and down, and forwards and backwards in time. But not just that - each world changes the rules a little.

F'r'instance, on one world, when you reverse time a shadow of yourself re-does whatever it was you just reversed. Example: You need to get through a door, but the switch to open it is too far away and by the time you've pulled the switch and legged it to the door, it's shut again. So you go and pull the switch, then reverse time. Your shadow then goes and pulls the switch as you did, leaving you free to make it to the door.

In another world, time flows forwards as you walk right, and backwards when you walk left.

Anyway. The point is to collect jigsaw pieces along the way. Which is too hard and my brain is now bent the wrong way. Pff.

Geometry Wars Evolved 2 (360)

I AM WINNER!

After another billion attempts, I finally managed to beat The Rev's score on Deadline! By around 750k, I think. I even leapfrogged the next person up the list too!

GLOAT.

Geometry Wars Evolved 2 (360)

Once more, The Rev thought he could beat my scores. In fact, he'd only beaten my King score (although his cheat-obtained Deadline score still stands), but not by a huge amount.

After a few (say, 30) goes I'd beaten him by around a million points. Hurrah!

Sadly, the news was not so good for Deadline. I beat my own score by another 300,000 or so, but didn't manage to topple The Rev from his perch. Yet.

Geometry Wars Evolved 2 (360)

Several attempts at Deadline, Sequence and Pacifism to try and beat the scores I had set already, but unfortunately failed on all three. I think, in order to beat The Rev's 4.5 million-ish on Deadline, I have to be up to around 600k after one minute, and 2 million after two minutes - and I just can't do it.

Geometry Wars Evolved 2 (360)

So The Rev thought he could beat four of my scores, eh? Of course, they didn't last long. I'd soon overtaken three of them again, and then went and improved even further on the two he couldn't beat anyway (Pacifism and Sequence). I'm nice like that. Oh, and his Deadline score? He cheated. I've reported him for it.

I was also nice to Something Witty, mainly by sending him messages while he was trying to beat my scores.

Ticket to Ride (360)

Four more games against my wife on the Europe map today, and, in a reverse of last night, four wins for me.

I haven't needed to use any stations yet though.

Ticket to Ride (360)

The Europe map was available for download today, at a slightly expensive 600 points. But I bought it, and it is pretty aces.

Played four games with my wife, and she won all four. Of course, we were both totally thrown by the added new rules - the ferries, the tunnels, and the stations. They all make it a bit more complicated!

Geometry Wars Evolved 2 (360)

Hah! So That Rev Chap thought he could take me on today! Only his scores were thwarted with ease, and once again I was Champion. Champion of, erm, some, anyway.

Later, I played again and almost completed Sequence mode. I can do the first 10 levels, without dying or using bombs, but not all in the same go. Which is a shame, as if I could do it, I'm pretty much guaranteed to complete the other 10 with the 5 lives and 5 bombs I'd have remaining.

Later still, I played again to get the Wax Off achievement. There was a bit of trauma when, after about 100 attempts, I managed to get all bar 1%. The final 1% of wall to touch couldn't be found anywhere - for a good 30 seconds. All that dodging and looking made me a bit panicky. And then, when I finally spotted it, it took another 30 seconds (an absolute age in this game) or so to actually reach it!

After that, I tried to boost by scores for Pacifism mode, managing to leapfrog two people on my list, making me 5th on there in total. It's the only mode I've managed to stand a chance against the "pros" in!

Geometry Wars Evolved 2 (360)

So, Something Witty thought he could claw back some of his rankings, did he? Of the six modes, he'd overtaken me on 3 by the time I got to play this morning. Naturally, I slew his so called "high scores" easily. And then distanced myself from him even further on those he failed to beat me on.

After that, to rub salt into his wounds, I spent a merry hour mopping up some of the achievements he hasn't got. I am best*.

* Technically, I am crap, as my scores pale into nothing compared to others on my list, but Witty's are the only ones that count. As I pointed out, the Premiership is rubbish these days - it's all about the Championship.

Geometry Wars Evolved 2 (360)

I predicted on Usenet that GWE2 was likely to only be half the game Geometry Wars: Galaxies on the Wii was. And, having bought it, I was pretty much right.

But that doesn't mean it's bad. Not in the slightest - it's still amazing. It only had 6 "levels" (or rather, modes of play), but they're more varied in rules than those in Galaxies.

This evening's play was supposed to be a quick go to see how it plays. An hour later, I'd unlocked all 6 modes, and, most importantly, whipped all of Something Witty's scores.

Ticket to Ride (360)

Three games on this this evening, and I won all three. Managed to gain the achievement for getting over 150 points in a single game, too.

3D Ultra Minigolf (360)

For some reason, ny wife decided we should play this today. It's sad to see how it has aged so much already, although some of it is probably due to how we've been playing Golf: Tee Off! a lot recently.

Anyway, we played the Explorer course, and I won, getting a score of -8 at the end of it.

Double D Dodgeball (Demo) (360)

I missed this out from my list earlier. And for good reason: it's crap.

Golf: Tee It Up! (360): COMPLETED!

Played this again for quite a while today. I've now managed to come first (and under par) on both courses - hence the "completed". The Scottish course, complete with Stone Henge, is by far the harder of the two. It seems to have much stronger winds, smaller patches of fairway, and larger (and more) trees.

On the other hand, the Caribbean course has lots of water. Which I ended up in for the first time playing my wife. I thought I'd take a shortcut on one of the holes, only to have my ball bounce off a tree and into the sea. Pff.

Assorted XBLA Demos (360)

Yes indeed - it is XBLA Demo Catchup time!

1942: Joint Strike
As I've said before, shooters aren't my thing really. However, I'm one for nostalgia and this is a great looking, and playing, remake of 1942. I'm tempted to get it, except I know I'll be crap at it. I was crap at the demo as it is.

Schizoid
It's like Geometry Wars, only two player, and with no shooting. And you control both players. And it's pretty good.

Go! Go! Break Steady!
Crap. It's one part Boom Boom Rocket, one part Zuma. Only it doesn't work and just appears confused. Rubbish!

Coffeetime Crosswords
Well, the first three clues I was given all had US "English" answers. So I deleted it.

Golf: Tee It Up!
Simple, normal (mostly) golf with standard press-A-thrice swinging and added limited aftertouch. It's nothing special, but it's perfectly playable. This was the only one of today's demos I actually bought - and then proceeded to play for most of the evening. Well worth a (get ready for it...) shot. Badum-tish.

Assault Heroes (360): COMPLETED!

I was going through my list of downloaded content, re-licencing stuff to my new 360, when I realised I'd bought this but barely played it. I'd not even managed the spider boss at the end of the first stage.

So I gave it another go, and, if you've read the title of this post already you'll already know, I completed it. It wasn't actually that hard, so I'm not really sure how I managed to fail so badly on previous attempts. The only time I actually lost all my lives was actually on the section after the end of game boss! Luckily, you can continue from there, and so I soon finished it off.

Netted quite a few achievements in the process too. Aces!

Assorted XBLA Demos (360)

I tried some more demos today, all of XBLA games I'd downloaded over the last few weeks.

Battlezone
Looks amazing, but the demo is only five seconds long. So I'm not buying it as there's no way that gives any sort of representation of actual game.

Wits and Wagers
A quiz game where your answer is largely irrelevant? And only 700 questions? I say no to you, sir.

Rocky and Bullwinkle
It's Wario Ware, only in Rocky and Bullwinkle costumes. It was OK, but very rough around the edges. The drawn-for-the-game art of Rocky and Bullwinkle is awful, especially when compared to the clips of the cartoon. Also, since we're not from the US, we don't care about Rocky and Bullwinkle anyway.

Ticket to Ride (360)

Just two games of this today, against my wife.

She won both. I'm sure she cheated.

Assorted Xbox 360 Demos (360)

Caught up on a few of these today. Thoughts as follows!

Don King's Prizefighter
I didn't like Fight Night 3. It was overrated, and not nearly as impressive as everyone (EA especially, unsurprisingly) suggested. But this... is worse. The best thing was the FIFA-esque nonsensical commentary. Par examplé: "Calzaghe goes for the face again!" as I (Calzaghe) completely fail to grasp the controls and am being pummelled without getting a single hit in. "Calzaghe delivers a devastating right hook!" as I block my chest only to get a left fist to my nose. Amaze!

Top Spin 3
They've changed the controls and now I can't play it. Next!

Soul Calibur (XBLA)
It's great, of course, but I'm hoping the full version isn't this easy. Aside from getting my health bar down to half on the first round of the first fight (as I worked out what button did what), I managed to perfect everyone. I'm sure the DC version wasn't like this.

Ticket to Ride (360)

So James Luff wanted to challenge me to this, eh? I bet he wishes he hadn't now, as I soundly thrashed him 2-1. Hurrah!

Ticket to Ride (360)

Played this again several times today, with my wife, and (because I am ace) won most of the games. Except she then won by such a margin on one game that she even got the "score 150 points" achievement - which I've not got myself yet!

Ticket to Ride (360)

One game against the computer, two against my wife. I won two of the games, and was convinced I was going to win against my wife a second time when I'd blocked pretty much every sensible route from Miami to New York, only to find that by me forcing her to take the longest route imaginable, she won. Bah!

Ticket to Ride (360)

I played the demo, and instantly warmed to it. In the same way Catan and Carcassonne have both been ace. So I had to buy it!

And then promptly lost to the computer. It would appear the AI improves once you've bought the game. The demo is a lie!

Assorted Xbox 360 Demos (360)

Caught up a bit tonight with some of the recent demos on the 360's mrketplace.

Frogger 2
No. No no no. It's like a horrible cute reimagining of Frogger, designed by a three year old. It's horrible. And why on earth are there rotate button? And a bloody UFO?! And! The most irritating music and sound effect combo ever (especially when collecting lots of coins in one go - yes coins: why the hell does a frog need coins?). It's all just wrongness.

Commando 3
Actually... it isn't bad. It isn't close enough to the original for my brain to let it in as a sequel, but as a mindless scrolly shooter in the same sort of vein as the original, then it's more than acceptable.

Enemy Territory: Quake Wars
Space marines = yawn. Someone yelling "I'm a medic!" every three seconds = annoying. ET:QW = crap.

Crash Time
Take the original 3DO version of Need for Speed (even the visuals are the same), add a few bits from Chase HQ and Burnout, splash it with RTL branding and awful voice "acting", and you get what is probably the worst game I've ever played. Ever. Well, one of them. It's not even bad in a Lady Cruncher-style bad way - it's just shit.

Aces of the Galaxy Demo (360)

This was on XBLA this week. It's crap.

Roogoo Demo (360)

Rubbish. I don't know what else to say.

OK, cute and rubbish.

Assorted Xbox 360 Demos (360)

A big pile of them had accumulated on my 360's hard drive, so I went through and had a play of them all...

Iron Man
Rubbish. Looks like a PS2 game when you're up close to anything. And objects are all out of proportion - why is Iron Man almost as big as a helicopter, but ordinary doors on buildings are twice his height? And why do baddies appear out of nothingness? And Stark's "witty" one-liners started to grate after twelve seconds. And it's repetitive. And rubbish. And made by Sega. F**K YOU, SEGA.

Kung Fu Panda
Just no. It's the "hammer X game". Tedious. "Collect these!", "and these!", "and these!". "And don't forget to collect these!". And telling you how to do every action five times even after you've already worked it out for yourself is stupid. It's like a crap N64 game, only prettier.

Warlords
Probably my most favourite 4-player game on the Atari 2600. Yeah, I realise that's probably not hard. But I used to love it. This version is OK, but it really needs a paddle controller.

Penny Arcade Whatever The Long Title Is
Actually pretty good! It's a JRPG wrapped up in Penny Arcade themed point-and-click (sort of) clothes. A bit. Not buying it though - not until they a) reduce the price, and b) fix the DRM issues of Live (which they're doing in June, supposedly).

Mr. Driller Online (360)

3000m: FAIL.

Mr. Driller Online (360)

Quest Mode 1000m completed! It netted me an achievement too, for getting 10 quests completed in a row. In the process I discovered something: there are items you can use! No one told me this! I've played (and completed!) many Mr Driller games before, and have never noticed items before. How did I not know this?

Mr. Driller Online (360)

Thanks to some people in ugvm "bigging this up" (as the kids would say, I think), I ended up buying it tonight. Well, playing the (very short) demo a little and having exactly the right number of MS Points to pay for it also swayed the decision a little...

But is it any good? Of course it is. It's Mr. Driller. It is very hard though. The 100 and 500m levels (on both normal and "quest" modes) were very easy, but 1000m? Impossible. I have no idea how I'll cope with the even-harder levels.

TiQal (Demo) (360)

This is today's XBLA offering. Here's my in-depth review:

Meh.

Undertow (360): COMPLETED!

I have no idea why I decided to play this today. But I did. And yes, it's still crap, but something made me want to see the end.

And I saw the end, as I completed it. What a waste of time.

Lets never play this again, OK?

Commanders: Attack (360): COMPLETED!

And it didn't take very long, either. Turned out where I'd left it saved last night was just before killing three Super Units, the enemy commander, and a Heavy Artillery unit. Since I had a Super unit and six Heavy Artillery units of my own, placed out of reach thanks to my commander's additional artillery range power, I took the lot out in just two rounds with only minor scratches to my Super Unit's bodywork. That left me with just having to capture the enemy capital, and it was all over!

Game WIN!

After the credits, I had a go at the first battle map and lost horribly. Pff.

Commanders: Attack (360)

I'm on the last mission, which has been quite tricky so far due to buildings restricting visibility and so I can't see far enough (or round corners) to spot enemy heavy artillery that keep wanting to blow my units up. And then I keep running into bombers and gunships with units that can't attack them. And there are Super Units hiding everywhere.

But I've made it far enough across the map to see the enemy HQ. I've saved for now to do the final assault at another time.

Commanders: Attack (360)

Just one mission completed today - Mission 14 - but it took TWO HOURS to finish. Not because it was especially hard, just because I kept running into traps and having to backtrack, wait, or rebuild my army. And yes, I totally overdid it again with my troops.

Note to self: 9 heavy artillery units are not necessary to defeat one light tank.

Commanders: Attack (360)

Almost at the end of the main campaign now, with Mission 13 completed. It could have taken about 20 minutes to win, but once again I felt the need to stockpile tanks and artillery before converging on a single Super Unit. I had so many units to swoop in with, I actually blocked myself off from a useful attacking position. Tch. Thankfully, I killed it off anyway.

Just two missions left now!

Brain Challenge (Demo) (360)

This is such a rip-off of Big Brain Academy! So much so, it was actually quite embarrassing to play! It's also not actually very good, as the not-a-pointer controls hamper the game more than I was expecting.

Bliss Island (Demo) (360)

It's a series of strangle games that don't appear to tie together at all. And it's very odd. Not bad-odd, just odd-odd. I'm not sure if I want it, as I think it's too varied and not focussed enough, if that makes sense.

The "pool" type game is excellent, though.

Commanders: Attack (360)

About time I caught up with this, I think. Put it on for a quick go, and then three hours later stopped having completed up to the end of Mission 12. None of the other missions were especially hard, but I do find myself spending longer on them than necessary because I like to stockpile loads of tanks and stuff that I don't actually need, and take over ever building even if it's not a mission target.

Pinball FX (360)

Just a few goes this evening to try to beat my scores on the Nightmare Mansion and Extreme tables. Managed the former (and got two achievements too), but not the latter. Although I did manage to pick up another achievement on the Extreme one.