deKay's Gaming Diary

It’s not a great game. And it’s certainly not as good (or as colourful) as my playfully fiddled with end sequence screenshot suggests. But somehow, I enjoyed it.

It’s like a cut-down version of the old MSX Metal Gear, only with no sneaking. Each level is a sort of maze with slight puzzle elements, different enemy types (with different movement and shooting patterns), the occasional miniboss, and finishes up with a larger (usually artillery) level boss.

You can also swap your character for a female character at will, and she offers you the “bonuses” of shooting slower and being unable to use any secondary weapons (grenades, rockets, flamethrower) at all. It seems. If your man dies, she takes over. Hmm.

I can’t really recommend it highly, but it entertained me enough to complete it, so I suppose it was doing something right.

Although this is, in theory, supposed to be played before Old World Blues, I played it afterwards. The main reason being, lots of people have been saying it’s terrible, and the worst of all the New Vegas DLC. I wasn’t really looking forwards to it as a result.

But guess what? Everyone is wrong except me. It was excellent. Sure, it’s shorter than some other DLC (about 6 hours or so), but I can’t really fault it. The story was good, the return of some enemies I’d not seen for aaaages in the game (Yao Guai, giant mantises, giant venus flytraps), and there was a link to the fate of the inhabitants of Vault 22 which was nice.

If I had to find fault, it would be only that navigating the map, with the big canyons and hard to reach high places was a bit of a pain, and The Burned Man wasn’t really the psycho I was expecting him to be, but really – nothing important.

What a fantastic return to the bombed out future of America this was!

I had a hankering for some more Fallout, perhaps spurred by news about the next DLC which is out soon, combined with the hype of the impending Skyrim release. I decided on this add-on rather than Honest Hearts as reviews have been more favourable for Old World Blues, and it also seemed less dreary and downbeat.

And it was AWESOME.

It’s hilarious, for a start. Dr Klein commenting on your anatomy. Other “scientists” with bizarre fetishes and neuroses. The silly feud between the two “factions”. The psychopathic toaster, jealous light switches, and other incredible inanimate objects. The dog-gun that barks. Everything is silly, humourous, and excellent. Loved it!

With just over 30 hours on the clock, and still lots of side missions, exploring, and so on to do, I completed Yakuza 3. It was really quite easy, but most excellent.

I seem to have accumulated a massive pile of, well, stuff. Comfy soles. Platinum Nails. Assorted drinks, tools, bits of junk, and cuddly toys. Also some rare gems and what could be bits of weapons. Have I used any of them? No.

In fact, apart from mission-based items and worms for fishing with, I’ve used just three of the million pieces of tat I’ve scooped up in the time I was playing, and they were all healing drinks. Two of them were used on the end boss. Exactly why do I need all these things? And why did I collect them all so voraciously? Stupid game.

But not stupid really. It was very, very good. It made me want a Shenmue 3 all the more as well, as this is blatantly an evolution of the gameplay found there. Will I go back to it and play more though? I’d like to think so, but with a billion other games needing urgent attention, I suspect I won’t. I will certainly be getting hold of Yakuza 4, however.

Bought this a few weeks ago, even though I’d never heard of it. It got a couple of reasonable reviews, and I liked the premise (you’re a ghost who can possess enemies, using them and their powers to progress). I suppose it’s like a cross between Kirby and Messiah or something. On the Game Boy.

It was pretty short (as many GB hames seem to be), and pretty difficult too, but I really quite enjoyed it.

It looks like I got the “bad” ending, where I didn’t explicitly save “the girl” (which is all she’s known as), but anyway. Will I play it again? Probably not. It was a struggle to finish as it was, without hunting down the three hidden keys in the game. I did get one, but the others? No idea where they are. There’s know way of even telling which level they’re on!

I haven’t actually added up all the puzzles that there are, but it’s over 150. Probably 200-ish. But now, they’re all done!

I was expecting another set of puzzles after completing the Star ones, since there’s a gap on the screen where I thought another option would appear. One did, but it was just a time trial option and used the same puzzles as I’d already done.

So, completed then! And it’s also logged as my 3rd most played 3DS game, just behind Ghost Recon and Street Fighter IV.

This was pretty much forced upon me. I mean, I like Kirby. Especially Kirby’s Adventure for the NES. But playing it wasn’t really my choice. I was made to by my two year old daughter. “Daddy, play Kirby” she said. She likes it when I play Kirby because she likes to point out all the doors you have to go through, and find the ‘martoes for me.

I played some last weekend, and the rest this weekend, completing it today. Again.

I then had to buy more Kirby games from the Wii shop (I got Kirby 64 and Kirby’s Fun Pak, of which I’ve played the latter a bit already) to play next time she asks.

Yes, it’s a game. You have to play it, it can be completed, therefore – it’s a game. FACT.

So you “play” it by walking around with your 3DS hoping to bump into other people who have puzzle pieces you don’t have, or use the “coins” accumulated from walking to buy random pieces. Eventually, with luck and sore feet, you get all the pieces for all the puzzles. Like I did today! Yay!

With Back to the Future out of the way, I really needed to do more Telltale point-and-clicky stuff. I’ve been after Season 2 of Sam & Max for the Wii for ages, but it was delayed and delayed, and then when it finally did come out, immediately went out of stock everywhere never to return. So I sucked it up and got it on XBLA instead.

It follows on pretty much from the end of the last episode of the first season, with Sam’s office in much the same, perhaps worse, state. Unlike Back to the Future, it’s a proper point and click, so the controls actually work here. Unlike Back to the Future, and just like the first season of Sam & Max, the puzzles are bizarre and the solutions obscure, so although it wasn’t exactly a long game, saving Christmas from a possessed Santa (yeah, that’s the plot) did take a fair while due to getting stuck a few times.

And done!

Very good it all was too. The ending, just like the ending of the first film, sets up for a second series, so I hope Telltale are planning one.

I won’t go into any other details as it’s too spoileriffic!

Thought I’d have a quick go on this, and actually ended up finding all of the remaining keys and “beat” the boss. If it wasn’t that the game seemed so empty, and the stupid trivia questions exist, this would be a fantastic little platformer rather than just a very good one.

Still, for what – 60p? – it was well worth the play.

Completed as in, level 99 beaten. After which it just returns to level 1 again, and doesn’t get any harder.

Actually, after about level 20 or so I didn’t notice it getting any harder anyway, but for some reason levels 97, 98 and 99 were incredibly easy with a slow moving Qix and plenty of time before the sparks came after me. I wonder why?

With Back to the Future out of the way (at least until Telltale decide to actually release the next one) I returned to de Blob 2, which I was previously about a quarter of the way through.

It’s really very good. It improves over the first game in several areas, mainly with fewer required “paint these building specific colours” missions, and some great 2D platforming sections. The fact that you can save after any checkpoint is a big improvement too, as although it still means that you can still go aaaaages between checkpoints (which is a pain if you want to stop playing, but can’t), you don’t have to do entire levels in one sitting like in the first game. Just as well – some of them took two hours!

The final level was also much easier than the final level in the first game. Still not a complete pushover (and almost a clone of Super Mario Galaxy!), but far less frustrating. The boss, however, was much too easy. Actually, the bosses in general were pretty poor, which most of them actually being the same wheel ‘o turrets over and over.

Still, it was a super happy fun game with blue skies and excellent music, which you just don’t get enough of these days. I mean, I like the greyness of Fallout as much as the next man, but sometimes you just need something with more colours than your eyes can take, and de Blob 2 fits that hole nicely.

Escaped the alternate 1986, with a “new” DeLorean, and went back to 1931 again to try to fix things. All seemed to be going well, until the final scene, where it all seems to have gotten beyond fixable. Oh well!

Sadly, I can’t play Episode 5 as although it was due to be out today, it isn’t. Well, it is in the US, but it has been delayed in Europe, on PSN, for reasons unknown. RAGE!

So 1986 is totally ruined, completely the opposite of the second film’s interpretation of 1985, but somehow worse. And I had to fix it, except I couldn’t in 1986 and had no DeLorean with which to return to the past and put right what once went wrong (© Quantum Leap).

Managed to at least get to see Doc, but no time machine yet…

It’s not easy to say what I’ve been up to in this episode without ruining the plot, but things went a bit wrong at the end of the last episode and at the end of this one things went even wronger…

I’d come back to 1986 to find Biff was back to being bad, or worse, so had to nip back to 1931 again to fix things. Of course, I did – and caused some new problems in the process.

The game had the same issues as the first episode (controls, mainly), but the story is holding up well and making me want to keep playing!

Expect a small flurry of these over the next few days, as they’re not very long episodes and I have three of them (with a fourth downloading, and a fifth out soon).

I had hoped to get Back to the Future on the Wii, like all the other Telltale Games I’ve bought (Monkey Island, Sam & Max, Strong Bad), but sadly they’ve axed that version. They’ve also gone all quiet on the XBLA version, with the Xbox logo now missing from the game series on the website. Of course, I could play them on the Mac, but I don’t play games on my Mac, and I’m not sure I’d bother if I got the iPad version either – I don’t play iPad games – so the PS3 version it had to be.

Firstly, some issues. There are glitches, stuttering, and out-of-sequence conversation problems galore. At one stage in the game you’re asked your name and you choose one of three false names, yet later on I’m referred to at least twice by a name I didn’t choose. The controls, due in part to being a PS3 game and in part due to being a point-and-click game on a joypad, are horrific. You sometimes walk off the screen pressing, say, right, then in the next scene right now makes you walk up. Rubbish. Choosing which object or person to interact with using the right stick is inconsistant (pressing right doesn’t cycle left-to-right, for example – items are selected seemingly randomly) and sometime you have to move away from an object before you can select it. In addition, pressing Square brings up your inventory, and you select an object. Then, the onscreen prompt suggests you press Square again to use it, but no – it’s X or Circle or some other ridiculous hieroglyph.

But thankfully, due to the nature of the game (nothing is timed, you don’t need to be quick at any point, and there’s no penalty for doing the wrong thing), it doesn’t actually matter too much. The joy is in the story and the puzzles; the former being amazing and the latter being clever and not obtuse (like many of those in Sam & Max). The episode was about 4 hours long, and certainly left me wanting to play more!

By “completed”, I mean, I’ve finished all the story levels and beaten the end boss. I know there are more challenges, and 96898621504588 user made levels, and hidden stuff, and things to collect and all that sort of thing, but no – I’ve had enough.

It wasn’t terrible, but as a game (rather than a tool), it was all a bit lacking. The into and out of the screen moving, the strange jumping physics, the wonky collision detection, and the getting-stuck-in-scenery bits all just combined to frustrate. The game stopped being fun right near the beginning, and by the end it was a chore punctuated with occasional ”wow!” sections and giggling. And the controls? Bleugh.

I did try out the highly rated user made ICO “remake” level, which was quite interesting, but sadly still suffered from much of the above. Oh well.

You know, I found that I did, in fact, have a copy of the DX version for the Game Boy Colour after all.  As well as the non-DX version. And I’d totally forgotten. Tch, eh?

Today, I completed it. Since I last posted, I did some of the Turtle Rock dungeon before moving off to go and find the boomerang and collect some seashells for the level 2 sword. With both of them obtained, I was pretty much indestructible, easily seeing off the boss of that dungeon, then wiping the floor with the end boss in the Wind Fish’s Egg. Probably the easiest Zelda end bosses ever, due to the sword and improved armour I was packing though, no doubt.

And it was all ace. Yeah, the item swapping was a bit annoying (especially since the 3DS’s Start and Select buttons aren’t the best), but it’s still classic Zelda, and I don’t even feel it’s aged.

Well, some idiots recommended this as a good Game Boy game, and because I’ve not played it before I believed them.

And it’s rubbish. And hard. But mainly rubbish. But I’ve completed it now so it can be forgotten about forever. Hurrah!

Another short Game Boy game! From buying to completing, took me 32 minutes. Yes, it was short and easy. But oh so lovely!

Many people forget that the Kirby’s trademark ability-copying “power” wasn’t actually in this, his first game. In fact, he has very few moves – he can’t run, slide or squirt water when swimming. In a way, it feels like a cut-down port of the NES game, which of course it isn’t.

Anyway, I enjoyed it, and I’ve unlocked “hard mode” now, which I’ll probably give a go at some point.

This was a much longer game than I remember it being, but somehow it seemed much easier. I have memories of having 70-odd lives reaching the final boss, then losing 67 of them on him. That seems like a lot of lives, but they’re very easy to come by (you normally get 2 or 3 each level, then after every four levels when the time score is counted up, you usually get another 5 or 6) and I did die a lot.

Well, I think I died a lot when I played it previously. I died very few times this playthrough, and didn’t die on the end boss at all. Which is odd, as I’m pretty sure my skill at other games has decreased over the years…

In case you’ve never played it, Donkey Kong on the 3DS is actually the 1994 Game Boy title in Virtual Console form. The first four levels are virtually carbon copies of the four levels on the original Donkey Kong arcade game, which means you have to complete the arcade game to even start the main game proper. Erk.

After that, the game changes. It stops being a basic platformer where the goal is to reach the big monkey without dying, and instead becomes an acrobatic puzzle platformer where you have to carry a key to a door to progress. Of course, things block your way, switches need to be pulled, baddies beaten or avoided, and so on. And you can only drop the key for a short time or it returns to its start spot again. Every 4th level is a boss level, with those in the middle of the 8 game worlds being “simple” reach-the-monkey levels, and those at the end of each world being chuck-barrels-at-the-monkey levels. It’s all ace, and Mario is almost as move-filled as in the likes of Mario 64, with handstands and backflips the likes of which no normal plumber could achieve.

In total, it took me about 6 hours to finish. There were a few hard levels, but mainly due to the puzzle elements rather than the death bits. It’s certainly one of the best Game Boy games, that’s for sure, and well worth the £3.60, or however much it is on the 3DS eShop.

The is the game I’ve been playing most since completing InFamous, and today I completed it.

It wasn’t especially short, but it was very easy. I don’t think it’s even possible to die – I certainly didn’t, and even falling off the bottom of the screen or losing all your beads doesn’t kill you, so I doubt you can.

That doesn’t mean it was bad though. I loved it! The art style is amazing, the levels bright and varied with more great ideas per level than most games have in total. There’s also still a lot to do – more levels to unlock, levels to 100%, hidden things to find, but for now, it’s complete.

Well, this was quick. I bought, downloaded, played and completed Super Mario Land (the original Game Boy one, now on the 3DS Virtual Console) all in just over an hour. And I only died once. And finished it with 40+ lives.

And it was ace.

This was one of the two games I got free from Sony by way of apologising for letting evil internet terrorists have access to my personal details. Sadly, it’s not that great.

For the first three or four hours, I just couldn’t shake the fact that this was just Crackdown in slightly ill-fitting clothes. Then, as I realised that going vertical and running across rooftops was a better way of playing, I found myself comparing it to Assassin’s Creed as well. It’s nowhere near as good as either of those games.

The main things I disliked were the repetitive missions and Cole’s gluefingers. The former due to having to do sewer substation run after sewer substation run, or “find this thing – oh wait, find 4 more”, or “blow up X – hang on – there’s 3 more of them”, and the less said about the repeated side missions the better. It doesn’t help that all three islands in the game look virtually identical, and there only appear to be about 6 different buildings in the entire game, all copied and pasted across the map.

The other issue was how Cole grabs everything – poles, overhangs, cables, windowledges, trees, phone boxes – all the time. If you’re trying to get away from a baddie, or even just veer slightly in the wrong direction when jumping, you’ll grab something. Or, as it feels more like, it grabs you. And holds you. Still. So you’re a sitting du–oh look you’re dead. Having a button to hold down to say “yes please, I want to grabs things” would be much better.

Bizarrely, there are some things you’d think you could grab (like market stall roofs or some windowledges and shop facias) that you can’t.

Thankfully, it wasn’t all this bad. As the game progressed, and more powers were unlocked and others upgraded, it became more fun. With the rail grind and glide moves, leaping around the rooftops and chasing things down became brilliant rather than tedious, although if you ever drop to ground level (as you often need to for objectives) the climb to the roofs again is jarring and slows the game down.

There were minor complaints (controls, mainly due to the controller as usual, inconsistant framerates, texture pop-in at close range – especially on the big tower in the middle of the second island, and the overall easiness of the game), but nothing gamebreaking on their own. My only other major complaint is with the twist at the end – it’s rubbish. It’s like they got to the end of the writing and pulled it out of thin-air. It doesn’t help that it’s now created a paradox. Sigh.

Overall score: 3/5 Must Try Harder.