deKay's Gaming Diary

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.

Look. I wasn’t going to buy this at all. I hate recent Sonic games. I don’t want to play them. Somehow, however, I end up doing so anyway. And here I am having completed another one.

Firstly, I was pleasantly surprised because I didn’t instantly hate it. I didn’t love it either, mind, but it wasn’t completely offensive to my senses. In fact, some bits were quite good. There were some great proper platforming sections, some nice 2D superfast Sonic running and looping bits, and, most impressively, some utterly gorgeous graphics. Really. One of the best looking Wii games, and, perhaps, one of the best looking games this generation.

Sadly, it’s not all lovely. There’s not enough good to offset the bad, however spiffing the graphics are. As with other Sonic titles, the game is ruined by overuse of Sonic’s homing attack. In the Sonic Adventure games, it was a means of making 3D work for Sonic. Now, it just turns large parts of levels into QTE button pressing – made worse by all the timing needed for on-rails jumping, skidding under things, and so on. It’s not platforming – it’s rhythm action with no rhythm.

And the bosses! Far too easy, and repeated across levels! Lazy. And the wisps? Annoying. And why does a Sonic game need 5 different buttons to press? One. That’s all. Two at a push. And the cut scenes with Sonic’s smack-talk and the awful conversations needed to go. Rubbish.

If the game was better to play, I’d be all over the red ring hunting in each level (there are five to collect in each, and, Lego game style, you can only reach some once you’ve progressed further into the game and returned to earlier levels) as it’s an OCD dream. But I wouldn’t find it fun – just annoying. Shame.

Maybe Sonic Generations will be better? Of course it won’t be.

My first completed PS3 game! Oh wait – you didn’t know I had a PS3? Uh, one fell into my house. I’m keeping hold of it for a friend. I won it. $random_excuse['PS3Owner'].

Er, anyway. So Katamari Forever then.

It’s another Katamari game. Like all the others I’ve played. In fact, in many ways, it is all the others I’ve played. The game is split in half, with The King of All Cosmos giving you requests that are basically remakes of previous game levels, and RoboKing giving you requests that are similar to previous game levels (that is, they use the same areas, but you’re a different size, collect different things, or whatever). There are a few totally new levels, but not many.

It doesn’t matter though, as it’s Katamari only with much shorter load times and new fancy graphics filters. And a crap controller to play it with. I managed though, and so it is complete! Hurrah!

My, that was a lot shorter than Harry Potter. Probably, oooh, 8 or 9 hours? And remember that I was stuck on the very first level for almost two hours.

There were some long levels, but overall it was certainly shorter than Harry Potter. That’s probably mainly due to no between-level story and lesson bits.

In terms of the “whole game cleanup”, I’ve already got half of the Red Hats, including the 2x, 8x and a second 2x multipliers, meaning studs are now in abundance so I can buy up characters and other red hats as and when they become available. I’ve also gone back and done the two levels I missed True Pirate on, and have done everything in the hub (which, as I expected, is very small indeed) I can for the time being.

I’ve had the game “bug out” a few more times too. The boss fight with Barbosa, I got stuck at twice as he didn’t move when he was supposed to, got stuck FIVE TIMES on the boss fight with Davy Jones for the same reason, and the game has completely frozen my Xbox at least three times now. Still, it’s no huge hassle providing nothing permanently broken comes along.

Now for the 100%!

Completed, but just 48% done.

Well, actually 72% done now, but 48% when I completed it. But that’s normal for Lego games – the bulk is done after you complete the game. And what have I done? I’ve been scouring the levels and hub for a character who can do Dark Magic (turns out someone called Lucius can) and then going everywhere in Hogwarts to open up and access things I couldn’t before I got a dark magic character or the ability to zap metal items.

Did the same in Diagon Alley too (which I realised was “Diagonally” – facepalm.jpg – see also: Knock Turn Alley), and then went and completed all of the remaining bonus levels. I’ve got 145-ish gold bricks (out of 200), 16 red bricks (20) and just ONE house crest (out of 24). I also have about 30 more characters to unlock as well!

Yes. That is the image for Final Fight: Double Impact right there. There’s a reason for that! Final Fight: Double Impact is actually two games – Final Fight and Magic Sword. I assume the arcade machines use the same hardware or something, as there’s no other way these are connected.

Whereas Final Fight was great compared to Burning Fight, I suppose Magic Sword is similar, but better than, Magician Lord. I mean, the names even rhyme. Magic Sword is still pretty pants though, sadly.

All the better then that it was completed quickly and now I don’t have to play it any more!

“So how do you complete this then, eh?”, I hear you ask. I bet you’re thinking I got to the credits with one character and that was it. Well, no – I did it with all 35 characters. All of them.

15 hours later… done!

I also played online a bit over the last week or so, with various people. I’m not very good, so generally lost more fights than I won. Sadly, it wasn’t better skill that beat me – if that were the case I wouldn’t mind. If they blocked my attacks, countered them, punished my mistakes – that’d be fine. But no: they just use Cammy and spam drill/spike/drill/spike/drill/spike until I’m dead. Bah.

Thankfully, there were a few decent fighters who didn’t rely on cheap tactics like this, and those matches were fun.

I’ve also collected almost 400 of the 500 figures in the collection. The instructions say there are 300 though, not 500, so I’m slightly confused. Not sure I’ll get all 500, but you never know.

Since I’m on a smacking-things-in-the-face spree at the moment, and this was on offer on XBLA recently, I played it and completed it today.

My word, is it a billion times better than Burning Fight. It’s so much smoother. So much, I don’t know – less old and creaky and more responsive and just better.

Played it from start to finish with Cody, missing out on the achievement for completing it using 18 or fewer credits, by using 19 credits. The last of which was on the final boss. When he had a mere sliver of health left. Bah.

I’m on a bit of a roll these last couple of weeks, yes? Another game completed today – Muramasa.

The first thing to say about this game is: it is beautiful. I’ve not seen another game with such impressive, detailed, smoothly animated graphics in a long, long time. The animation, particularly with respect to back- and foregrounds is outstanding. Corn sways in the breeze, blossom falls from the trees… detailed and lovely.

The game itself isn’t quite so special, but is fun to play. The controls are a little unorthadox (and I’m playing on the classic controller, not the remote and nunchuk, so lord knows how that works) in that most attacks with your sword are pulled off by holding attack and pressing a direction. Unless you want a sweeping low blow, in which case you hold the direction and press attack. You do get used to it though, and you can perform some quite acrobatic aerial attacks – useful on the boss battles for certain!

Your swords (you swap between three) also all have a “secret art” special move, which varies from spin attacks to summons to vortex creation. These drain a soul bar when you use them, but (again) are handy on bosses.

Throughout the game you level up as you gain XP, and higher levels let you forge better swords. This seems great at first, but you soon realise that all the enemies seem to level up to match – so ninja that seem to have 100HP when you’re dishing out 20HP of damage per-blow later in the game seem to have 1000HP when you’re dealing 200HP a time. It makes it all seem a bit pointless.

Another slight complaint is that there is a lot of repetition. You fight the same baddies over and over and over and over, with little variation. Many of the areas you pass though are the same to look at as well, albeit perhaps differently lit or with different types of baddie.

In all though, it’s a lot of fun. I’ve completed it with the girl (Momohime) and I’ve started again with the boy (Kisuke) which will supposedly unlock a different ending once I’ve forged a new blade only possible when both stories are complete.

Rubbish. Worst game ever? At this moment, it feels like it. I know it isn’t, because I’ve played worse, but it must be close.

Magician Lord is a terrible excuse for a platform shooter, where your poorly animated wizard blindly stumbles around badly designed mazey levels looking for the end boss (who is usually in the last place left to look in), whilst trying to shoot or avoid rubbish looking baddies with three frames of animation each, but failing to because it is usually impossible.

Sometimes you’ll pick up a power-up that turns you into a dragon or a ninja or some other creature drawn by a four-year old, but after two hits you lose it again, and lose it you will for the reasons given above. And I’ve not even mentioned the unavoidable deaths when you’re climbing a ladder, or when things materialise out of nowhere, with no warning, and kill you.

The best worst thing about the game is the section on the final level where you have to cross a chasm using moving platforms, only floating above you are ball monsters (I can’t tell what they actually are because of how badly drawn they are) that swoop in and knock or shoot you off the platforms or out of the sky as you try to jump across or just jump to kill them. Which you invariably can’t do because you’re too slow and the game has a stupid jump arc which seems to change randomly, so you usually miss your shot or your landing platform. Or both. Or don’t miss, but get knocked off. Even though I had infinite continues, I swear I was close to using them all up.

Actually, the best worst bit is even worse that that, and comes soon afterwards at the end boss. Yes – this is a spoiler for the end of the game, but frankly, if you can be bothered to play to the end after this slating and get past the Moving Platforms Of Hideous Gameplay, you really deserve to have the ending ruined for you.

Not only does the game suffer from the SuckySuck(TM) Bit (which you should know by now is a Boss Rush), but it also suffers from that other Irritating and Unnecessary Gaming Cliché: when the boss dies, and is dead, and you think you’ve won, but he then transforms into something else. Sigh.

And I’ve not even mentioned the terrible, terrible speech and dialogue sections: “You are great guy! You must die soon.”. No, really.

If this game were a person, I’d both punch and kick it in the face.

SNK’s not-a-clone-of-Final-Fight is, amazingly, a clone of Final Fight. Perhaps Streets of Rage instead. Or maybe both. Sadly, it’s not as good as either of these, despite the lovely big sprites.

There’s nothing specifically wrong with it, and I suspect that most of the issues are just down to “that’s how things used to be” with regards to side scrolling beat-em-ups, but it did suffer from the SuckySuck(TM) Bit From Hell where all the bosses were not only lined up at the end of the game, but several times, often in pairs. Urgh.

I’m sure Final Fight and Streets of Rage suffer from this too, but – well – they’re not crap

This was another game I bought today, and (it would appear) played a lot. So much so, that I completed it.

It wasn’t hard, and it was somewhat repetitive. And the waggle-to-fight controls ruined my wrists. And there weren’t many types of zombie. And it felt a lot like the fighting bits of No More Heroes, and only those bits.

But! It was fun. Somehow. I’m sure it wasn’t entirely down to the main character’s skimpy bikini, feather boa and cowboy hat ensemble. Certainly worth the ten quid I paid for it, anyway. I might even return and complete it with one of the other characters too. You never know.

I had a bit of a spending spree in town today, and bought 6 Wii games. One of which was SNK Arcade Classics Vol. 1, and on that (amongst other things) was Metal Slug. Lovely, lovely Metal Slug.

Being the original, of course, it’s nowhere near as funny (or outright silly) as the later games – no aliens or zombies here. It was also a lot easier than I remember the series being too, because although I used a few continues, I’m pretty sure I used to need zwelventybazillion of them.

So yeah, I completed it. Yay!