deKay's Gaming Diary

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.

It’s good, but it just doesn’t feel quite as good as Lego Star Wars did. I think the lack of a gun is a big issue, as the whip is too slow and inaccurate, and punching requires you to get too close. I did find a crossbow near the end of the demo level, but it only seemed to allow two shots before it vanished.

And it’s far too easy to fall of cliffs. Grr.

That’s right – a DS demo! The new Nintendo Channel on the Wii allows the download of DS game demos, which is pretty ace. Well, except I had all the games already. Apart from this one!

And it’s pretty good. It seems very similar in style to the Ninja Gaiden II demo on the 360 I played last week, only you do everything with the stylus. And it works better than you’d expect too. I was quite impressed, although I don’t think I’ll be buying it.

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.

I was really hoping this was going to be rubbish. Because I tend to get hooked on Civ games and since I don’t play computer games any more I thought I was safe…

But, as I feared, my “one quick go” lasted over an hour and I ended up running out of turns in the demo. So it has to go on my “want” list. I blame The Rev. It’s all his fault.

As I’ve said before, I don’t like soldier games. Medal of Honour and Call of Duty both bore me to tears. Every other soldier game I’ve played since, well, Cannon Fodder I suppose, has been “meh” to me.

So imagine my surprise when I found this to be just as tedious.

OK, so it’s pretty and funny and the way you can blow holes in walls is nice, but it’s the whole “being a soldier” thing I don’t like about games like this. And in this particular game, the way LT is accelerate whereas in every other game ever made ever, RT is, just upsets me.

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

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

OK, cute and rubbish.

It was very easy and felt like Kung Fu Panda only with more gore. I’ve been told the full version is harder and more varied, but if the demo doesn’t win me over I’m not likely to buy the full game.

Mind you, I’ve done it before and everything worked out for the best…

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).

Another busy week (it was my birthday!) so I’ve got a bit of catching up to do.

Wii Fit (Wii)
Haven’t played this much since Tuesday, but did fit in a couple of sessions in the week. Mainly just played step and ski jump, though.

Link’s Crossbow Training (Wii)
Excellent! I got this for my birthday, which was pretty amazing in itself since it’s impossible to buy pretty much everywhere. It’s pretty simplistic (it is basically “just” a lightgun game) but is brilliantly well done and the “Wii Zapper”, despite being a bit of a faff to assemble, works really well. I’ve completed it already, but that’s not really the point, so I’m not going to consider it finished just yet. I think you have to get a piece of Triforce on every level? Anyway, I have at least a Silver on every level bar one, with a couple of Golds and a Platinum too.

Sega Superstars Tennis (Wii)
In two-player mode. It’s pretty good fun, actually, although NiGHTS is rubbish (as I found out having picked him and then losing without scoring a single point). I need to unlock more minigames too, as none of the ones currently available are particularly good.

Race Driver GRID Demo (360)
Played this today. First impressions are: it’s very quick, the damage models are amazing, and it looks fantastic. But it’s too hard. I do like the rewind facility though.

Some Dragonball Z Thing Demo (360)
It looks great. But I’m not into Dragonball Z and I had no idea what I was doing. Not that it seemed to matter, as the demo is really easy and I completed both two levels with no problems at all simply by mashing buttons.

Grand Theft Auto IV (360)
And this is what I’ve played most this week. I’m now around 23 or 24 hours in, and the mission I’ve most recently completed is the one where you save Roman from the Russians. Again. I’ve spent a while taking Roman and Little Jacob out, completed a couple more missions (and my first race) for Brucie, and completed the first task for the paper company. Oh, and a job for Packie and another for the policeman guy who Niko seemed to know well but it was the first time I’d come across him. Very odd. I still have an outstanding mission for Dwayne but it’s too hard.

On Friday night I played online for the first time. First up was a game of Deathmatch with random people, and I’m just pleased I didn’t come last. After that, it was Turf War which I didn’t really like very much. Then, someone on my friends list invited me to a co-op game and we went and completed the three co-op missions together, which was pretty good.

GTA Glitch Watch
This morning, as I left my room in the flat in South Bohan, I managed to run up the flight of stairs before the stairs had been drawn-in. Very odd.

Also, every time I load the game, the door leading out of the flat flashes white briefly. Also very odd.

Downloaded some more PSP demos today and had a play. Hurrah for free things!

Hot Shots Golf 2
Or Minna no Golf 2, or whatever the English name is. Lovely! Only three holes, and I had to guess the controls, but it’s cute and colourful and plays just like those other golf games that I like. You know the ones – ones that aren’t crap.

Ape Escape 2
Erm. Monkeys. And a terrible, awful, rubbish camera. And it uses the “analogue” nub, so is instantly rubbish. Tch, eh?

SOCOM Firezzzzzyawn
Guh. Can you aim without moving? Can you move without getting shot? Is it any good? The answers to these questions, and more, is “no”.

Thing With A Cat And A Frog And A Rabbit In
No idea. All in Japanese. Looks cute, haven’t a clue what to do. Lots of text. Amazing!

With my new-found ability to download game demos to my PSP, I put a load on to play today.

Space Invaders Extreme
Excellent! It’s exactly what the title suggests – Space Invaders, only Extreme! It’s a lot like the DS Space Invaders game from a couple of years ago, but with more power-ups and a combo system. And bonus levels. Apparently there’s a DS version of this PSP title too, which is supposedly even better.

LocoRoco
Several demos, in fact. I really can’t wait for the full version to arrive, as it really is quite amazing.

Ridge Racer
Yawn. Ridge Racer is, and always has been, pretty dull. And this version is no exception. Give me Outrun 2006 any day.

Some strange Japanese thing
No idea what it’s called, but it’s a platformer where you are a boy with a grapple hook, and you grapple a fish and then have to grapple across a river and I couldn’t do it and drowned a lot. Hm.

I have the game on order, but no-one told me you could download demos for the PSP! So I did!

It’s great, as I expected, and possibly the most cute thing ever created. The way your blob sings along with the music is brilliant, and even better is when you split him up into several blobs, they all sing – some singing different parts of the song! OMFG!

But, uh, the game. It’s ACES! Although my sticky R button is a bit of an issue. And not knowing what the hell I needed to do didn’t help. But it’s rolly tilty cutey fun. Hurrah!

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

Meh.

I didn’t mean to play it, as I was using it to test my graphics card. But I ended up “testing” for 45 minutes – which is 100 turns and the full duration of the demo. Oops.

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.

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.

Nasty horrid rubbish game. It’s like Smash TV but crap and with a useless fixed-scrolling camera that alternately holds you up or pushes you too fast for no reason. And awful comic cut-scenes and text that doesn’t fit in speech bubbles and button mashing where it isn’t necessary.

Urgh. Badness.

A few games appeared on this new section of XBLA this week. I downloaded them all and played each for a bit this evening.

Culture:
Simple minigame with two WTF minigames.

Jellycar:
Good idea, far too hard to control.

Little Gamers:
Looks nice, plays like crap.

ProximityHD:
Decent multiplayer puzzley strategy game.

Rocketball:
Awful.

The Dishwasher:
Excellent, although loading after every screen? WHAT

TriLinea:
Meh.

Another week, another dull soldier game. This one tries to be different by having the concept of a “front line” (hence the name), which you push forward by taking ground, and lose by, well, having ground taken back.

Sadly, this doesn’t really mean a lot, as you still have your (yawn) same types of unit – sniper, gunner, etc. – as every other dull and boring soldier game, and it plays much the same as the others.

It looks OK, although the texture and shadow draw-in is rubbish.

Overall verdict: Meh.

Meh.

What a pile of crap.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHAAHA.

What a rubbish game.

On one hand, it’s Metal Slug 3. On the other had, it has this horrific graphics filter on and slowdown. But it’s Metal Slug 3.

Decisions, decisions…