With the game complete, I set about clearing Tank Masters mode. There are C, B, A and S ranks, and I was up to the second (of three) fights in A rank. None of those fights remaining were difficult, and my tactics were either bombard-with-stuff or infiltrate-and-destroy depending on the tactics of my opponent. Even the final fight at S rank, where the other tank had 1,500HP (compared to my 950) wasn’t difficult. However, things were made a bit harder …
After killing another boss, I realised I had four of the five parts of Vlad already, meaning I was getting close to completing the game. However, it took me ages to figure out where the final piece was – and it turned out it was being held by Death in the Reverse Caverns area of the map. I was expecting him to be hard, but in fact, since I’d just killed another Doppleganger of me which led me to a …
Haven’t played this in a few days, as Rocket Slime had taken over pretty much all of my gaming time this week. But, since I completed that earlier, I went back to SOTN. It suddenly got hard. I’ve found loads of baddies who are difficult to kill and do stacks of damage. I’ve been trying to work my way back to the Entrance, or at least, where the entrance was in the right-way-up castle, and it’s slow going. My brain …
Finished working my way through the airship, and then fought Slival in his tank again at the end. Since he has no crew, he’s really easy – especially if you go over to keep him busy while your crew hammer the tank. After that was Don Clawleone, who was pretty easy to beat, but then he turned into The Dark One, who was a giant dragon tank thing. Erk! Tankfully (oho!), Slival joined forced with me, and we merged our …
Up to 84 slimes rescued now, and I think I must be nearing the end, as a giant airship has appeared with Don Clawleone on board. Yes, that’s another pun right there. I’m still missing slimes on earlier levels, though, and I can’t find the two on Forewoods anywhere. I’ve searched the entire map, and even defeated the boss and tanks again just in case. Tch. Have fought the first tank on board the airship, which was pretty easy. I …
Saved all my family today – my sister first (after three tank battles in the Backwoods), and then my parents. The puns don’t stop in this game, you know. Like one of the tanks I fought today: it was called “Fort Knight”, and had the tagline “Not too weak”. GONG! It seems I can now do recipies too, having saved Krak Pot from the volcano. This means I can make use of my hoarding by mixing items to make more …
I was having a discussion with someone over IRC today (his name is Mal Franks, and he is Wrong), with regards to HD film formats, and it escalated to me predicting the future for technology in general. As is common, I’m sure. So profound were my statements, that I thought it best to publish them here so that in ten or twenty years time people can look back at what I wrote and say I was better than Nostradamus. Or …
45 Slimes GET! I’m slightly addicted to just collecting, well, stuff. Items, baddies, boxes, etc. I keep getting them and dumping them on the train, rather than using them and progressing any further into the game… Also, I really should read the manual, as I didn’t realise you could cycle the order of the items on your head using the R button. This made one of the puzzles somewhat easier. Upped the HP of my tank a bit, and loaded …
Today’s new XBLA game was this – a remake of the 1983 Spectrum game, which also includes the 1983 Spectrum game! First up was a go on “Refuelled” mode (the new version). It’s very much like the Jetpac of old, just with new graphics, some power-ups and smart-bombs. Thankfully, this just makes it feel like a very late sequel, rather than a new game hiding under the banner of a classic retro game (see: Sabrewulf for the GBA – urgh). …
Am I keeping track of the number of slimes I’d saved? I can’t remember. Anyway, I’ve saved 35 after today’s play, which is (I would predict based on the number of “spaces” to fill) 35% complete! Hurrah! Really into this now. I went back to Forewood Forest and have some more tank battles and saved some slimes, then progressed to the volcano level and did the same. One of the tanks I fought made me laugh, as it was called …
Because Bethesda have released Oblivion: Shivering Isles for the Xbox 360 today. Which supposedly adds another 30-40 hours play to the game. Of course, once I set foot in Cyrodiil again, I’ll need to play the previous expansions (like Knights of the Nine) and the remaining Dark Brotherhood and Fighters Guild quests that I haven’t yet done. Which means my 130+ hours on the game so far could well nudge 200. See you all at Christmas!
The very first NES Castlevania at that. It appeared on the Wii’s Virtual Console downloads last Friday, so I downloaded it but didn’t play it until today. Some people have said that Super Castlevania IV is a sort of remake of the original game, rather than a proper sequel. Konami themselves have retconned the story a couple of times themselves, so that it was, and then it wasn’t – so I’m not sure how it stands officially now. Either way, …
After a very short journey to the middle of the map where I needed to use the two rings I had and met Maria again, it was off to kill Richter with my new Holy-resistant garb and Holy-killingerating sword. And lo – he was easy. Really easy, in fact, since none of his attacks could now do more than 1 damage, whereas previously 80+ was the norm. Excellent. In fact, I didn’t kill Richter at all, but Shaft, the thing …
Ahaha! It’s clicked! I see the point of the game now: it isn’t just about exploring places and smacking baddies and collecting stuff – you get a huge hulking great tank and have giant tank battles! Amazing scenes! And I had my first tank battle today, as well as rescuing some more slimes for my town. Really getting into this now. Hurrah!
Warning: this post may contain scenes of a geeky nature. So I’m looking for a new monitor. Actually, two new monitors – one for work, and one for home. On my PCs, I love a huge resolution, running a 19″ Iiyama VM Pro at 1600×1200 at work, and a 22″ Iiyama VM Pro at 1920×1440. Mmm, screen real estate. Thanks to the aceness that is Expos‚àö¬©, I manage happily with “just” 1280×800 on my MacBook, but on a Windows machine, …