With 2012 at an end, and 2013 begun, it’s time to look back at how my cycling/game spending hybrid challenge went. Surprisingly well, as it turned out. My original plan was to cycle 900 miles in the year, to cover my expected game expenditure at a rate of one pound for every mile cycled. Hence the name “Pound-a-Mile”. I hit this early, and extended the target to 1000 miles, and then again to 1250. As of the 31st December, I’d …
Having got to the end of it last time, I found there was an item I’d burnt along with everything else in the game which is needed for something right near the end. So, naturally, this meant I had to play the entire game all over again, from start to finish, retaining that item. It was actually quite hard to do, as I very nearly absentmindedly chucked it on the pire by mistake, and my daughter decided to be “helpful” …
And that’s it. All done. Every level completed, Nabbit Nabbed on every world, every Star Coin in every level, every level on Superstar Road unlocked, completed, and coins grabbed, and the final level unlocked and done. All five stars now adorn my saved game. And what a superb game. I loved it from start to finish, never felt the coin hunt was “filler”, never found a single level – regardless of how difficult – that I didn’t think was doable, …
I may have already completed it, but the game just keeps giving! Today, while trying to get all the big coins (I’ve all of them on the first two worlds, and most on the fourth now), I stumbled across a secret exit in a ghost house. That opened up yet another level for me to do! I also had a great time playing with my daughter helping on the game pad. She was laying down blocks over holes, and helping …
Omikron was hard. Very hard. I don’t know how many attempts at it I had, but only two of them got me as far as the boss, and most of them failed on the first level. I later learned not to stay in one place for too long – the baddies crowd you. Once I realised that the best tactic was sweep round the level, and when it gets busy move away for a bit, it was much easier. Sigma, …
On one hand, Mighty Switch Force HD isn’t much more than the 3DS version I completed a while ago. On the other, it does have new levels, modified levels, and it looks even more awesome. Mainly though, it’s fantastic, regardless of what has gone before. As it is then, Mighty Switch Force HD is a great platform puzzle shooter, with lovely aesthetics, and I enjoyed every minute of it. Again. I even went straight back in and played most of the …
My Windows Bootcamp partition was getting a bit full, so I wanted to resize it. It seemed the easiest way of doing this was by using Camptune X, and, after solving the following problem, I think it was: Run app, use slider to resize OS X and Windows partitions, wait. That’s it. However, when I first ran it, it came up with an error – saying that my OS X partition was damaged and telling me to run a disk …
Is this a review? Yes. Probably. It’s hard to review a game that isn’t a game though. I’ll try. Little Inferno is a toy. Sure, there’s an end, and yes, it has some (very minor, almost optional) gameplay components, but you don’t die and all you need to complete it is time. In this toy, you burn things. All the things. You’re provided with a Little Inferno fireplace, some money and a catalogue, from which you order things to burn. …
My first completed Wii U game! And a fantastic one it was! I genuinely believe this is the best 2D Mario game since Super Mario World. It’s just perfect. Varied worlds, secret exits, challenging levels (all pretty much missing from the other “New” SMB titles), and for the first time, the 3D Mario character actually works. In every other game with a 3D Mario played in 2D (even as far back as Mario vs Donkey Kong) he just looks wrong. …
This is lovely. I mean, really lovely. And not just the graphics (which are also lovely) either. It’s a massive, varied, pretty and inventive platformer. It’s harder than the far-too-easy DS and Wii NSMB games too, and better for it. Sure, I’ve completed four worlds (1, 2, 4 and 7, for some reason) and have about 90 lives, but some of the levels along the way have been real gamepad smashers. Take the Paratrooper Beetles level. It’s a vertically autoscrolling level, …
Twas a balmy day in September. The Wii U had been announced, and I’d been pedalling all year to afford it: one was ordered from Zavvi. Cries of “No! Not Zavvi! You’ll never get it on time!” abound. But a £75 saving, and therefore a 75 mile saving, was too good it miss. Although it nearly was missed. Read on! Everything went quiet. Nothing happened for weeks. After all, the release date wasn’t until November the 30th. I preordered Mario …
My Wii U arrived! So I spent most of the weekend playing it and the games I got with it. Nintendo Land It’s not a minigame collection. No matter who tells you it is, it isn’t. It’s a collection, sure, but some of the games are full, proper games. Take the Pikmin Adventure game. It’s Pikmin. Sure, it’s not got all the item collecting and night-time save-all-the-pikmin bits, but it’s a complete and reasonably long “campaign”. Single player only game …
Progress in this is slow. As I’ve mentioned before, it’s mainly because my daughter likes to play too, which used to mean she’d swap my character every few seconds (she’d mainly play by watching me and telling me what to do), but now it’s because she struggles a bit with the controls – yes, we now play co-op. Most levels, this is fine. She sometimes goes the wrong way, or gets stuck behind something, but generally she acts as a …
We could go into a long discussion about how Civ Rev was only considered completed when I’d achieved a victory with each and every nation, whereas with Civ V I’m counting it after a single victory, but I’ll counter all that with two points: It took ELEVEN HOURS to win ONCE. I ain’t doing all 30-odd. My rules. *raspberry* As you can see, I won through peace rather than ULTIMATE DESTRUCTION. As it turns out, in my rush to improve …
