Lego games are awesome. All of them. Awesome. AWE. SOME. And Harry Potter is awful. All of it. AW. FUL. Who will win? Lego. Obviously. Just like the previous game. I’ve said this all before. In fact, Years 5-7 is very much the same. Sure, you get one new spell (water jet thing), and new levels, but Hogwarts is the same place and the assets are all copied across. It feels more like DLC than a new game. I suppose …
With about 15 hours on the clock, I’m done. Woo! As previously posted, once I got the controls sorted, I was well away and really enjoyed it. Sure, there are a few puzzles which I appeared to fudge or break in order to complete them (I don’t think I did them any of the accepted “correct” ways), but that didn’t seem to matter. A very pretty game, and well worth a play through. I don’t think I’ll go through again …
However pretty it is, for some reason I didn’t quite gel with Trine 2 at first. The controls were fiddly, having to swap character and weapon and use all the buttons and the touch screen, and as much as I wanted to love it, I didn’t. Then, when I realised it’s the only Wii U game I have that I haven’t completed (aside from Nintendo Land, which I’m not sure counts? That’s a debate for another time, perhaps), I got …
What a stylish platformer-with-shooty-bits! It’s like it’s made from sketches on aged paper, bound up like a flick book. But it plays somewhere between Mega Man and Sunset Riders, sort of. You’re a cowboy with a gun, and there’s platforming afoot! And it’s very hard. At least, I found it very hard. Looking back now, I realised that for the most part, once you’d learned the rooms and where baddies appear from, it’s perhaps not really that difficult. Except for …
I was pretty sure I’d posted on my diary about this already, back in November when I started playing it, but it seems not. Back then, I got to around half-way into the story, and aside from occasionally popping back on to do the latest downloadable puzzles, I hadn’t touched it once my Wii U arrived. After completing (and boy, did I complete it) New Super Mario Bros 2, I went back to Layton. It took me a few minutes to recall …
And that’s it! Well, mostly. The main thing is that I’ve rinsed the levels – all five (shiny) stars got, just like on New Super Mario Bros U. It didn’t take me quite as long as on the Wii U game, mainly because NSMB2 is a lot easier. In fact, bar a couple of the cannon levels, I don’t think any levels were particularly challenging. Sure, I don’t have a million coins yet (in fact, I have barely 70,000), and …
It’s another lazy roundup! Yay! Nintendo Land (Wii U) I’ve completed the Pikmin Adventure game, which took a couple of hours (and unlocked some more, harder levels). It’s really very good, and has me itching for Pikmin 3. I also played Octopus Dance some more, but no matter how well I do, a controller calibration or disconnection problem happens and I lose. Bah. Mighty Switch Force HD (Wii U) Although the level called “Bonus 5” is seemingly the same as …
The thing with New Super Mario Bros U is, that sadly, it doesn’t have an infinite number of levels and doesn’t carry on until the end of all time. That is pretty much its only failing, but nonetheless, it means I ran out of game. Which is why I bought NSMB2. As it’s sort of more of the same. In actuality, it’s not as good as NSMBU. It’s a lot easier. There’s no proper world map. There’s no Acorn power …
Unlike previous years, where I had a rule of not buying games if they cost more than a certain amount of money (£18, in 2011), in 2012 I followed the Pound-a-Mile Challenge – detailed here. This post is a roundup of where that money (and this year, miles) went. In all, I spent £834.48. Last year, it was £888.22, so I’ve spent 6% less on games and game related paraphernalia this year. Woo! 6%! Here’s the hardware/software split: Which is almost exactly …
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 …
