There were three new games on XBLA today, and I tried the demos of them all. Oh, what a bad week… Shred NebulaRubbish shooter with wonky controls. Pirates vs Ninjas DodgeballRubbish fighting game (well, it is!) with stupid too-far-away camera. Gin RummyRubbish card game. Well, OK – it isn’t rubbish, but it’s not very exciting.
Last night we went back to the midwife for the 24 week checkup. Thankfully, everything was fine, although once again the baby refused to stay still so it took a while to find him/her with the heartbeat-finding-device-thing that reminds me of those things people with no vocal cords use. But then it was found, and it sounded more like an actual heartbeat and less like Pac-man this time round.
I’ve been playing this a bit for the last few days. It’s very good, but I can’t help thinking the GBA Tactics game is better. I keep getting frustrated with the default camera angle, and the way I have to adjust the field rotation every couple of moves. But it’s a more-than-decent SRPG, and the story is already full of twists and betrayals and all sorts. I’m slightly concerned that, after 9 hours play, I’m still only on level 8 …
These old films about computers (see also WarGames) are amazing. They never manage to get computers right, do they? They just assume that computers in the future will get bigger, have more flashing lights, still be using floppy disks, and yet will have amazing artificial intellegence. Presumably squeezed into 16K of RAM. Demon Seed is about one of these computers. One with its own brain, and tasked with things such as finding places to drill for oil, predicting the stock …
Played a few things this weekend: Beautiful Katamari (360)Me am cry. If I play the final level on Eternal mode, and collect absolutely everything (including The King), I can only get my Katamari up to 1,450,000km. Meaning 1,500,000 is, in fact, impossible – black hole or no black hole. With this revelation, I set about redoing levels again, making more and more planets so that I’ll have some more to collect next time I try. Assuming the black hole doesn’t …
CONTROLLER SMASH! It is completely impossible to complete the Astronomic Katamari achievement. Once you hit around 1,200,000km, you’re automatically sucked into the black hole, regardless of where you seem to on the level. Most annoying thing ever!
I managed to get the borked PC in my last post working, only to find it riddled with viruses and spyware. Running a spyware scan revealed the following:
I was given a PC to repair today, and look at what happens when you turn it on. Amaze!
Played for an hour or so this evening, attempting the 1,500,000km Katamari where you have to avoid falling into the black hole. And failed, having fallen in at 1,300,000km. Grr! I then played several levels in Time Attack mode, although didn’t do especially well.
My old Vario II was on it’s way out, so T-Mobile kindly furnished me with a shiny new Vario III. It’s very lovely.
It’s Guardian Heroes in cartoon form! Almost! I played through to the boss (where the demo ends) and enjoyed it very much. It’s very slick, very pretty, and lots of fun. But it’s also 1200 points, and I’m not sure I can fork out that much for it. Yes, I realise that I paid the same for Braid, but that seemed… special somehow. Maybe another time I’ll rethink it.
Aaaand done! Well, sort of. I’ve now completed the game as every single nation at least once, and in every possible way at least three times. So it’s complete. In terms of outstanding achievements, I have a few “do X on Deity difficulty” ones which simply are not going to happen, and the “win before 1000AD on King” which is plainly impossible. There’s also a “don’t change governments, and win on King” which should be possible, so I might give …
Paul Kaye introduced it as a film you need to see before you die. I’m not sure that’s entirely necessary, as there are many better films out there. However, there aren’t many better films with Monty Python involvement, and midgets. Sorry, dwarves. What is the politically correct term? Very small people? Persons of unusually short stature? Although it was written by two Pythons, and stars some of them, overt silliness is kept to a minimum. The story is all over …
Browsershots runs your supplied URL through a metric plethora of browsers, on assorted platforms, and then provides you with screengrabs on how it looks! They seem to have a bank of virtual machines doing the real actual work, and you are placed in a queue, but it’s certainly easier than installing all the OSes and browsers yourself. I was surprised to see that this very blog not only broke on some systems, but actually killed the browser. Now that’s power!
More victolys today, leaving just 3 leaders to complete the game as. The majority of my victolys so far have been via domination (because it’s usually the first you get to) or tecnological (as it’s the only way to win on the Lightning Round scenario. Really am loving the game, though. Yeah, it’s cut-down Civ. But it’s also made-more-fun Civ.