Pinball FX (360)

Just a few goes this evening to try to beat my scores on the Nightmare Mansion and Extreme tables. Managed the former (and got two achievements too), but not the latter. Although I did manage to pick up another achievement on the Extreme one.

My 360 RIP, part IV

You may have noticed that despite my console’s apparent death, I’m still playing games on it. This is because only a few games actually fail to work, with others playing just fine. One of the working games is Tomb Raider Anniversary. At least, I thought it was. Until this morning, when I tried to play it. Turned on my 360, loaded the game (it was already in the drive), and started playing. Five minutes later, the game froze. In fact, …

Tomb Raider Anniversary (360): COMPLETED!

And it’s about time! I’ve not completed anything in aaaaages. As usual, I won’t spoil the last few bits of the game. I will say, however, there’s lots of precision jumping, at speed, requiring lightning reactions. And lots of giant bat things that shoot fireballs. And lava. Lots of lava. But the end boss was pretty easy, and I beat it on my first attempt (although it did take ages). I didn’t get the achievement for doing it without dying …

Tomb Raider Anniversary (360)

I completed the two (similar) puzzles to gain the keys to get into the Sphinx. I think I chose the easier of the two puzzles last (unintentionally), making the first one I attempted harder than I expect it would have been had I done them the other way round. Once in the Sphinx, there was a puzzle with lowering a raising water, and then a long corridor leading to a room with loads of baddies. It took me a fair …

Tomb Raider Anniversary (360)

Didn’t play for too long today, just long enough to finish off the bit I was on (all the bridges are sorted now) and end up in a room with a huuuuuuge Sphinx. I’m guessing I have to get inside it or something, and there’s two keys needed to do so. I have to say, I’m getting a little fed up with “you need to solve X puzzles to get keys to progress” bits in the game. I know they’re …

Slipstreaming SP2 into Windows Server 2003

And other tales. For the last couple of days, I’ve been struggling to get Server 2003 installed on a new Dell PowerEdge 2950 III server. I didn’t think ¬¨¬£500 for the OS and Dell to install it was value for money, when I had some spare licences lying around. Unfortunately, wishing to save this money was a real headache. First of all, OS-less Dell servers come with… nothing. No software at all (aside from some drivers). When you turn them …

Tomb Raider Anniversary (360)

I hate spinny blades, and I hate crushy doors. So imagine my under-enthusiastic response to the bit in the game I did today. Jumping from pillar to pillar, avoiding crushy doors and spinny blades. Joy! Had loads of Anubiseseseses to kill as well. I do wonder if “hard mode” means “kill three baddies instead of two”. Individual baddies are still easy to wipe out, and jumps can’t really be made any harder than not-quite-impossible, so it isn’t that. And I …

Tomb Raider Anniversary (360)

Completed all of the first bit of Egypt (up until the first “suggested” save point), and haven’t really had any problems yet. The pumas are quite difficult to kill (if they’re in packs, anyway), and the jumping and climbing here seems to require speed and timing more than anywhere else previously. I’m now in a large room with a big obelisk in the middle, and four bridges leading to it – only one of which actually reaches, currently.

Tomb Raider Anniversary (360)

Although it was large in size, the room I ended up in on my last play was actually pretty easy with simple puzzles. Well, one puzzle. After that, I was through to a submerged area, and finally to the next bit of the Scion. And a boss. Or rather, two bosses. Two centaurs, in fact. It took me ages to figure out how to kill them (you need to pull off their shields with your grapple), and I died a …

Tomb Raider Anniversary (360)

I’m still in Greece, but only because everything seems to take ages to do there. I’ve done the puzzles associated with Midas, a couple of which made me scratch my head a bit, swum through what appears to be some flooded sewers, and ended up in a huge room with crocodiles in it. I’ve killed them, but there’s a load of puzzley stuff to do now.

Freshly-Picked Tingle’s Rosy Rupeeland (DS)

The pirates are amazing. They’re all dead, and as a result are skeletons. And they act all hard and they’re not scared of anything, until a dog appears, anyway… So found may way into their hideout, did some mundane tasks for them (including killing cockroaches), and then beat up their boss. I found a load of “swag” too, although I’m not really sure what to do with it yet – it just sort of sits in my loft. Oh, and …