RIP James Langmead

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James Langmead (or Jim, jimlang, or jil depending on how you knew him) was a regular poster on the newsgroup comp.sys.sinclair, World of Spectrum, assorted other retro gaming forums, and chatter on IRC Spectrum channels. He also set up and maintained Speccy Spoilers (currently down), a site which archived Spectrum game endings for people too crap to complete the games themselves. Or something. I’ve known him, as much as you know anyone online, for almost 10 years, mainly through comp.sys.sinclair …

Kameo: Elements of Power (360)

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“What is this?” I hear you cry, “He’s bought Kameo? Even though he has publicly slated it on many occasions, and absolutely hated the demos?”. Yes, gentle reader, this is correct. In my defence, it was only £6.95 and I can’t resist a bargain, no matter how crap the item is (see Lady Cruncher). And I thought, it’s only fair to actually play the full game if I’m so hard on it. And oh, was I so right. OK. It …

Hour of Victory (Demo) (360)

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WWII FPS = yawn. This one more so than others. I mean, you get three characters to choose from, but only one is capable of opening doors. Cutting barbed wire, yeah – you need the guy with bolt cutters. Climbing a rope, OK, so mad climbingz skillz might be required. But opening a door? So much for realism. And Germans who spawn right in front of you is hardly realistic either.

Lego Star Wars II (360)

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Getting bored with this now. I’ve got 43 gold bricks, and need 60 to open up Lego City, apparently, but getting there is pretty soul destroying. Basically, I have to redo all the levels I’ve done previously to get a True Jedi rating, then redo them all again in Free Play (and get True Jedi there too), then redo them all yet again in Super Story mode. And then, if I’ve missed any Minikits, I need to do the levels …

Lego Star Wars II (360)

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Played some more this afternoon. Firstly, I had a go in two-player, working though some of Episode IV. My wife was player two. And, there are problems. Not with her, but with the camera forcing one or the other player to be pushed into holes, or behind or under things preventing either player from progressing. In all, it was pretty hard work just to get to the end of the second chapter. Later, I played through the rest of the …

Lego Star Wars II (360)

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With the main story complete, I’m mopping up the extras now. First up, was the Super Story version of Episode IV. Which was crap. It’s basically just all the chapters of Episode IV one after the other with no breaks and no extras. It also only notched my completion percentage up by just 0.2%, even though it took me over an hour to play. What a waste of time. After that, I finally managed to unlock the Bounty Hunter missions, …

ToeJam and Earl in Panic on Funkotron (Wii)

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I’ve never really give this game much time before. I have it for the Megadrive, but having spent five minutes with it and realising it’s a platformer and not a proper sequel to the original, I didn’t play it again. But, apparently, it’s still great. According to lots of people on t’t’t’tinternet anyway. So I bought it. And they’re right. It’s different, but the humour from the original is still there. It is, however, waaaay harder, as I only reached …

Kid Chameleon (Wii)

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One of the most underrated and ignored platformers of all time, and today it appeared on the Wii Virtual Console. I loved it, but my only gripe was it was really long, and there was no way of saving your progress. Well, now there is, thanks to the VC’s Save States! Sadly, though, all is not well. For some reason the screen flickers horribly. So much so that the game is virtually unplayable. As a result, I managed three levels …

Lego Star Wars II (360): COMPLETED!

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It might only be three days of play, but my saved game says 12 hours. Cripes. So I finished off Episode VI. The first three missions were really long, but the final couple were really short – a fight with the Emporer, and a Millenium Falcon strike on the new Death Star. And after that? It was complete! However, there’s more to collect and stuff. So I went back to Episode IV, Chapter 1, and completed it in Free Play …

Lego Star Wars II (360)

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Worked my way through all of Episode V today. I’m not really enjoying the spaceship flying/shooty sections all that much. They don’t gel all that well with the rest of the game. The sequence on Hoth was OK, but it wasn’t made clear as to what you were supposed to do. This resulted in my shooting down AT-STs and drone things for a good hour before I realised you had to blow a hole in a wall with a bomb …

Mario Strikers Charged Football (Wii)

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OK. First up, it’s not really football. You have a ball, and you score goals, but there the similarity ends. You have powerups, special moves (some of which let you score six goals at once!) and it’s totally insane. Anyway. I played through the tutorial section, which actually took the best part of an hour, and then dived straight into some online games. I really should have practised offline a bit, though. I played two people, both in Best of …

Lego Star Wars II (360)

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I don’t much like Star Wars, and Lego stopped really interesting me when I was 13. And everyone knows that all film tie-ins are rubbish. So I bought it anyway. To be fair, it was only £16, and it has had some really good reviews. And you know what? It’s actually pretty good. It’s not fantastic, but it’s original, funny (more so if you’ve seen the films) and fun to play. So much so, in fact, that I sat and …

Moero! Nekketsu Rhythm Damashii Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan 2 (DS)

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Flew through a load more levels today, without struggling on that many. I even unlocked the second bonus track, and then went back to Normal Mode to finish the two unlocked bonuses. I then had a stint on Easy to bump up my overall score a little, but actually found it quite difficult as it’s so slow! Returned to Hard, and now I’m stuck on the Women Who Save Jin level, which I think is the last one before the …