Lady Cruncher
Whilst looking for gaming bargains in Asda this evening, my wife pointed this ¬¨¬£1 PC game out to me. I didn’t buy it as, sadly, it looked crap.
Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin (DS): COMPLETED!
TA-DAAAH! Completed! I gave up on the Nest of Evil thing, and went back to the game proper. Decided it was time to actually learn to use the Vampire Killer, so set about killing Richiter Belmont. Yes, really. Well, a “memory” of him anyway. Bizarrely, the weapon I killed him with, was the Cream Pie. It dealt a fair amount of damage, and could be thrown at such an angle so as to be just out of reach of his …
Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin (DS)
Again, the stats: 8 hours 34 minutes in, Level 39 reached, 895.5% explored. Good lord. Who’s betting it’ll be 1000% when all is done? So I completed the final four paintings. Or at least, what I thought were the final four. The bosses today included Medusa (who was VERY easy, once I realised there was a place you could stand, from where you could slap her about, but not get hit by any of her attacks (well, you had to …
Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin (DS)
I will start by pointing out my “stats” at the end of today’s play: 6-ish hours in, Level 30-ish ranked, and (wait for it…) 455% explored. Why bother with a percentage if you’re going to go over 100%? Eh? Anyway. I finished my fourth painting, and then explored more of the castle. This involved back-tracking into other paintings for power-ups I may have missed (like the Toad Morph one), and then I made it up into the Clock Tower. Every …
Castlevania (PS2)
Hmm. Not really enjoying this a great deal any more. Well, I was never enjoying it loads as it is, but there are just too many things I don’t like about it – the camera, the controls, the lack of platforming, the bits where there is platforming being difficult due to the camera or controls, etc. It’s all a bit rubbish, really. So I found the “e” stone to put in the “meth” stone in the Lab level, which brought …
Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin (DS)
Sand painting boss found! It was some woman who, who had a strange attack – she throws hearts at you, and if you’re Jonathan, and they hit you, then she takes control of you and you control Charlotte. Jonathan then attacks you. Erk. Luckily, I killed her without too many attempts, and then it was back to the Castle to rest up, and move onwards (and upwards). I found the next painting – Nations of Fools – which was set …
Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin (DS)
And into the next painting I went! One nice thing about the paintings is that it allows Castlevania-ing in locations not normally included in Castlevania. So there’s a bit less castle, and more, well – this painting is in Egypt, so it’s got sand. And sandworms! It adds a bit of variety to the proceedings, anyway. So I’ve gone though loads of this Egyptian level, and not found a boss yet. I’ve found a few places I can’t yet reach …
Military Madness (Wii)
I downloaded this for the Virtual Console last weekend, but then didn’t actually play it. Well, I loaded it, got confused, and turned it off again. Today, however, I found it has an in-game tutorial! I had a quick scan of that, and then started playing. And it’s lovely. Comparing it to Advance Wars is unfair (Military Madness is years older – if anything, it’s a clone of Famicom Wars, Advance Wars‘ great-grandad) but unavoidable. The premise is the same …
Tiny Laptop
I found this today. I knew I had it, but had completely forgotten how small it was. Like, 24x17x4cm. Which is VERY small. Shame it only has a 233MHz CPU and no built-in network card.
Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin (DS)
Wow. Just wow. Yeah, so it doesn’t have the soul collecting of Dawn of Sorrow, and the tag-team system ranges from pointless to annoying, but how any reviewer can say this is anything less than fantastic is beyond me. It ticks all the boxes: save points and warps in sensible places, a shop to buy potions, a great (if confusing, currently) story, and excellent graphics and controls. Today’s play took me back to the City painting, as Wind told me …
Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin (DS)
Just in the nick of time! With my handheld versions of Castlevania having run out yesterday, Play Asia delivered Portrait of Ruin today. Phew, eh? And… is it any good? Of course it is! It’s ACES! The first thing to hit me was the graphics. Not the character graphics, as although they’re good – they’re nothing special, but the backgrounds. Several layers deep with detailed parallax. 3D objects in the distance (like a big abbey thing which you see ‘around’ …
Castlevania II: Belmont’s Revenge (GB): COMPLETED!
Another day, another completed Castlevania! So this was a fair bit easier than the last one, although there was a tricky bit near the end with ropes that move up and down and then change direction, with the cogs on either end killing you. The end-of-Dracula’s-castle boss wasn’t Dracula, but Solieyu Belmont, the son of the main character (Christopher Belmont). He was under Dracula’s power, or something, and was actually bloody hard to kill, what with his whip and stuff. …
Stupid design #145: Canon MV930
The Canon MV930 is a cheap MiniDV camcorder. We buy a couple of camcorders at work each year, and they’re normally Canons. So this one arrived last week. And nice it is too. It’s got all the features we need, and it records onto SD cards and stuff, and is reasonably rugged and simple to use. However. It has one glaring problem. You see the big white button on the back? That’s the Record button. You press it, and it …
Castlevania II: Belmont’s Revenge (GB)
No sooner was the first GB Castlevania over and done with, I moved straight onto the sequel. And guess what? It’s ace. Not Aria of Sorrow ace, or even Super Castlevania IV ace, but it’s certainly waaaaay better than The Castlevania Adventure. Yeah, so it’s still slow (although not quite as slow), but it’s easier (so far), not jerky, has more detailed graphics and there aren’t any pixel-perfect jumps! BEST. You have four castles to tackle, before moving on to …
The Castlevania Adventure (GB): COMPLETED!
Oh my! Only four levels? Just as well as if there were any more, things may have been broken on purpose. Level 3 is the real killer. The spikes are really rather hard to get past. Once you do, however, the rest of the game is pretty easy in comparison. The boss at the end of Level 3 was some sort of Harpy, who was easy to dodge, and then it was on to Level 4. It looked like there …