Gaming Diary

Another few 100cc Cups completed now. Only two Retro Cups left to do before I move up to 150cc. I also played a couple of games online against random people, coming 1/2 and 2/4 in them.

Oh poor Andy “Monkey” Herbert. I just beat him 3-1. Bizarrely, I actually crossed the line before him on the one I “lost”, but it counted as a win for him. He haev teh ch34tz, clearly.

Completed the first three Cups on 100cc this evening. I managed to come third on one race though, which is a pain, although I managed a double-star rank for the third Cup. Hurrah!

50cc Mode Complet0red! I’ve been though all the Cups now, with maximum points on them all, and unlocked Daisy as a new character. I then went and did some more of the Missions, and completed all of levels 1, 2, 3 and 4. There are even bosses in that mode! After that, I played some Me vs 7 CPU Battle Mode. For some reason, they all started with three balloons, but I only started with one. Which was a bit …

Played through all of the “new” Cups on 50cc mode today, getting a Star Rank (and maximum points) for all of them. I’ve unlocked a new character as a result, it seems. And hurrah – there’s a Star Road track! After that, I played the lovely Choobs over t’tinternet. Sadly, he was rubbish, and I thrashed the living pants out of him. Well, he won one of the eight races, but only by a whisker. And I was playing it …

ONLINETASTIC! Two online DS games in one day. Excelsior! Not that I actually played this online, I just used it to upload scores and stuff, which is pretty worthwhile. I’ve joined the rllmuk “sk8 crew”. Fo’ sho’. Currently, I’m “hangin’” somewhere in the middle of the crew’s rankings. Go me. Played “Classic Mode” mainly, which is as you’d expect – classic Tony Hawk: goals, scores and gaps. And it is excellent. The graphics are all cel shaded, but they look …

DS ONLINEAZ0R!! Ahem. First port of call when I turned it on was the Nintendo WFC section. It took a few seconds to configure, and then I was playing online against a load of random people. And it was ACEBEST. Had two full matches (4 tracks each), and came 2nd overall on the first one, and then 1st overall on the second. Not bad, considering I hadn’t even played single player mode at that point so knew very few of …

I used to have this for the Spectrum. It was crap. I also have it for the Megadrive. It is crap on that as well. Luckily, the arcade version isn’t, mainly due to twin-stickness making it much easier to aim your shots. It’s a bit of a cross between Parodius, Ai Cho Aniki, and Robotron, with some added Fantasy Zone shops. It was pretty good too, with bizarre bosses and the best Japlish cutscenes and ending ever. Probably. Completed then. …

Another game from Capcom Classics. I’d never even heard of it before today, and it’s a strange genre hybrid – it’s a horizontally scrolling shooter, but with platforms. Which are mostly pointless. It reminded me a bit of that almost unknown Master System game Cloud Master, although that didn’t have platforms. It was just a similar “feel”, I suppose. There are no levels as such, but the game does progress through 20 stages, one after the other, with no breaks. …

What a dire game. It really lacks a jump button, and a “jump to lower platform” ability too. But, I persevered with it, despite it being less than one tenth as good as I recall it being from the arcades when I was younger, and made it to the end, destroyed the device there (I have no idea what it was) and then killed some bloke who looked a bit like Olaf from Advance Wars, who seemed to be the …

I was slightly disappointed with this collection, especially after the excellent Taito one I got a few weeks ago. For starters, Street Fighter II actually makes up THREE of the 22 games listed, and there’s a load of vertically scrolling shooters (1942, 1943 and 1943 Kai – which itself is a remake of 1943 – are three of them), and even Ghouls ‘n’ Ghosts and Super Ghouls ‘n’ Ghosts, which are both essentially the same game. There are several “real” …

Snakes is a free game for N-gage owners. It’s like Snake, only in 3D. A bit like Armagetron. It isn’t all that great, but it passes the time. I’ve been playing it in one or two level spurts over the last few days and spent a while on it this evening. I’m up to about level 16 now. It gets progressively more complicated each level, with extra things to collect, avoid, or use. This level is “two sided” – so …

Played through a bit more as Red. I’ve done Moons 1, 3 and 4 now, without any real problems, but Seven Force on Moon 2 is giving me grief. I don’t remember it being all that difficult as Blue, but I can’t defeat him. Mind you, my save point does only have 40 health when I begin. I might go back a level and try to get a higher amount.

Yes, it really is called that. This DS compilation of 10 old Atari arcade games came out a while ago, but was on offer at Play Asia for under a tenner (when I ordered, at least). I knew it was pretty crap, especially the bonus “remix” versions of the games, redone with “hip” graffiti-style graphics and stuff, but my jaw hit the floor when I realised just how awful they were. Played each and every one of the games, in …

Two more levels done! Managed to get past Giant Rat vs Businessman after about 15 tries, and it was not easy. As you’d expect. The first half of Police vs UFOs was really easy. However, the second half was not – and I swear the pattern of circles changed from attempt to attempt. And it kept making them appear under my hand! Gah!! Ready Steady Go! can just eff RIGHT off. I saw a video of someone completing it the …