I made it past the guard who I couldn’t make it past last night (mainly as I was going the wrong way), and had a crate puzzle to deal with. My favourite. This was made harder as you had no way of knowing what you were supposed to do, but I managed it by accident. It turns out you have to push a crate to one position, and stand on it. You can then reach a ledge that you can’t …
Um Bongo, Um Bongo, they drink it in the Congo. They also have vast underground labyrinths with annoying crate-pushing puzzles and irritating play-for-seconds, load-for-minutes gameplay. And yet another video game cliché – the rotate mirrors to deflect beam bit. But anyway. Those out of the way, and a spikey death avoided, I gained the Alpha Key to match my Omega Key, and it was back off to Paris to find Nico’s flat ransacked and Bruno kidnapped. And the news that …
Got George into the building Bruno tracked down. And lo – it turned out to be the same theatre that Nico had entered previously. I rescued her (which involved dropping sandbags from a lighting gantry onto a baddie’s head, as expected). I have to admit, there aren’t really many surprises yet in this game. Then I broke open a safe, stole a couple of artifacts, found one of the ‘power sites’, discovered George has some hiddern power, escaped from the …
After giving some pants to the fortune teller woman, I soon found the local Glastonbury pub on fire, so rushed in to save a bloke who turned out to be Bruno. Then it was back to Paris, where Nico had been let out of jail. Some wandering round, and some breaking and entering (which was the old newspaper-under-the-door-and-wiggle-something-in-the-lock-and-the-key-falls-out trick), later, and I was in possession of a DVD. The video on the DVD was the programmer bloke retelling his discovery …
After a hard think about which game I wanted to play-to-complete next, I settled on this. Don’t know how far in I am – not very I expect. Have done George’s first bit, then all of Nico’s bit, then back to George again. It’s pretty good so far, although some of the puzzles have been a little obvious (although this is noted by the game – George says “Oh, the old block-on-a-pressure pad trick, eh?” at one point). I was …
MOST ANNOYING BIT EVAAR. It seems there’s a flying school mission at the airstrip I’ve just bought, so I went and finished that. It took AGES as it’s too hard. The plane controls are too twitchy, and when flying the helicopter the camera swings round to suit itself but not you, meaning you can’t see where you’re going, or what you’re shooting at. Stupid. Anyway, that done, it was off to Las Venturas properly, to do some more missions for …
So I did a few missions for this dodgy “government agency” guy in the desert, blowing up helicopters and buying an airstrip. Those soon ran dry, and it was back to stealing cars for Ceser in San Fierro. Very much like Gone in 60 Seconds. And, to add to Dance Theft Auto, and Splinter Nigga, not to mention the million and one further other-game-a-like sections, I get a Need fo’ Speed section. Complete with nitros and blur-o-vision. But now I’m …
Spent a merry hour exploring the area I unlocked yesterday. This game really is rather big, isn’t it? I just wish I could nick a helicopter again now. I’d stolen one before, but I can’t go back and get it now as the airport is shut. Also bumped up my SMG and sawn-off shotgun stats a bit. I should be able to dual-wield the sawn-offs soon enough!
Gettin’ on, mofo! Or something. About four missions later (one of which involved blowing up a helicopter with a rocket launcher, and another involved killing [spoiler]), and I’m off to sunny Las Venturas across the sea. There I met a mysterious man, who wants me to ride a Monster Truck all over the hills, for no reason. I oblige, only to mess it up as I couldn’t scale a mountain quick enough. Managed it on my second attempt though. And …
And I thought the Famicom Mahjongg game was hard. This one is the hardest Mahjongg game evar. But it has nice graphics and excellent music (or rather, Muzak) throughout. Sticking with it, even though I can’t read the options as they’re almost all in Kanji and I only know Hiragana and Katakana. Tch, eh?
Made my way up the mountain again, realising I’d missed some obvious blow-open-walls bits (and hence why I was stuck). At the top, I found a Minish Mine, where a blacksmith took the broken Picori Blade and send me off to get the Fire Element from another nearby mine. Naturally, this was another dungeon. The mid-boss was a load of grey spiky wobbly things, and the weapon in this dungeon was the Cane of Pacci. How unfortunate. It flips things …
Next in line to play is this. I bought it just after Christmas, and only opened it today. Graphics are nice, better than Link to the Past, even. So I go to the Picori Festival, and to Hyrule Castle. And shock! Something bad happens to Zelda and Link is sent off to help her. I wasn’t expecting that! Off to the Minish Woods I go, killing some stuff on the way, and saving what looks like a legless bird, but …
I got a new video capture device today, so I thought I’d test it with my Famicom. And I then spent an hour playing (and losing) Mahjongg on it. Bah. I’m sure this game cheats. You start with 27,000 points, and over the course of about 10 rounds, I lost them all to the computer. I won just one round, and only got about 500 points for that. Cheeky cheating computer. Boooo!