Hmm. I didn’t like all the in-the-dark stuff of some of the levels today. I know it just adds another element to the puzzles, but it made my brane hurt. Anyway, I’m about a third of the way through the penultimate zone (or world, or planet, or whatever) now, and things are getting really brain-warpy now, with gravity flippers and levitation thingies. I have managed the “10 levels with two items remaining” achievement though, which is ace. And I’m 99th …
That’s Zone Three all done and dusted now too. Go me! Managed par for most levels, and had quite a few “one item left” successes, as well as a couple of “two items left” and one “three items left”. I should be on line for an achievement for those now, I think. Had another go at Marsho Madness too, but only got 120,000-ish. It does put me back into top-400 territory though, as I’d been bumped down to around 600 …
Most of this evening’s pinballing was spent trying to improve my feeble score on the Agents table. I did, of course, but not to any great amount. I’m up to around 34 million now, a 12 million improvement, but I’m still quite low down on my friends leaderboard. I did get an achievement though, but I don’t know what it was for.
I’ve now finished all of the second zone, and a few on the third. It’s getting quite hard now, but I seem to be finding plenty of “wrong” ways of completing levels – mainly using fewer items than necessary. One level was completed with a single item instead of the four provided, and the time it took was under three seconds, compared to the 30 that par time was set at. Ace! I then had another go at the brain-hurty …
And this was the other new XBLA title today. There’s something very wrong with the ball, in that it sounds heavy and metallic, but it moves like it’s a floaty ping pong ball or something. You soon get used to it though. Pinball FX is no Pinball Fantasies or Digital Pinball, but it isn’t bad at all. Even the so-bad-it’s-good Extreme table with the faux-gangsta soundbites is reasonable. The scores on the boards then: 56,000,000, 52,000,000 and 20,000,000-ish on the …
Two new games on XBLA again today, and I bought both of them. First up was this platformy puzzley game which reminded me a bit of Bills Tomato Game on the Amiga. Game ideas are never new, you see, they just hibernate sometimes. I’ve completed all of the first “zone”, having no problems (although I don’t have a faster than par time on one level), and I’m now half way through the second zone. I have four achievements already too!
Had much better luck with on the Explorer course today, managing to finish with 7 under par. I was actually 15 under par way through the first day, but that stupid carnival level with the card suits that flash over a hole messed up on me, as I kept rebounding off the hole, or got stuck in it only to be launched over the course entirely. Rubbish. Having done that, I moved on to Adventurer, which is two days of …
Played through this on single player this evening for a while, finishing off the Traveller course in 8 under par or so. I then had a go at the Explorer course, and finished at 36 over par – not good. Afterwards, I played a few rounds in two player mode with my wife, which was hardly fair as she’d not played it before. That didn’t stop her getting a hole in one on her first shot, though…
Firstly, the problems. Since it uses the Lord of the Rings: Battle for Middle Earth 2 engine (or at least, it appears to), most of the camera and user interface issues are replicated here. My main two gripes are the camera angles (you’re too horizontal and and not “birds-eye” enough, and you can’t see your troops unless you zoom right in) and the fact you can’t “draw a box” around a group of units like you can in every other …
The aim of this game is to shoot lots of infinitely respawning zombies, run out of ammo, and then die as you have no useful weapons. What a fun game. Or not.
Last time I played this, I didn’t really like it. It seems that, according to People On The Internet, I’ve been playing it all wrong. I shouldn’t treat it as a GTA clone, but instead as a superhero jumpy-leapy-throwy game. So I did. And it’s WAAAAAAAAY better! In fact, it takes the way I play GTA (try to go where you’re not supposed to) into the actual proper way to play! Aces. I’m converted then.
Hmm. I’m seeing some real problems with this already. Didn’t they bug-test it at all? The ball is forever getting stuck on, in or under things. The worst big today was while I was playing online against someone, and he was winning. Then, on one of the Wild West holes (the one on the train station platform, I think), his ball was launched up in the air and just stopped dead. In mid-air. And stayed there. It kept spinning, but …
There were two new games on XBLA today, this and Gyruss. For some reason, I felt compelled to buy this though. It’s good. There are issues with collision detection, ball physics, random acts of gravity, and camera angles, but it’s a reasonably good fun crazy golf game with some totally bizarre holes – like ones set in space. I played a few games online (and lost), and also played “Traveller” mode, coming 4th overall with a score of, erm, 32 …
You know, I don’t think I’ve ever knowingly played Gyruss before. It’s basically Tempest crossed with Galaga, and although pretty good, it isn’t really me. Mind you, I was never all that fond of Galaga, or Time Pilot, and I bought both of those. Hmm.
“Jordan” on Expert is impossible. I would just like to make that known. I mean, everything on Hard is impossible (for me) anyway, but I though I’d just have a try of Jordan on Expert as it nets you an achievement if you beat it. 3% complete. 4%. 5%. Then 3% again. Not a chance in hell. So I tried practising it. On the slowest setting. And still I couldn’t really progress without nine out of ten notes being somewhat …