Been playing this, in bits, for most of the week. I loved it when it originally came out, and I rated it as one of the best platformers ever made. I still, sort of, stand by my claim. Only with a slight problem – I’d never realised how difficult it is. In the Megadrive days, it was commonplace for games to have no save points or passwords, and with fairly long games like Kid Chameleon (it’s almost 3 hours long …
The retro game completeathon rolls ever onward, and today it slew Bubble Bobble Plus on Wii Ware. Previous attempts at finishing it were always stumped by Level 72, which is impossible (although there’s a video on YouTube that proves otherwise – I don’t believe it myself), but thankfully I nabbed EXTEND on Level 71 so skipped to 73. Phew! Level 99 was a bit of a pain, until I figured out ways you could fall through walls, and then it …
Yes, I know I already own this seventygillion times. And yes – Megadrive Ultimate Collection, which contains this game, was even in my 360’s drive at the time. But still I bought it from XBLA, and of course – I completed it. With all the emeralds (got the last one in Marble Garden 1, if you care) too. And no Tails. He’s rubbish and needs hot metal things rammed through his face.
As it’s retro week, and Bit Boy!! is a new “retro” game, it seemed like fate that it was out yesterday on Wii Ware. So I bought it. Now I sort of wish I hadn’t. The presentation is great, and the way the game starts off as a 4-bit title then works up a game generation every few levels is clever, but ultimately it makes no difference to anything other than the graphics. Which leaves the game for what it …
Having completed the first game, moving onto the second seemed logical. It’s more of the same, only with most of the robots replaced with insects, and with fewer “graphical tricks” levels (like the from-above levels of the first game). It’s a bit longer than the first game though, but is actually even easier than it. The end boss isn’t a challenge at all – unlike one from a few levels short of the end which was pretty difficult.
This week is Retro Week on ugvm, so I’ve been playing a few older titles. I’ve had a few goes on Donkey Kong Game & Watch, but the main thing I’ve been playing so far has been Vectorman on the Megadrive (on Megadrive Ultimate Collection on the 360) and I completed it today. General thoughts: The graphics and effects are impressive, and the levels are quite varied. There’s no linking between levels, however, and so you seem to jump from …
Yesterday morning, I downloaded the Big Surf add-on for Burnout Paradise. This afternoon, I completed everything it had to offer. Which was actually more than it would appear from that timescale. I got a good 6 hours out of it, finding the smashes, billboards and mega-jumps, as well as completing all the new events. Strangely, I really wanted to 100% it, whereas with the main game, I wasn’t so interested. Perhaps the smaller area just made it seem more feasible …
Flew through the remaining 20 or so events needed in order to get my Burnout Licence. Most of them were Road Rage events, which are by far the easiest (unless you count the drive-slow “cheat” for Marked Man). A few were stunt runs. Now I can, if I want, go for a Burnout Elite Licence. I don’t really think I can be bothered, as it’s just a repeat of all the previous events again, only slightly harder. I did have …
More complicated than the other episodes, and full of retro game in-jokes and homages. Sat and completed it in more or less one sitting. Amazing! The only bad thing is that there are no episodes left now 🙁
I know I was saying how hard this was, but in fact, it got easier as it went along. This was mainly due to being able to buy new moves and upgraded weapons; the double-jump and flying jump combined made some bits of the later levels very, very easy. I’m also convinced the end of game boss was easier than the second boss too. Once I’d figured out his pattern, anyway. After completing the game, you get another marker on …
I only started playing it this morning, but already it’s completed. It wasn’t shorter than previous episodes, just a little easier and I had quite a bit of play on it throughout the day. It was different to previous episodes in that you’re acting out a film that Strong Bad has made, called Dangeresque 3. A badly made film, of course. As a result, all the usual locations in the game have been repurposed as bits of set, and all …
It turned out I didn’t have a lot left to do in the game. I wiped out the last of the evil mimes with invisible items, then killed the last of the, uh, robots, fully upgraded my weapons, and then set off after the end of game boss. Who was actually pretty easy to beat. He took a fair while to take down, but I had so many items that even when he got a few full unblocked attacks in …
Well, I did say that online was the main bit of Outrun, didn’t I? “Completed”, in case you’re wondering, entailed this: completing every Goal from A-E, and the 15 Stage mode, all on Normal difficulty. Yeah, a bit short, but never mind. I did try some time trials, but there’s no way on earth I’ll ever manage to get the achievements for them. 4:30 to reach a goal? My fastest time, with no mess-ups, crashes, and very little off-roading, was …
Erm, right. That was a bit short, wasn’t it? Yeah, so I have 11 of the 12 races left, and some of the gang warfare stuff, but I’ve done everything else. And it took me about 8 hours. I’m sure I read somewhere that The Lost and Damned expansion was supposed to provide “around 35 hours” extra gameplay. If so, I’d love to know where it was. Not that it really matters as I enjoyed it all anyway. At first …
It would appear that Mirror’s Edge is somewhat shorter than I was expecting. There’s only 9 chapters, and aside from a couple of bits that I was obviously doing the wrong way (a car park and the security servers bits), it wasn’t that hard either – even though I was playing it on Normal and refusing to use guns. That isn’t to say it’s bad – far from it. It’s just over a bit soon, that’s all. I only paid …