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…
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.
So, it’s Dance Dance Revolution, only with fireworks. And you play with a pad. Rubbish. The arrows are too small. The blue ones are almost invisible over the background. It’s sometimes difficult to tell which arrow will hit the “bar” first, as they’re often so far apart and seemingly moving at different speeds. I won’t be buying it.
Just a quick go today. Which means two hours or so. Had a go on Advanced, and didn’t manage to progress any further than previously, and then tried Skin Edit mode and got a feeble score of 800,000-ish for a single lap. Bah.
Achievement GET! Which is amazing as they’re a bit bloody hard in this game. I finally managed to complete one ‘loop’ of Base mode, scoring about 180,000 points. Somehow, this puts me at the top of my friends leaderboard and 141st in the world. Um, how?
Writing about Luxor 2 without mentioning Zuma is going to be hard. So I’m not even going to bother trying. Luxor 2 is a direct clone of Zuma. Almost. Yeah, I know Zuma is a clone of ten million other games, but they’re not on the 360 so don’t count. It’s like the Luxor people looked at Zuma and went, “We gots to gets some o’ that”. Of course, they carefully changed some stuff so as to avoid it looking …
Just for a bit, to try and get a higher score on Refuelled Mode. Which I did – around 300,000, in fact. That netted me an achievement for 250,000, and I also got the Squidport Pacifist achievement too. That score also bumped me up my friend’s leaderboard two places, only to be knocked down two again instantly by people playing at the same time but doing better than I did. Hate!
Is it actually possible to get one complete cycle of Base mode? I think not. I had a bloody good go at it, and beat all my previous high scores, but still didn’t manage to complete a full “loop”. Then I played Advance Mode, and managed to get far enough in to break 100,000 points, and also unlock three new skins. After that, I played Heavenly Star (I think it’s called that, anyway) for a while until I died.
So Mr SomethingWitty thinks he can waltz on in and blow my Retro mode score away, does he? Oh yes, he did. Bah. But! I managed to get 42,000-ish on the same mode – some 2,000 points higher than his, putting me 110th in the world and top of my friends list. For now.
Today’s new XBLA game was this – a remake of the 1983 Spectrum game, which also includes the 1983 Spectrum game! First up was a go on “Refuelled” mode (the new version). It’s very much like the Jetpac of old, just with new graphics, some power-ups and smart-bombs. Thankfully, this just makes it feel like a very late sequel, rather than a new game hiding under the banner of a classic retro game (see: Sabrewulf for the GBA – urgh). …
Some more two-player Worms with my wife again this evening. It’s actually pretty much the only two-player game we can play on the 360. Anyway. I won all 5 games. Only just on at least one though, when a badly aimed banana bomb rebounded and killed two of my own worms leaving her totally unscathed. Tch.
I’ve been playing this a fair bit today, firstly in two-player with my wife, but then I went back to Challenge Mode and worked my way through the remaining few levels. And I completed them! None of those left were especially hard (compared to Level 13, at any rate), although I only won the final one because it went to Sudden Death and the two remaining Boffins got drowned… But that’s it complete – all single player modes and levels …
In case you hadn’t spotted the trend this evening, this too was played in two-player mode, and after about half an hour’s play, we’d completed it. I managed another achievement too – destroying everything destructible in the entire game. Now there’s an achievement to be proud of. If you’re an ASBO’d up teenager.