Sega Rally Online Arcade: second, again

A couple of friends have asked me why I did so badly in this on my last blog post.  Just to clarify, you are not supposed to finish in first place on the Tropical course.  The idea is that you play through the three courses (Tropical, Desert, Alpine) and end up first by the end of the Alpine course.  I was hoping to have reached at least tenth at the end of the first level, though.

I've still not managed that.  I have progressed to coming eleventh, and by the end of the Alpine level I'm second with the leader in sight.  But that Alpine level is hard, with some nasty hairpins and slippery roads, and I'm still struggling with gear changes. 

New Super Mario Bros Wii: infinite lives

A while ago, I promised a video.  Here it is!

Portal 2: Completed!

A stunning game, overall.  It was a little too long, in that a few of the test chambers seemed a little too repetitive and the between-chapter sections were a bit sparse.  The story was a bit extended, and the dialogue over the last few chapters was bitty, but finding out where GLaDOS came from and how Aperture Science developed was well presented.  When I got back to meet Wheatley, his dialogue - while not on the same level as GLaDOS's congratulations for piling on the pounds - was very amusing, and I couldn't help but kill myself in each of the ways he suggested just to see what he said.

Wheatley's corruption of the centre was well handled as well.  From the physical decay to the blue screen error messages (something else that made me laugh), it felt very solid.

The last few chambers were very cleverly designed, combining all of the tools and environmental furniture.  It took me a while to work out how to get past the section below, for example, where a number of turrets were  sat behind the screen on the right.  To get rid of them, I had to drop a load of the blue gel onto the platform they were standing on; this involved catching the gel in light tunnels and manipulating it back and forth until it was overhead.

The final fight took me a few minutes to work out what to do.  Wheatley's surprise about me not being dead made me smile.  I'm not sure how my character was breathing when I went through the last portal, but the last lift journey was a fitting end.

I just need to find a cooperative partner now ...

New Super Mario Bros U: lava waves

I was stuck on a level last night for ages - I must have lost over ten lives, but luckily there were loads of coins available to rack up extra lives, particularly in the room with the second star coin. Getting to that wasn't that easy - you had to go up the second green pipe in the screenshot, which involved waiting until the platform had raised to its peak, avoiding the waves of lava, and bouncing off the dry bones. I did that many times in the end, dying later in the level or on the boss.

The sign of a great game though - at no point did I think it unfair or want to give up.

Rhythm Thief and the Emperor's Treasure: ooh hoo hoo

Rhythm Thief is like a combination of Layton and Space Channel 5.  Set in Paris, you move a character around the city from location to location, talking to other characters and playing games to progress.  In Layton these games are puzzles; in Rhythm Thief they're (unsurprisingly) rhythm games - listening for a scale of notes, tapping in time, or responding to or repeating movements.

It's charming, even if the story is a bit weak.  I'm well towards the end point now, after six hours, chasing Napoleon through Paris after a daring hang-glider rescue off the Eiffel Tower.  Some of the rhythm games are pretty difficult, and I'm currently stuck on a second Samba-de-Amigo-inspired side level which was reached by talking to a dancing Mexican.  I think the buttons just aren't responsive enough.

The other amusing thing is that the on-screen text doesn't always match up to the spoken words.  Challenged by Napoleon on the tower, he gave an evil laugh.  On the screen, he said "Ooh hoo hoo!".  Charlie, the detective's son, has a comedy cockney accent; the text read "roam free", he said "runnin' rampant".  Of course, this may be the case with other handheld games but I very rarely play them with sound on.  This demands that I do - and the soundtrack is great.

New Super Mario Bros U: so pretty

I've continued through Soda Jungle, and found a level called Painted Swampland.  The backgrounds and some of the foreground elements to this level have a very stylistic look to them ...

This is a really pretty game.

This whole area was a little confusing at first.  I had initially found a secret exit on stage 2, but I didn't follow that path and instead replayed the level to get the proper exit.  The secret path seemed to disappear off the bottom of the screen.

After I'd played stage 3 and the tower, I found myself on the previously mentioned painted level (4) and another level (5).  Each time I exited one of these levels, the path led back up in a loop.  In order to progress, I actually had to find the secret exit in stage 5, which then took me down to meet the other end of the secret path from stage 2.

New Super Mario Bros U: choosing a route

Nintendo fixed my Wii U in a very efficient manner indeed, although unfortunately the game saves weren't carried across so I'll have to restart collecting ornaments in Nintendo Land at some point.

For now, however, I've started to play through NSMBU, even though I've not yet completed the Wii game.  I'm not sure why I stopped playing NSMBW, but it seemed a bit too much hassle to actually start it up, and I think I was bizarrely put off by the fact that I found a warp from one of the towers to the start of world six.  I was finding the game pretty tough as it was, and so being catapulted through the game like that was a bit too intimidating, and I also felt like I was missing out.  I tried to travel back to world four, and then had difficulty in the tower level getting to the proper exit.

I'm sure I'll go back to it at some point.  It was jut a bit tough at times, and felt like there was too much content for me to actually get a grip on giving the limited time I get in front of the TV.

Perversely, NSMBU has more content, has a more varied and labyrinthine map, and at times is a little tougher (but generally seems a little easier), but I find that I can easily understand where I'm going and how much of the game is left to do.  Because of this I've played it a lot more; I've now defeated the boss in three worlds (Acorn Plains, Layer-Cake Desert, Sparkling Waters) and have half-completed two other levels (Soda Jungle and Frosted Glacier).  I found it a bit annoying having to choose a path after Layer-Cake Desert, but at least I knew I could go back at any time.

The game, as with all the NSMB games, is really well designed and playable.  Something that's new here and works well is the Miiverse integration.  You can see messages from other players before and after a level, and if you die then you also see things posted by other players who died at the same point.  It turns a single-player game into a social experience, even if half the messages are from people you've never met!

The other benefit of Miiverse, and its new webportal, is that getting screenshots is much easier than it used to be!  I just need to be a bit quicker in pressing the home button ...

Super Hexagon: ADD

Attention Deficit Disorder sufferers are likely to really appreciate Super Hexagon. It's a simple game where you have to steer your market around a central hexagon, avoiding the walls coming inwards. It's made more tricky by the speed, the fact that the entire playing field is rotating and skewing, and the music is pretty heavy.

I've managed to last just over 35 seconds on the easiest setting (called 'hard') which is the best of any of my friends on Game Center. I feel as if I'm improving all the time, and as the games only last half a minute each it's a game I'll come back to often.

Gunman Clive: Completed!

It didn't get dull; each level introduced new ideas, and then it finished.  The last levels were set in space, with changing gravity and directions.  The last boss took a couple of attempts to kill.  And then "duck mode" opened.  If you want to find out about duck mode yourself, read no further ...

Gunman Clive: pew pew

When asked to name a cowboy, I'd probably go for Hank, Clint, or Joe.  You'd have to get pretty far down the list before you got to 'Clive'.

Gunman Clive is a charming 2D platform shooter, with the graphics looking as if they've been pencil drawn although they're actually 3D models.  The gameplay is pretty simple, jumping and shooting in straight lines, which is particularly annoying when your character can only shoot horizontally but enemies can shoot diagonally.  At times there's a puzzle aspect, working out how to get to a location you can shoot from without being killed.

I've completed the first set of five levels and killed the first boss.  I hope there are new ideas introduced in the next levels; while the game is fun it is in danger of getting a little repetitive.

Portal 2: in the depths

Portal is one of my favourite games ever. I've completed it at least four times now on various platforms. It's full of humour, clever design, and is sufficiently short.

I was worried about the sequel bring expanded to a full game, with the ideas stretched too thin. To a slight extent this has happened - but mainly to the story, which is a little weak at times. The way the game is separated into sections works well to break up progress, and I've just finished the set of levels introducing the repulsion gel. The weakest part of the gameplay is in a few of the between-chamber sections which rely on you spotting a wall in the distance where you can throw a portal.

The story hints that I'm closing in on the end now, but I've heard great things about the co-operative mode ... I just need to find a companion!

Bulletstorm: I'm not a git, unfortunately

Bulletstorm is a big-budget first person shooter which, in the time I've played it, follows the standard formula pretty closely.  Its big innovation is that instead of a melee button you have a kick button, which sends enemies flying off in slow motion so you can shoot them more while they fall; you also have a leash that you can use to pull enemies towards you or throw them around.  You get different amounts of upgrade points for different enemy deaths, meaning that you are meant to think about how to vary your killing; in reality it's easy to simply use the leash over and over again and not worry about upgrades.

It wouldn't be a classic FPS without the lead character being moody and a bastard, of course.  Grayson has an awful personality, unable to admit his mistakes, revelling in killing the inhabitants of a planet he's crashed onto, looking for revenge because he was once tricked into killing some other people thinking they were evil.  Why they needed to be killed and not arrested, I have no idea.  The dialogue's at the twelve-year-old-mentality level, jokes about other character's mothers and other such crap.

As such, I can't really be bothered to continue playing it.  The game itself is reasonably fun, but it's wrapped up in something massively unappealing and I just don't relate to the character I'm playing as at all.  Films can get away as having a bastard as the main character, because you're not expected to carry out their actions.  Games don't have that luxury.