Game memories: B

Blur (Xbox 360)
Possibly my favourite racing game avec weapons, but opinion on that will flip-flop depending on whether I've played this, Mario Kart Wii, or Wipeout HD most recently. Blur is magnificent though, really well balanced in both single-player and online multi-player. The weapons and their strength have been honed to perfection, and every race is thrilling from start to finish no matter where you end up.

Burnout (Playstation 2)
One of the first racers that showed that it doesn't need to just be a race to the finish line. It seems quite tame now, compared to its sequels, but the seeds were sown.

Burnout 2 (Gamecube)
Not just an evolution but a revolution. Adding so much more content, including the crash junctions and other event types, and the handling was refined so your car felt lighter and more manoeuvrable. Some say it was the highlight of the series. I'd argue they can't have played ...

Burnout Revenge (Xbox 360)
Everything that made Burnout 2 great is here, but with a more defined structure, more cars, content, and with takedowns fully implemented. It's a constant source of fun and mirth.

Burnout Paradise (Xbox 360)
A departure for the series, with multiple routes and hidden events. I've not really explored it much so far, but it's a good game - just not as great as what preceded it.

Bombjack (CPC)
I have fond memories of playing this with my sister. I perfected the lit-bomb runs on the first five screens, and we used to be amazed how colourful and fast it was. We never played the arcade game; I have a feeling that may have spoilt the magic.

Bomberman (DS)
In my eyes, the ultimate version. You will never have ten people and ten Saturn controllers in order to play the full version of Saturn Bomberman, but eight DSs in one room? Easy!

Bonanza Bros (Mega Drive)
Slow, dull, awkward jumps, boring. I always hoped this would be similar to Spy vs Spy, but after finally getting to play it, it wasn't.

Battletoads (Game Boy)
Difficult, smeary, frustrating, dull.

Brick Breaker (Blackberry)
Awful. Really quite awful, in that that ball bounces off your bat at random angles, the icons you collect are difficult to distinguish, it often stutters or slows down when your email downloads, and the levels are badly laid out. But have a colleague challenge your high score, and this can take weeks of your time.

Bust-a-Groove (PS)
One of the first dancing games I ever saw. It's not great nowadays, but back then it was futuristic.

Bust-a-Move (PS)
I never got on with Puzzle Bobble. It always seemed a little random as to when the balls would stick to the side of other balls, or just pass them by.

Bayonetta (Xbox 360)
I want to love this more than I do, because it's good fun, well designed, and is full of amusing touches like the car stereo playing Splash Wave. But I've never got very far into it and then it gets left for months until I can no longer remember the controls and have to start again.

Black (Xbox)
I really enjoyed Black - it had a good story, good range of gameplay, good balance to weapons and enemies. All the way up to the final boss bit, when it got stupidly hard with infinitely respawning enemies. I never completed it.

Beyond Good & Evil (Gamecube)
When this first came out, people were desperately searching for a comparison. It's sort of like Zelda, because you upgrade your craft to give you access to other areas. It's sort of like Pokémon Snap, because you take photos. It's actually a unique game which is perfectly short and sweet, with the best ever text-input system and a cast of amazing characters.

Braid (Xbox 360)
I completed it, thought the puzzles were clever, but the story was trying to be intelligent just a bit too hard. It was fantastic for students desperately trying to prove the worth of games, though.

River Rapids

Given that Soren's high score on Brickbreaker is increasing at a rate of knots, I've decided to try some of the other games available for download on the Blackberry. River Rapids is a simulation of white-water canoeing, and it works so much better than Brickbreaker in terms of the controls. The scroll wheel turns your canoe, and you've also got boost and brake buttons Other than that, though, you're at the mercy of the water.

It's not easy, but I've progressed a fair bit, unlocking three new courses and setting some good times. The trick is to not incur any penalties, even if that means going back upstream to pass through a missed gate. On the first course I found a good course which meant that I didn't miss any gates at all, but it's not so easy on the other courses.

Brickbreaker: unfunniness and funniness

Soren has just got a score of over 25,000. Unfunny.

In the next couple of weeks, they'll be installing a new Blackberry server system at work, which will reset all data on all devices. Funny.

Brickbreaker: challenge accepted

13210, on level 24. That makes me amused, and Soren annoyed.

In other words, I have a score 1.339 times Soren's, and have progressed seven levels further.

And I still think the game's a bit pants. I've just worked out a strategy for dealing with the levels where there's a row of silver blocks across the bottom of the playing field. The gun destroys these blocks; so as long as you get a gun you can destroy at least the silver block in the middle, meaning that if you die it's not necessarily game over.

Brickbreaker: challenge extended

Soren's just emailed me to tell me that he's got a new Brickbreaker high score, on level 17, of 9865.

I've also managed to get to level 17, but my score is only 9290.

I am not amused.

Brickbreaker

Brickbreaker is a crappy game that comes installed on any Blackberry device. It's a Breakout and Arkanoid type game, with you controlling the paddle using the Blackberry scroll wheel. Unfortunately, said scroll wheel is rather stiff and clunky, and difficult to use, so it makes the game a bit rubbish. And some of the design decisions in the game make it really dire:

• The ball doesn't bounce off of a wall at the angle you would expect - it seems to be prretty random whether it bounces back at a more obtuse or acute angle than it hit at
• The powerups are assigned at random, which means that you could be lucky and get five extra lives in the first three levels, or you could get none, making whether you get very far in the game random as well
• One of the powerups is the catch. But when you catch a ball, you then can't move your paddle until you've released the ball, meaning you miss out on any other powerups that are falling
• When you catch the ball, you can change where the ball's aimed by rotating a guideline with the scrollwheel. But when you fire the ball, it doesn't actually go where the guideline said
• After not very many hits, the playing field starts to move down the screen, one block each time you hit the ball, until the bottom of the block field is just above your bat. In later levels, such as level 16, there's a row of indestructable blocks across the bottom of the main block field. If you lose a life after the field has moved down, you have no chance of surviving long enough to get the ball back up into play, so effectively you've lost all your lives at once.

I've played it a lot, though. Why? Because Soren, someone I work with, told me his score. I beat it, he beat mine, and so on, and currently I'm about 200 ahead (on 9155). Competitiveness is a good thing.