Naked War: I won against Kieron!

An amazing victory, where I had him running away constantly for the last four turns, and I promoted my soldiers up so that they were virtually imprevious to his attacks. Since they were all on the same section of walkway, it was difficult to make sure they didn't run into each other, but I managed it and I won.

I won't mention the other game where I was winning decisively and then the final killer blow didn't actually kill, and Kieron then killed both my doofer-hosting units on his next turn.

Field Commander: diverse difficulty levels

The last two missions have been, well, interesting. The first had me running to a downed plane to rescue its passengers. It was really easy; I don't think it would be possible to lose at it. All the enemy units presented themselves one at a time to be destroyed, and only a tank presented difficulties - but my rocket launcher, gunship and tank destroyed it in one go.

But the next mission is the first one to have caused me to lose. I have very few units, and they're all aircraft or infantry. Both of which are hopeless against anti-air guns, of which my opponent has loads.

The objective is to capture the HQ, and then get off of the central island before the 24th day. I think I may have to do a run in and block off the HQ while someone captures it. But he's got loads of rocket launchers too, meaning a blockade just wouldn't work.

Field Commander: diverse objectives

I've played a few more levels now, and they've stopped relying on the standard 'destroy all units' objective. As such, the game itself is more varied and enjoyable.

One mission ("Sink or Swim") involved sinking enemy transporters before they reached a certain point on the map. This was a proper naval battle, with submarines and battleships and ... they're not called cruisers, but they do the same thing. Corvettes, that's it. I was able to lay a huge sea of mines with my corvettes to show the enemy transporters down, and take out the battleship with submerged subs. The fuel seems to run out much quicker than in Advance Wars, though ...

Another mission required me to stay alive for 30 turns. It started off badly, with tank buster planes destroying loads of units, but once I'd built some anti-air I took control, to the point where I was capturing his factories and airport. This was all very well until three enemy tanks suddenly appeared. Hardly fair. I still managed to win by destroying all enemy units, though.

So far there's not been too much challenge - but then I have been trained by my constant losses to Kieron at Advance Wars. I think I've now completed 20% of the campaign.

Field Commander: dire design decisions

The introductory bits to each mission have the text scrolling at a fixed speed, and can't be sped up at all. I'm assuming that's because there's a voiceover, but I play handheld games almost exclusively with the sound muted, so I've no idea.

The graphical style is quite swish, with the view swooping down to view a battle, but the framerate drops quite horrendously sometimes, and the disc is accessed loads whenever you move over a different type of unit. When you actually tell a unit to move, it shudders for a second before moving, then moves really slowly to where you've said. While it's doing this you can't choose any other units or move around the map.

The intricate graphical style means it's really hard to tell which units are which, without either moving the cursor over them, or pressing and holding the right shoulder button, which shows a stylised overview of the combat field, à la Advance Wars.

When you kill an enemy infantry unit, you see them slumping down to their knees before dying. It makes it feel brutal and unnecessary.

When you finish a mission, you're told how many turns it took, how many units were destroyed, and so on, but you're given no indication how good your performance was. In one level I did a superb job of shepherding all the enemy units to one side and destroying them while capturing their HQ, but there's no recognition for that.

But all that said, this is still a great game, because it's based on a brilliant game. I'm still learning what all the units can do, and the idea of destroying cover is pretty clever. I've not quite seen the tactical advantage of being able to attack buildings to make them easier to capture, but I'm sure I will.

I've just completed the level in which the heaviest ground units - tanks - are introduced. The balance between infantry, tanks and medium tanks in Advance Wars has been captured almost identically. However, the spec ops units - the replacements for mechs - can do a lot more damage for two reasons: they can launch attacks from afar, and they can lay mines over which the tanks can be lured.

The only issue I have is that the game seems pretty short. I've completed 11% already. I hope it gets harder ... but not too hard.

Midweek Challenges - 08/11/2006

One
Complete at least 10% of Field Commander's campaign mode.

Two
Complete another level in Battalion Wars.

Phantasy Star: completed!

Finally! I spent a little time roaming the final dungeon to build up experience points, and levelled everyone up to level 26. I mainly did this because during my previous fights normal attacks weren't touching Dark Falz, and with all other monsters changing level was the cause of such misses.

No such luck here. Normal attacks still didn't affect him, and I was reduced to using magic and Odin's laser gun, which does 20 points of damage no matter what. Noah's wind and Alis's fire were doing some damage (although I don't know how much, since annoyingly the HP indicator was removed for this battle) but they soon ran out of magic power. I was reduced to healing with Alis, curing with Myau and attacking with Odin. With 26 HP left, Odin fired the killer shot, and I breathed out.

Phantasy Star: completed.

Phantasy Star: completed ... nearly

Ooh, lots to report on. I found a prism, which someone told me will make something appear. I found an eclipse torch, which seemed pointless. I found a frozen laerma tree, which I used the torch on, and then I could get a laerma nut from it. Villagers all over the place kept on mentioning laerma nuts, so it's obviously important.

I explored Dezoris for ages, and couldn't find anything more. So I went back to Palma. Just north of Scion there's a wall and a gate whcih I couldn't get through. I tried everything, until I realised that Noah had an "open" spell. Dur. Fought through there, walked through a lava field, arrived at a tower, fought through there, found a man who gave me a crystal and also found a miracle key. Healed and fought all the way to the top of the tower, and had a lovely view ... but nothing else. Experimented with everything and found that the laerma nut makes Myau grow wings. Flew up to castle, found Lassic, realised description was "Shadow", beat him, found Lassic for real and beat him. He's dead. Huzzah.

Game didn't end; instead told to see the governor. Which governor? Quick investigation shows it's the governor of Moltavia - headed back to Paseo and went into the governor's mansion - he wasn't there. Instead, fell down hole. Went through dungeon, found door in wall after much searching; went through and found Dark Falz. I already killed you in Phantasy Star Online! Started battle and realised that nobody's attacks were doing any harm. Oh dear. Died.

Field Commander: past the tutorials

I did a very silly thing this morning: I left my Game Boy Micro at home. Combined with a very busy weekend, I've got my work cut out to finish it before Wednesday.

But anyway. Since my train took ages to get into Waterloo this morning, I explored what I did have with me - and found my PSP and Field Commander. I tried it out and ... well, it's Advance Wars. It's Advance Wars with the charm and cuteness removed, with ugly polygonal models and unlikeable characters. It's Advance Wars with fewer units, the ability to attack terrain and cities, and odd downdraft areas over which you cannot fly.

But its similarities to Advance Wars are unnerving. Only infanty can capture a city - and each city has 20 hitpoints to reduce. Each commander has a special move and a super move. Each unit has 10 points of health. Antiair units are good against helicopters and infantry but not tanks. You've got landers, transport copters ...

I'll try the campaign on the way home, then again after Phantasy Star's finished. It seems good, but not great.

Phantasy Star: getting tooled up

Going by a comment from a villager back on Palma, I'm going to have to get a Laconian sword, shield, axe and armour before I face Lassic. So far (at the end of the adventures I describe below) I've got the sword, armour and axe.

The game's a little frustrating now, with no signposts as to where to head next. After defeating Medusa, I knew that the sword was on the island in the middle of the sea, so went over there and got that. I then went exploring a bit and didn't find anything new, so I flew to Uzo and went exploring around there instead. East of Uzo there's a maze of mountain ranges, and I found a new dungeon. At the end of that dungeon was Noah's mentor, who was a bit rubbish and died in a one-on-one fight with Noah without causing any damage at all. I've no idea what a "frad mantle" is meant to be, but it increases Noah's defence.

I went a bit further East, over a lake and found myself back at Paseo, the spaceport that I originally arrived at. I'd forgotten, but in the armory there they had diamond armour for sale at 15,000 mesata. I had 17,000. I bought it. Well, it's got to be good, yes? And it did seem to bump up Alis's defense quite a lot.

I couldn't find anything else, so went to Skure and starter wandering around there. The planet's quite restrictive, with massive mountain ranges all over the place. I did find a cave, however, which I went through, only to find another cave, and another ... I ended up in Twintown, which is populated by some ugly aliens with a French accent. These use the same sprites as the evilheads, but with a different colour palette, and they haven't attacked me yet. I presume they're friendly.

Half the town are pathological liars, it seems ... but you can tell the ones that are, because they say "indeed", "really" and "oh yes" all the time.

I went into the shop in Twintown and found an ice digger for sale. For 12,000 mesata. Great - by this time I had built up my money store to just under 4,000 ... I decided to come back after exploring more.

I found myself in a morgue, full of zombies. It was a real pain, because there were countless dead ends which were full of enemies, and traps, and I even got caught in an area I couldn't get out of - I had to use the flute to go out of the morgue and back in. In the end I found a chest (I had to use Myau to disarm a trap to get past it) which had the Laconian armour in it. Huzzah!

By this time I had 8,000 mesata, so headed back to Twintown. Around Twintown is evildead city, and evildeads give you 136 mesata each when they die. Being attacked by 3 of them is very profitable. I quickly raised the money I needed for the ice digger.

This thing is great. It can plow straight through some mountains. Not others, though. And there's no way of knowing which is which. I'll have to explore more to find where to go next.

Midweek Challenges - 01/11/2006

OK, I've now got Tales of Eternia and Field Commander on the PSP due to a cheap price and a cockup at Gameplay. So, this week's challenge is simple, yet hard:

One
Complete Phantasy Star.

Phantasy Star: goodbye, Miss Snake Head

Lots of progress last night and this morning.

Firstly, I went around buying the good weapons that I wanted. This was fine except for the laser shield which you can only buy in Abion, which is miles from anywhere and I'd already had to go there once already. I wish I'd bought it before - but then again, I don't know if I'd have had 4500 mesata to spend on it ...

I went to Dezoris, the third planet, and found a bit of a icy wasteland. Palma seems pretty underpopulated, so why don't they all just move there, rather than freezing to death on Dezoris or burning in the desert sun on Motavia? Seems pretty obvious to me. They must be doing something right, though, because everyone on Dezoris is loaded. Monsters give shedloads of money.

I then went back to Motavia, to a town called Uzo, and bought Alis the laser sword. It's missing the "whuuuum" sound effects. I talked to some people, and they told me that to the Southwest there was a cave in which dragons lived, who have giant gems in their heads. This sounds like a hint. There was also a man who told me about a "soothing flute" which he'd dumped in Gothic.

So, I went to the Southwest, and after a lot of wandering around found a cave. I wandered through it for a while and eventually came out into a town called Casba. No dragons to be found there, but there were some vehicular activities. I was able to buy a landrover from the shop for 5000 mesata - unfortunately, it's a strange tracked vehicle and not a Freelander. Also, a man in a house told me that he's abandoned a hovercraft near Bortevo, on Palma. As you do.

On the way back through the cave I went exploring and found a blue dragon, who I killed rather easily and then found an amber eye. I presume this was one of the gems they were talking about. No idea what I'll do with it yet ...

Since I had no other leads, I went back to Uzo to go and find either the flute or the hovercraft on Palma. I forgot how annoying it was to search - you have to bring up the menu screen, scroll down four spaces to 'search', then repeat over and over again. Luckily the old man had told me the flute was dumped on the outskirts of Gothic, so I went around the path on the outside of the town and it was handily hidden at the end of a path near the entrance.

The hovercraft was less easy to find. I went to Bortevo (half the way to Abion, so only half as far out of the way and half as annoying to get to - although the speed of the landrover helps quite a lot) and once I got there remembered that it's where I found Hapsby the robot - the whole town is a ruin and each of the houses contains junk. I searched in every house and in the last house, the one right next to the exit of the town, I found the hovercraft. Hapsby repaired it and it's as good as new.

Rather luckily, Bortevo is right next to a bit of water, so I jumped in the hovercraft and headed west across the sea. And ended up in Scion, really close to where the whole game starts. It's going to be much easier to navigate around now.

I did some exploring down the coast there and found a new town, called Drasgow, floating in the middle of the ocean. It was a bit of a dump, but one person told me about Sopia, which is a town surrounded by gas fields. They don't make it easy for themselves, do they? I also coincidentally found a shop which, after exploring a massive maze, let me buy a gas shield.

So, to Sopia, which is on Motavia. I went to Uzo, and talked to everyone in the hope that they could tell me where to go. Nobody did. However, I now had my landrover which meant that I could go over the top of the ant lions' nests, and so I went exploring. I was quite lucky in that I tried going East first, and that's the way it was - Northeast, in fact, but only once you'd hit mountains going East.

The gas fields are a nasty place, and I ran into a couple of nasty enemies on my way through - a horseman and a sorcerer, who took quite a lot of health off of me. I was glad to get to Sopia. It's not much of a town, but it does have a hospital! There's nothing else there, though. I found the mayor and talked to him, and he begged me for money - 400 mesata, in fact. His town's poor because nobody goes through the gas fields. Move, you fools. Since I'd earnt 300 from killing the two enemies out in the gas fields, I said yes, hoping for some sort of reward. But no. He told me that Perseus's shield was on an island in the lake - I presumed the lake next to the town. I presumed correctly, as it turns out, because on a small island I found the mirror shield.

Ah, yes, I thought, my Greek mythology's coming back to me. Perseus killed Medusa by using a shield that reflected her image back to her. Odin's going to be able to finish the job.

Nearly up-to-date.

I ran into Medusa's tower before, when I took a wrong turning on the way to Bortevo the first time I left Gothic. So, back to Uzo, fly to Gothic, and to the tower, Repunzal. I worked my way through the tower, which was a nightmare - traps everywhere which meant I kept on ending up in the basement, and there were some very nasty enemies in there. I had to go back to gothic a couple of times to restart. I also suspect I looked very odd on the train trying to draw a map as I went. But it all paid off, as I found Medusa, and killed her in four turns. She left behind a Laconian axe. I just hope it's good.

Battalion Wars: shooting down gunships

Two more excellent missions tonight; firstly I had to take a castle from the enemy, which I did by dividing my units and attacking from two sides at once; and secondly I had to destroy eight heavy tanks, using four light tanks and some bazookas. The second one was rather complicated by the presence of gunship helicopters, which I had to get my missile units to shoot down.

The only issue I'm finding is that I'm getting a low rank (generally a C) because I'm not doing the missions quickly enough. In order to get a better rank I'd have to know what to do from the start, but I don't feel like going back and redoing any missions. Yet.

The next mission looks rather hard, but I'm going to be given some artillary units so it should be amusing ...

Phantasy Star: battling for cash

On the way in to work this morning I decided to try to raise some of the money I need to buy things in Phantasy Star. While some of the areas I visited recently have a fair number of high-earning enemies, sometimes the battles can go on a bit and I'd have to heal quite often. So I headed back to Eppi for a wonder the forest, and to go werebat hunting.

So far I've earnt 8500 mesata from wandering around killing the werebats. I'm sufficiently levelled up that I can take down a group of four of them in two turns, normally suffering no damage. It's a little bit dull, but at least soon I'll be able to afford the equipment I want to buy. Then it'll be onwards and upwards.

In any case, such a mindless task is useful for doing while I'm listening to the 1Up Yours podcast.

Battalion Wars: moving out

I've set up my GameCube temporarily, so have spent this evening playing through some games that have hardly ever been touched, if at all. Sonic Gems was a great diversion for an hour, playing through the first level of Sonic CD, Sonic R, Sonic 2 for the Game Gear and Sonic Drift. I'd forgotten how confusing Sonic CD was. If I'd got it when it first came out, and had devoted as much time to it as I did to Sonic and Sonic 2, I'd know my way around all the levels, knowing when to time travel and so on. But only getting it six years ago meant that it's not had the time it deserves, and I don't think it ever will, unless all my other games mysteriously combust.

I played Ikaruga - fun but too hard for this evening; Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg - great and I've got the theme tune in my head now; Viewtiful Joe - again, too hard for this evening; and Battalion Wars.

I'd not played Battalion Wars at all; I bought it in a sale a while ago but after my GameCube had been packed up for the move. This evening I've played through and cleared the first four missions, and ... well, it's excellent. It's an action game first and foremost, but in the last mission I played the strategy crept back in, to the point where I was commanding other units rather than firing at the enemies myself.

You can see the Advance Wars influences, with strategy requiring you to command bazooka units to attack tanks, and infantry to attach bazookas, and so on. There's a clever paper-scissors-stone feel to many of the battles, and victory relies on you sending the right group in to do the job. Of course, in these early stages there's a lot of hand-holding, but it's done in a immersive way, with your brigadier (Betty) letting you know where the enemy's coming from and what units they've got.

The last mission was well-structured, too. It involved busting into an enemy camp, rescuing two scouts and driving them off in a recon vehicle, avoiding bazookas and missiles all the way home. Once hom, you had to defend against a retaliatory force. They may have killed a lot of my units, but I managed to last it out, using an airlifted-in tank to destroy their vehicles.

Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories: mayhem in a fire engine

On the way into work this morning I did a superb mission, set by the priest in the church (I'm on the second island). I had to drive around in a fire engine causing as much mayhem as possible, since cars are evil and a sign of greed. Or something.

Anyway, the fire engine seems to be indestructable, and so you just drive around trying to hit other cars out of the way, getting bonus points for knocking over motorcyclists, spinning cars around or flipping them, and destroying cars. After a while it gets harder, because the police start chasing you ... but at the same time, it's easier because they're trying to drive into you, and you're flipping police cars left, right and centre.

Anyway. that was fun. The next was also amusing - a mission set by a politician to canvass votes by driving a loudspeaker van around town. After claiming a couple of territories the opponent's vans start to do the same, and you have to get five more territories then them ... and once you've done that you can destroy them.

Hooray for mayhem.

Naked War: snatching defeat from the jaws of victory

I have no idea how that happened. I was thrashing Kieron in Naked War, with him only having one unit with doofers left. I had three soldiers chasing him around the map. Then in one turn he kills two of those three soldiers, leaving me with one unit with doofers left.

Basically, I made the dire mistake of pushing forward onto the other side of the map too quickly, without ensuring that I kept my other doofers safe. We were effectively down to three doofers at the end - when you kill someone you take all their doofers, so what matters is the number of people with doofers, not the absolute number of doofers - and Kieron managed to capture two of them in subsequent turns, even after I did my best to run away. So I lost.

I've started two more games against him. I can't take this lying down.

Mario Kart Dreadful Snaking

I had quite a few games on Mario Kart DS tonight, playing online against Kieron and John. Of course, I won most of them. The online system took a few tries to work, and John had to turn off his torrents to stop it crashing out, but once it was going it was great.

The game loses out on communication, but we solved this by sitting by the computer with a chat window open. Once I'm fully set up with my Xbox we'll have to use a Halo 2 private room for voice instead.

The game also loses out on a community aspect. It's almost as bad as Halo 2 in terms of the sportsmanship of random players. If you win, they quit. Dire. At least you don't get Merkin teenagers shouting that you cheat and you suck.

But played against friends, it's superb. Even when you get blue-shelled twice in one race.

Midweek Challenges - 25/10/2006

After the pain that was hard Stamp Mode, and the endless slog through the Pro tour, I'm going for a change in direction.

One
Complete a couple of missions on Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories. This may sound like very little, but I've also got to resist the appeal of just driving around stealing stuff.

Two
Get 999 lines again on Tetris DS. Just because.

Three
Play Phantasy Star again, and try to earn enough to buy a laser gun (in Skure), gloves (in Skure), a light sabre (in Uzo), a laser shield (in Abion) and a wand (in Skure). These are all pretty powerful weapons according to the list I've seen, so should put me in good stead to continue with the game.

Touch Golf: professional level completed

Some of the final courses at professional level were just insanely hard. Strong winds, narrow fairways and very good opponents. Oh, and very very lumpy greems - the keepers should be ashamed. On one course I finished at +3 and was still 36th.

But I've now finished the professional level, finally, and overall I came first. I've got a bit of money to play with now as well.

One annoying thing is that I can't choose to replay the earlier tournaments to raise more money for equipment or better my scores, but instead I'm forced to progress to the master class. Still, the prize money for the first game is €100,000 and I'm not doing too badly.

Oh, and another annoying thing is that you don't earn anything from playing the standard match play or stroke play games - only the championships. I need more money!

42 All-Time Classics: hard stamp mode completed

I've been playing through the hard stamp mode, and once I'd got past ludo (which, thankfully, I never have to play again) I had quite a run of success. I beat the DS at chess, at field tactics, at koi-koi, and at Texas hold'em. Lots of other games too, which I can't remember.

I've now completed all the stamp modes, and I'm not sure I'll play this for a couple of weeks, apart from in multiplayer. The missions are generally just too hard or random, and I've got lots of other stuff to do.

Now I've completed this, I might think about playing some other games.

Touch Golf: blowing on

Since when have you seen professional golfers playing in pouring rain with winds up to 15mph? You haven't. Yet there I am with my stupid non-running ball and special shot that seemingly makes the shot worse. Bah.

42 All-Time Classics: medium stamp mode completed

The final game - Escape - was easier on the medium setting than on the easy setting. Maybe I was just being more spatially aware.

I was quite pleased about some of the last games, though. I managed to win Chess, and Texas Hold'em, and even Koi-Koi - though the latter was more by luck than skill. I somehow won Darts too, even though it's a shambolic mess of inaccuracy.

I ought to now play some other game, but I just know I'll start the hard stamp mode on the train home tonight.

Midweek Challenges - 11/10/2006

42 All-Time Classics has been wedged in my DS since I got it. I've not turned on my Game Boy Micro or my PSP at all.

Oops.

One
Earn enough to buy a laser gun (in Skure), gloves (in Skure), a light sabre (in Uzo), a laser shield (in Abion) and a wand (in Skure) in Phantasy Star.

Two
Complete the Pro class of Touch Golf.

Three
Complete stamp mode on the medium setting in 42 All-Time Classics.

42 All-Time Classics: ludo

What an utterly, utterly pointless and painful game this is.

Ludo was never a great game against human players, but against the computer it's just stupid. There's no skill to it, it's just chance. This is all to obvious from my experiences yesterday.

In the first game, it was only after 35 dice rolls that I got a six, and was able to move my first piece. It had been around 30 rolls before the computer got its first six. That's over sixty rolls of the dice just seeing "no move" over and over again. What fun!

The computer won that game, by a very narrow margin.

The second game was even worse. I got sixes with alarming frequency, moving all my pieces out onto the board. The computer didn't. In fact, I had three of my pieces home by the time the computer got its first six ... and the next turn my remaining piece landed on top of the computer's piece, sending it back home. I therefore completed the game without the computer having a single piece in play.

At least that's over with ... for now. I've completed stamp mode on easy, and am now halfway through it on the medium difficulty level. I've still got to play ludo one more time for the hard level. Joy.

Midweek Challenges - 04/10/2006

Because I've been ill, I only managed one challenge last week ...

One
Earn enough to buy a laser gun (in Skure), gloves (in Skure), a light sabre (in Uzo), a laser shield (in Abion) and a wand (in Skure) in Phantasy Star.

Two
Complete the Pro class of Touch Golf.

Three
Complete stamp mode on the easy setting in 42 All-Time Classics, which should be waiting for me when I go back to work. Apparently it's doable in a couple of days.

Touch Golf: dragging on and on

Make that 24,196,273 tournaments.

I've not been playing much, though, because I've been ill. As such, there's been no progress on Phantasy Star ... and I reckon I'm getting close to the end of that, so I ought to make a final push.

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.

Midweek Challenges - 27/09/2006

Much the same as last week ...

One
Earn enough to buy a laser gun (in Skure), gloves (in Skure), a light sabre (in Uzo), a laser sheild (in Abion) and a wand (in Skure) in Phantasy Star.

Two
Complete the Pro class of Touch Golf.

Three
Complete the first two stages of River Rapids.

Touch Golf: dragging on

No, I've not completed the professional class, but that's mainly because it seems to have 24,196 tournaments to complete before you can progress. I'm winning about 75% of them, and coming 2nd or 3rd in the rest. I'll keep going.

Phantasy Star: flying around the galaxy

Now I remember where I was. I was trying to earn money in order to buy new equipment for everyone from the new towns I can now get to.

It's a little monotonous having to fight over and over again to get mesatas though.

Wipeout Pure: unlocking stuff

It still seems hit-or-miss as to whether things unlock or not, but I've just completed the Ascension tournament on the Vector difficulty, and came second overall, and that's unlocked the next difficulty level up. Flash, I seem to recall.

No idea how I can get the other tournaments to be available in Venom though. They're all available in Vector, but even completing them there doesn't seem to unlock anything.

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.

Tetris DS: puzzle mode

It's a welcome break from the franticness of the normal gameplay, but I'm not convinced it's entirely great. For some reason I can never remember the rule that you must always clear at least one line each time, and so get very frustrated when the piece doesn't drop in the correct place.

I'm not sure how many puzzle levels there are, but I'm looking forward to completing it.

Midweek Challenges - 20/09/2006

No, no updates for ages! Shock, horror!

Well, I have been on holiday. I think I'm allowed that.

One
Complete the Pro class of Touch Golf.

Two
Unlock the Ascension tournament in Wipeout Pure's Venom class.

Three
Get back into Phantasy Star. I sort of forgot where I was while on holiday.

Phantasy Star: Dr Luveno and the spaceship

I've rescued Noah, and he told me to go and find a Dr Luveno. He, apparently, could build me a spaceship. I seem to recall from the opening sequence that there were are three planets in the system - maybe it's almost time for me to go to the last one.

Noah's presence somehow allowed me to go down a manhole cover that I couldn't before, and I've found a new little town on the other side of the river. It's pretty desolte, full of ruined houses and beggars. One of them send me south to find the prison where Dr Luveno was locked up.

Monsters around here are scary and powerful. Luckily I've upgraded all my kit.

I managed to rescue Dr Luveno from the prison, and went back to the village (Gothic) where he built me a spaceship in 20 seconds flat. Rather impressive. Now I just need to find a pilot. I have no idea where ...

Midweek Challenges - 06/09/2006

I'm off on holiday at the end of the week, and won't be playing much ...

One
Get to the third planet in Phantasy Star.

Two
Clear another twenty levels in Tetris DS's puzzle mode.

Phantasy Star: Nuala caves

Far surpassed the challenge, and I'm getting into this game quite a lot. After the initial difficult stage, where any monster had a fair chance of killing Alis, I've now got a party of three characters who are relatively powerful and can at least put up a decent fight. Plus Alis has learnt a heal spell which allows her to replenish the health of anyone on the team when needed.

It's been hinted that I need to see the governor, and it's been further hinted that he likes sweets. And finally someone in Scion's told me there's a cake shop in the caves of Nuala. I can now appreciate the history behind the cake mission in Phantasy Star Online!

So I set off to Nuala, meeting werebats along the way (they put up a bit of a fight, but they give loads of mesata when killed). I save just outside the cave, and enter. I light a flash, and can see the dungeons spreading out ahead of me. I use my newly-discovered dungeon key and go through the door. I'm attacked by five Goldlenses, and fight them off like a champ.

It's good fun, though I resort to drawing a map as I go since it's a bit sprawling. I get some odd looks from the people on the train, balancing a pad on my knee, playing a game. Only because they're bored. They ought to buy a Game Boy Micro.

I finall make my way down four floors, and find the cake merchant. He sells me some shortbread for 1000 mesatas - rather expensive confectionary! - and then I realise that I'm going to have to go through the caves to get out again, since there's no teleporting here. I'm a bit low on health, so I drink loads of cola and set off.

After a long slog out I emerge into the sunlight. Excellent. Save ... and the game crashes. Without saving.

I'm going to have to do it all over again.

Bollocks.

At least I've got my map.

Doom RPG: completed!

I wasn't that near the end, as it turns out. I'd just survived a massive explosion and Junction was ruined, but I still had to fight my way through the red reactor section before getting to the portal. Oh, and on the way, kill Kronos.

In fact, killing Kronos was easy. One hit with a rocket and one from the BFG and he went down.

I regretted that later though. Tim's Top Tip - save your BFG cells for the cyberdemon. He's a bit mean. I died a couple of times when I first met him - the problem is that you have to destroy two power couplings while monsters get spewed from the portal every couple of turns. And some of these monsters can revive others. I worked out the trick is to destroy the power couplings as quickly as possible, then just kill the cyberdemon quickly before other monsters are revived and get in your way.

And then escape.

The game's hinted there's more to find and I've been placed back at the beginning with all my weapons and passkeys, but I'm not sure I can be bothered to carry on right now. Maybe soon.

Midweek Challenges - 30/08/2006

Having moved all of my stuff into the new house, it's now all in boxes.

One
Complete Doom RPG. I've played it a fair bit over the past few days since it's been available. It's a really good game, and although the story's a bit lightweight it does add to the atmosphere. I think I'm probably near the end now.

Two
Get Alis to level 5 of Phantasy Star. It's an RPG game that starts off with the painful levelling that most RPGs finish with. It should be outlawed.

Midweek Challenges - 23/08/2006

Very simply, one challenge this week:

One
Move house

I think that might just cover it. If I get a chance, I'll play some Tetris, and some Wipeout Pure. But it's unlikely.

Tetris DS: online

Hmm. It's hard. I lost my first game dreadfully. I then played a four-player game, which I came second on, then fourth, then third twice. Then I played someone called "Kerri" who beat me twice, before I beat them three times.

That felt good.

Wipeout Pure: downloading stuff

I've spent the last hour or so downloading all the extra tracks and racers for Wipeout Pure. It all seems a bit of a hasty addition, with nothing to tell you which ones you've already go and so on. Anyway, I've now got a huge number of competitions to try out before I need to worry about unlocking the others.

Which is probably a good thing. I've had a look at a guide and it seems that to unlock the next tournament I need to get all golds on the current tournaments. I'm sure I could do that; I'm just not sure I can be bothered to sit through the same races again only for the AI racers to overtake me on the last corner.

Midweek Challenges - 16/08/2006

One
Win a game of Tetris DS online.

Two
Work out how to unlock the next lot of stuff on Wipeout Pure.

Three
Complete three more intermediate sudoku puzzles in Brain Training.

Touch Golf: the first 'level'

I'm no longer a rookie, I'm now a professional.

The prize money hasn't gone up much, but the competition's much harder.

I don't think that's a fair trade.

Tetris DS: marathon mode completed

On my third go, no less - I've completed 200 lines and so have unlocked the "endless" mode. I must admit, the old-school Tetris theme was nice to hear as the blocks were just appearing at the bottom of the screen. That God for the everlasting rotation stuff that the Tetris Company made Nintendo put in - it gives you a chance to move.

Some of the other modes are very clever. Puzzle suits the DS very well, although it can be solved by trial and error if needed. Touch puzzle is a little more difficult, but again there has been one level which I've 'solved' by randomly moving pieces around. The touch mode is fun, if not frantic enough. And the mission mode is inspired.

The less said about the catch mode the better, though. I'm not entirely sure I understand it anyway, but it does seem largely uncontrollable and just not fun.

Dr Kawashima's Brain Training: drawing pictures

I'm no artist, but Dr Kawashima's just shown me Tamsyn's attempts at drawing a shark and a swordfish. Mine are works of art compared to hers.

I feel allowed to mock, though, since she's got all the high scores on Calculation x100. Boo.

Animal Crossing: Wild World: my flowers

I really need to get a better camera for this.

Anyway, here's my flower display. Unfortunately there hadn't been rain for a while, so I couldn't take a picture with all flowers fresh.

But you get the idea.

Midweek Challenges - 09/08/2006

Suffice to say, I completed all of last week's challenges. I'll write more on the games when I get the time.

One
Win another $30,000 in Touch Golf.

Two
Complete the 200-line marathon mode in Tetris DS.

Singstar: an 80s party

A superb game, it turns out. I never thought I was amazing at singing, but Singstar indicates that I'm not bad. I can hold a tune, at least.

Unlike many of the other people at my aunt's birthday party.

Midweek Challenges - 02/08/2006

One
Complete a round of Touch Golf. Easy, I know - but I've not played it at all yet.

Two
Complete the first ten puzzle levels of Tetris DS.

Three
Get a brain age of 20, to beat my wife's 21.

Animal Crossing: Wild World: goodbyeeeeeeee

I can't devote any more time to it. I've only caught 70% of the insects and 75% of the fish, and collected 90% of the umbrellas, but Animal Crossing is now becoming too much of a chore. But don't feel sad, since the game has provided me with almost daily enjoyment for over eight months.

Stewart's bought himself a DS Lite, so I've taken a couple of pictures of my flower displays. I've written some letters to Blaire, to Bones and to Nibbles. I've tidied up my junk room, and released the fish I had in my pink room.

I will go back to Bangaio, one day. I will venture back and with John and Kieron's help I'll clear up all the weeds, and revisit all my townspeople. But for now, the town is silent.

Outrun 2006: Clarissa's challenges

I think that's her name, anyway.

I completed a few of the flagman challenges, but fancied something different so started to play some of Clarissa's heart attack missions. And they're hard.

In fact, I've only unlocked about half of them so far, since you need to complete a stage in a normal heart attack event before you can replay it over and over again by itself. It's not just reaching the stages - I can just about manage that - but there are up to four different modes for each stage, the later ones of which are obtained by reaching them while getting at least As in all previous stages.

And this is the first of three heart attack mission modes!

Hitman: Contracts: big fat meat man

It's not too bad a game, and I do like the open-endedness of it, but I'm finding it rather hard. The first level was easy enough once I realised that the SWAT teams didn't pay me any attention if I was wearing an asylum inmate's outfit, and not carrying a weapon. The second level was much more complicated, though. Eventually I worked out that I could kill the lawyer first when he went to the loo, then steal his VIP pass and nick some clothes from a passed-out guest to get upstairs to see the big fat boss man.

Not sure how much I'll play this, but it's nice to have to think about things for a change.

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.

Midweek Challenges - 26/07/2006

One
Complete the first two levels of Hitman: Contracts, which I got for £2.99 from Choices.

Two
Take pictures of my flower display in Animal Crossing before I leave it to die.

Three
Complete at least six of the third set of flagman races in Outrun 2006.

Doom RPG: backtracking

After gaining the green keycard, there's a door in sector 1 (in the yellow area) which you're able to open. To get there you have to go through the whole of the sector, fighting off easy enemies with a single shot. Then you get through the green door, and blue dogs start jumping at you and it's just a bit scary.

Anyway, the green sector is relatively easy, once you've levelled up a bit. Again, though, I didn't find many secrets along the way.

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.

Outrun 2006: Outrun class cars

With a few Outrun Miles under my belt, I've bought some Outrun class cars. Hideous things - take a lovely designed Ferrari and add some chavvy spoilers and bodywork to it. But they go so much faster with such better acceleration it's unfunny. They're a bit more slidey, and it's more difficult to control the powerslides, but I can just about manage. It does feel like controlling a wild beast though.

Previously I was having a bit of a job finishing the harder arcade routes. I can do them easily on the Xbox Outrun 2, but on occasion I wasn't even getting to the last stage on the PSP. No longer. I completed destination D on my second go with the Outrun class 360 Spider, and I reckon the SP tracks will be similar.

I also tried some of the missions with the new car. The novice missions are all completed at AAA level now. But on the professional level, the game's rather ruined by idiotic AI. On 'race the rivals' stages, I can catch up to and overtake the leading cars in the first two stages. And yet even if I have a clean race all the way from that point, if I then mess up the last corner five cars go shooting past me. Really frustrating.

Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Adventures

I've owned this for a long time, but we've not really played it much. And given that our previous save is in my Gamecube box, which in turn is in Box A9, which is under Box A27, Box A30 and Box 6, it seemed easier to start again when John brought this along.

I'm glad we did. This is a superb game, once you've worked out the controls - which aren't difficult really, they're just context-sensitive. I've written a review for Wii Ouendan, here. As I say there, the mix of competitiveness and collaboration works excellently, and we played through three levels last night having a great laugh. I'm sure we would have played more if it wasn't just past midnight, on a school night.

I look forward to our next game.

Sega Casino: multiplayer Texas hold 'em

The awful background music aside, this works really well in multiplayer. Of course, you can't see other people's screens, so you have to have a good poker face when placing your bids and so on. I obviously did, because I won. This was rather good.

This was helped by John placing stupidly large bids to start with, not realising we had limited money. He went out soon after. I then went on to win a lot off of Kieron in one hand, when I had three of a kind to his two pairs. After that we were pretty even for ages, with me on £3500 and him on £2500. To save John's boredom, Kieron went all in on what he thought was a winning hand. It wasn't.

They now owe me £2000 each.

Advance Wars: Dual Strike: Kieron wins. Again.

It's getting dull now. Too routine. We start a game of Advance Wars DS. Several hours later, Kieron wins. BORING.

Well, not really. The game's as fun as ever, and last night we played on one of the pre-deployed maps, which meant the game was actually finished (instead of ending in stalemate) and didn't take five hours to get going. Definitely the way to go in the future. However, Kieron's tactics were again superior to mine or John's. We knew they would be, and to start with I wasn't attacking John's units and he wasn't attacking mine - through some sort of unspoken understanding.

At least, John didn't think he was attacking my units. It turns out that he thought I was blue when actually I was green.

I'll have to practice for next time.

Midweek Challenges - 19/07/2006

Complete success last week!

One
Get past level 16 of Brickbreaker. This is the level with the row of indestructable blocks preventing you from progressing if you lose a life. I always lose a life.

Two
Complete a run of Outrun 2 (on Coast 2 Coast on the PSP) finishing at stage D.

Three
Complete parts 1 and 2 of the green sector in Doom RPG.

Doom RPG: green keycard get

Completed the yellow sector now, although I've missed a lot of secret areas along the way. Rather annoyingly, if you go back into any completed sectors it doesn't provide you with the map you'd uncovered previously, so you can't see where you'd found secrets before.

Some of the enemies are getting just a little scary.

Pro Evolution Soccer 5: preset results?

I'm getting a little fed up with this now. I'm pretty sure the game has decided which games it wants me to win and which ones it doesn't For example, I came back to the game after a brief break, and lost the next game in the league. I'd managed to keep possession quite well, though; I just couldn't score. So I abandoned that and played a few exhibition maches to get back up to speed. Won all of those.

I went back into the league and lost again. Again, I was playing well, but every shot was wide or saved. I tried quitting out and playing again. The same thing happened; but this time I defended well and managed a draw. My squad was knackered afterwards though.

I won the next game 5-0.

The first game was against North East London (Spurs, who are midway down the table). The second game was against Manchester Red (United, who are second, behind me). I don't think that follows somehow.

Naked War

Fabulous fun. I've posted a little on Wii Ouendan here. I'm currently in the middle of five games, of which I think I'm likely to win two. One is a bit of a stalemate at the moment.

I can't wait until I can start sending out challenges to everyone rather than just those on the Beta program.

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.

Midweek Challenges - 12/07/2006

I've still not played Exit. In fact, I've noticed a bit of a theme here. The difference is that this week I was going to play Exit, but couldn't find the game disc, found Pro Evolution Soccer 5 instead, and played that, what with it being the World Cup and all.

One
Win three matches in PES5's league.

Two
Complete the yellow sector in Doom RPG.

I'm off up to Derby this weekend so there won't be much time for anything else ...

Doom RPG

It's a mobile game. That I've paid for. And it's really good.

The RPG doesn't stand for rocket-propelled grenade, as you might expect with Doom. It's a proper Role Playing Game - sort of like Dungeon Keeper but set in the Doom universe, using Doom enemies and so on. Combat is turn-based, but it flows with the main action of the game superbly. There's humour, too, with many of the human non-player characters having well-written dialogue and backstories.

It may get repetitive later on, but for now I'm enjoying it. I've completed the entrance and have moved into the yellow sector. The enemies are starting to get just a little harder now.

Rainbow Six 3: Black Arrow

Is it just me, or is this easier than the first game? A lot?

Mario Kart DS: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

That may not be the right number of As. And, in fact, mostly I've not got As, I've got stars. But every grand prix has been cleared with at least an A now.

And my hand hurts.

Halo 2: we all hate Americans

We don't all play games to be overly competitive. Some of us play games to have fun. Which means it's spoilt rather a lot by nobbers screaming and shouting about others' lack of skills just because they couldn't kill them first. Mostly, in fact, because of lag.

But worst still are those that hack the game. Take, for example, this game. Each member of our team appeared on top of the big pointy bit in the level, and was instantly sniped by "Milf Facker". I think I was alive for a whole five seconds at one point.

Why? What's the point?

Other than that though I had some really good games, playing with John over Live. He's still better than me. I need to play more.

Midweek Challenges - 05/07/2006

One
Complete situation 05 in Exit.

Two
Get at least an A for every grand prix on Mario Kart DS.

Three
Complete one mission in Rainbow Six 3: Black Arrow

Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories: stuck again

The problem with the game is that, if you get stuck, it's so much easier and more fun to just drive around causing havok. So I do. I've cleared a few more missions, though (I think more than the five I set myself), so at least I feel I've made some progress.

Actually, I wanted to play Mario Kart DS, but my brother's stolen the game, so I can't. I think it might be two failures this week. I can't be bothered with Exit.

Sticky Balls: onwards and upwards

I've still not worked out quite how the game works out whether you've fouled or it's game over, but I've got further than ever before. I've unlocked a couple more arcade tables, as well - but one (the round one where the balls are connected with springs) eludes me.

Richard Burns Rally

Surprisingly decent, in fact. The only thing is that it's rather hard, so I'm not sure I can beothered to play it again. Maybe it'll just click sometime.

Midweek Challenges - 28/06/2006

One
Complete situation 05 in Exit. Please, please, please.

Two
Complete five more missions in Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories.

Three
Try out Richard Burns Rally on the Gizmondo.

Four
Get at least an A for every grand prix on Mario Kart DS.

Exit: bye bye fatty

Still not worked out how to complete level 05-10, I'm afraid - I can't work out how to get the normal adult out of the bottom-left corner of the level before trapping them in there. But I have found great delight in pushing heavy crates off the edge of higher platforms to land on the fatty. I hate the fatty.

Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories: killing the mayor

Frustrated by Prince of Persia, I put this in and remembered that I'd got to an annoying mission where you have to kill the mayor of the city, but he's running in the park and if you go in there with a weapon around 32,792 secret service people start shooting you.

I have found a most elegent solution. I went and stood by the mayor's cars, and used my flamethrower on them. They didn't explode, luckily - I suppose they're armoured and protected. Hmm, I should have stolen one. Anyway, apparently the mayor had been alerted and was making a run for it. Hmm, I wonder where to ...

Anyway, this led to a minute of comedy, with policeman after policeman and bodyguard after bodyguard running towards me and then falling over and dying. Eventually, the mayor turned up and died too. I left the cars to stop burning, then jumped over them, picked up his mobile, and ran back home as quick as my little legs would carry me.

Dr Kawashima's Brain Training: I'm not so thick

I've had a few days running now with a brain age of 24 or 25, which is lower than my real age. I think that doing sudoku puzzles against a timer encourages you to concentrate more on one thing, which I think is something I have a tendency not to do.

I think my favourite training game is low-to-high, although I'm dire at it. In the later stages, I don't even get to see all the numbers before they disappear.

Games barbecue number 14

John cooks some very nice chicken.

I spent yesterday afternoon at John's, with Kieron, playing games. We played mostly on the DS, with a session on the Xbox thrown in the middle.

Yesterday morning I'd gone into Chips on Orpington High Street and had found them selling Big Brain Academy for £20. Big Brain Academy isn't actually released here until the 7th July - the Friday after next - and indeed it was the US version. I bought it.

So that was the first game we played. We competed at counting coins, recognising silhouettes, and memorising sound patterns. It shouldn't be fun, but it is. I won. Of course.

We also played Mario Kart DS (I didn't win but should have done), Tetris DS (I won in the mission mode, and really in the normal mode too, except that the game got it wrong), and Halo 2 (I didn't win, because I'm crap).

I got home very late and had to get up early this morning. That's not going to help my brain age.

Prince of Persia Revelations: run away!

I've made it to the next boss, and I have a feeling I'm going to once again get tired of the game and not play it for a month or so. The boss is a big troll-like thing. One touch and you're dead.

So, you have to run away, making sure to hurry so the floor doesn't collapse beneath you or he catches you up. This is made rather difficult by:

• the camera, which won't turn corners quick enough for you to see when to jump
• the general colour scheme, which means you can't make out where there are bars to jump onto
• the fact that it's sunny, so the PSP's screen looks all washed out
• the horrendous inaccuracy of the PSP's analogue stick

In effect, it becomes a chore, having to play it over and over again by trial and error. That's just not fun.

Midweek Challenges - 21/06/2006

Burnout Legends was unfortunately packed when we were moving house, so I couldn't play it and won't be able to for the foreseeable future ...

One
Get to the next checkpointy bit in Prince of Persia Revelations.

Two
Complete situation 05 in Exit.

Three
Complete another five Sudoku puzzles in Dr Kawashima's Brain Training.

Dr Kawashima's Brain Training: I'm thick

I've played this quite a few days running now, and my 'brain age' has been steadily getting lower - but whether that's because I'm getting cleverer or because I'm getting used to the puzzles, I'm not sure. It's a great little toy, and very diverting. My best brain age has been 20, but that was a one-off ...

The sudoku puzzles included are excellent. The user interface is so easy to use, and they're clearly split into basic and intermediate levels. Some of the intermediate levels have had me stuck once or twice, but there's nothing unsolvable about them. I've completed 22% now.

Prince of Persia Revelations: die - just die!

Finally, after another four attempts, I've managed to beat the woman in black and rescue the woman in red. The woman in red said something (still no subtitles), the ran down some stairs as the roof collapsed. The stairs were destroyed before I could go down them. So now I'm off on another path. I've learnt how to use ropes to swing against walls now, which is quite handy.

Burnout Revenge: check this!

Or, rather, don't 'check' this. The whole 'checking' (hitting cars going in the same direction) idea is really, really rubbish. It makes the game far too easy, and as a result almost no fun.

EA's annual updates claim another victim.

Midweek Challenges - 14/06/2006

I've not played Exit all week. Oops.

One
Complete situation 05 in Exit.

Two
Complete 20% of the Sudoku puzzles on Dr Kawashima's Brain Training.

Three
Complete the third location in Burnout Revenge.

Four
Play Burnout Legends so as to be able to set a challenge next week.

Black: just Black

I've managed to get past where I was stuck. It was a difficult fight, but by throwing grenades behind the shielded people I worked out you can get a clear shot at their head. I was so close to a checkpoint.

So, I played through the last level. After getting access to the building and bunker, there's quite a lot of single-corridor linearity with the occasional big room firefight. And the tension builds up - you lose radio contact with your team, there are machine gunners ready set to eliminate anyone walking down the tunnels ... and then you find a thin tunnel leading to the bottom, where there's a big room. There's a checkpoint as you go down. This is over an hour and a half into the level.

I stood in the doorway and looked around the room, and took out a few people. Then moved back into the tunnel, and took out a few more who chased me into it. And then the room was silent. I moved forward to look around. Still no movement. I decided to go into the room proper.

And then the screen fucking goes black with the words "There is a problem with the disc you are using, it may be dirty or damaged".

Of course, ejecting the disc to see if it's dirty or damaged resets the console. And it's not that my copy of Black is dirty or damaged. It's that Microsoft cut corners when it came to sourcing reliable DVD drives for their console. Not that they'd ever admit that. Oh no.

I am absolutely livid. It's a wonder that the TV, Xbox and controller are still in one piece.

I'm going to say I passed my challenge. I would have completed the game, I reckon. I had full health, full health packs, nine grenades, 600 ammo on the M249 and 500 ammo on the M5. There was a checkpoint just before this fight - which surely must have been the last. I could have restarted until I completed it. But there's no way I'm playing that game for a good few weeks now.

Burnout Revenge: fighting back against good games

Part of the thrill of Burnout games has always been the weaving in and out of traffic, trying to get past cars without hitting them. Weaving in and out of the traffic, on both sides of the road.

In Burnout Revenge, you get extra boost for hitting cars travelling in the same direction as you.

Whoever came up with this idea is an utter idiot.

I also had to unlock the second location before I could access any crash junctions. These are the best part of the game - you must cause as much damage as you can in a single crash. Four gold medals so far!

Midweek Challenges - 07/06/2006

I know I've not exactly been keeping up to date with this blog recently. I've been rather busy of late, meaning that all my gaming time has disappeared - and there's nothing more dull than a blog which says "I've not done much" over and over again. Still, I'll set myself the challenges, to give me some motivation ...

One
Complete the first location in Burnout Revenge.

Two
Complete situation 05 in Exit.

Three
Complete Black on normal difficulty. I haven't played it since two weeks ago.

Exit: no escape from situation 05

Level 05-10 is a very big one, meaning lots of backtracking (slowly) and having to do loads of stuff over and over again unless you're lucky the first time.

I can't be bothered, so I'm replaying some of the earlier levels.

Pocket Ping Pong 2005

Thank God the Gizmondo died. It means there'll never be a sequel to this absolutely shit game.

It's largely uncontrollable. The graphics are glitchy. It doesn't always respond to button presses. The whole screen bobs up and down (as if you were viewing it from your character's perspective) but that just makes you feel motion sick. You can't see your bat, so you have no frame of reference as to whether you can hit the ball. You can't really control where you hit the ball - often you can be stood still in the middle of the table, receiving a slow, easy ball, and you'll hit it off the side of the table.

And for some reason you play as a skimpily dressed girl. It's almost as if the developers heard that the Gizmondo was advertised as a 'portable Xbox' and decided to do their own version of DOA Xtreme Beach Volleyball. Except they made it crap.

Out of 14 games, I've won 3. And they were flukes. Rubbish.

Loco Roco demo: lies

It says there are 20 flowers to collect. I have collected 19. There is no other flower. I have been everywhere. I am annoyed now.

Animal Crossing: Wild World: thunderbolts and lightning

It's proper storm weather in Bangaio tonight. Thunder and lightning. But still no coelacanth.

Midweek Challenges - 31/05/2006

One
Win a game of Pocket Ping Pong 2005.

Two
Complete situation 05 in Exit.

Three
Complete Black on normal difficulty. I haven't played it since last week.

Exit: success on attempt 338

I've finally worked out how to do level 04-09 - and now I've done it it's really easy. The end part of the level involves you having three lifts in the right places so you can carry an injured man between them. No matter how hard I tried, the lifts were always in the wrong place.

I've written up the first situation for the FAQ - I'll be submitting it to GameFAQs once I've got situation 02 done.

Games Night 3227

I went to my friend Kieron's for a games night last night. Since I've got most of my stuff still packed up, we weren't able to play Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles (since I've got the memory card with the save on it), nor Zelda: Four Swords (since I've got the game).

So, instead we played:

• Conflict: Desert Storm 2. We've got rubbish at this in the year since we last played it. It doesn't help that we've been spoiled by having a whole TV to ourselves when playing over Live. Playing splitscreen, it's pretty difficult to make out where the enemy are. The first couple of times we played it, we did quite well until Kieron ran into a minefield. The same minefield. Twice. We've left it with a save halfway through the level just before a tank which keeps on killing us.
• Donkey Konga 2. The William Tell Overture is genius.
• Project Gotham Racing 2. John's definitely improved at this since last time I played him on Live. However, here it didn't help that Kieron kept driving into him. I'm not sure it was on purpose - Kieron can't even aim for a 50-foot wide gap between two walls, let alone another car.
• Animal Crossing. We visited Bangaio and then Far Away. Kieron would have bought up all of Nook's stock if it wasn't past 11 by then.

Odd how two of the games we played we could have played online anyway ...

Trailblazer: easy arcade mode completed

I played this a bit at lunchtime - it was raining so I was loathe to go out much. My challenge was to complete the first few levels; this was very easy indeed. i think it took me five minutes.

The game has two modes: Arcade and Time Trial. Arcade has three difficulty levels - easy, medium and hard - with only the first being available at the start. Easy mode consists of ten stages, each of which you must run through in the shortest time possible. Any remaining time at the end of each stage is rolled onto the next stage, much as Outrun does.

The first few stages are easy, but once barriers and gaps start appearing on and in the track, it's a bit more tricky. The first time I played I ran out of time in the middle of level 9; the second time I got halfway through level 10, and I completed the game (and unlocked medium mode) on my third time. There's plenty of scope for improving my times in the Time trial though - I've only got two medals so far.

Loco Roco demo

Sony gave away a demo version of Loco Roco with MCV a few weeks ago; I've only just got around to trying it out.

It's fabulous. It's a puzzle platform game, where you control the stage (tilting it left and right) with the only character interaction being a jump and the ability to split your sharacter up into smaller blobs. You have to avoid spikey things and collect flowers. It's very stylistic.

Only one level on the demo, but I think it's already convinced me to buy the game when it comes out.

Midweek Challenges - 24/05/2006

One
Complete Black on normal difficulty. I have no idea how much further I've got to go, and I'm stuck in one place at the moment which I have to play for half an hour to get to because of the retarded checkpoint and save system, but I think it should be achievable.

Two
Write up solutions to the first ten levels of Exit for my FAQ.

Three
Clear the first few levels (if it has them) of Trailblazer.

Black: Spetriniv Gulag

Level 8. It's very, very hard. After half an hour.

I've got the first part of the level down pat now. I've found the silencer for my sub-machine gun. I know where the shotguns are, how to get around the maze of buildings, and where the two RPG men are standing. I can fight my way all the way to the square with the star column, and then loads of enemies appear. Shotguns, men with shields and magnums, twenty ordinary enemies, and a proper machine gun in the bunker ... it's not fair.

I'm dying before I hit any checkpoints. Surely I must be near the end. I can't be only a third of the way through ...