Yoshi's Island DS

I've been away for the last week, and my friend Stewart lent me Yoshi's Island DS to take away with me. Actually, shouldn't that be Yoshis' Island, given that there's more than one Yoshi? Hmm.

I completed the first three worlds while away, and the fourth is full of some very nasty levels indeed. It uses the two screens well, it's lovely to look at and some of the platforming puzzles are really tricky. I've died loads, but have over 90 lives in reserve at the moment, and never have I thought that dying wasn't my fault. It's really great.

Which is surprising, given the poor reviews it's been given, and the fact that it's not an in-house Nintendo production. It's by Artoon, who are a bit of a mixed bag. This must be one of their best, though.

It's not all good, though. The most used button is B - for jumping. So why when you get to a menu screen, does B cancel the selection? Stupid. The multi-baby switching which gives you different skills is used in some places to good effect, but often you need to choose your baby before you see what's ahead. Daft.

Other than that, it's a really good game, definitely a worthy sequel to the SNES original (and GBA port). After I finish it and give it back, I'll be back onto New Super Mario Bros.

Jungle Strike: my goodness, it's difficult

The first level's harder than the last level of Desert Strike. I'm dying all the time. Ouch.

Desert Strike: completed!

The last level was rather hard, with big gun things all over the place, and I died lots. Well, I say died, but whenever my helicopter started to explode, I'd reload the last save, so as to keep playing. A few clever missions, with blowing up a nuclear weapons factory being a little bit dubious in terms of safety. I dropped my copilot off to capture the madman (not Saddam at all, oh no), but instead he got captured and somehow transported to the runway in the northeast corner of the map, where he was loaded onto the bomber.

I went up there and blew a big hole in the side of the bomber, and he ran out to be rescued. Then the bomber started to roll down the runway. Now, I may not be an aeronautical engineer, but surely taking off in an aeroplane with a hole in the side isn't such a good idea?

I didn't give him a chance to find out though; I hit the plane with hellfires and hydras, and just as it started to explode I got hit by a tank and my helicopter started to fall from the sky ... but too late, as the final cutscene came up.

Rah rah rah go America aren't we great.

King Kong: completed!

I was right. I found my way out of the dead end, and we ran past a chapter end to arrive at the wall. Ann climbed up to let the bridge down, but got caught. Then, as Kong I run through the village and rescued her, then ran out of the cave and got caught. You are meant to, of course.

And then to New York - escaping from the theatre, running through the street avoiding the army's cannons, and finally carrying Ann to the top of the Empire State Building. I think I did rather well, bringing down six planes before they killed me. End of the game. Apparently, if you unlock all the extras you can actually win the last chapter, keeping Kong alive - but I'm a long way off of that.

So. It wasn't as good as Beyond Good & Evil, which isn't that much of a surprise, but it's certainly one of the best film licences I've played. The two-character dynamic worked really well, and that really captures the way the film works too, with an uncertain line between which is the right and wrong side, survival and exploitation. It was a little too simple, with many of Kong's battles relying on running away, hammering on Y to turn him into a fury, and then hammering A to attack the enemies. I liked the limited ammo (but unlimited bones spears) of the human game, although it was rare that I ran out before the next gun presented itself.

The motion and voice acting was great, and the character models were really recognisable, especially Carl. The story differed a lot from the film, but was the better for it. It's a game based around the licence, not based around the film.

King Kong: we're almost at the wall!

Ann says it as if it's a good thing, but this probably means I'm near the end of the game, which is a shame because I've really enjoyed it. I've done loads tonight - fought 3 V-Rexes as Kong while protecting Ann, seen Hayes die, sent Jimmy off on the plane, rescued Ann, and am now on the run from Kong while also being chased by villagers with burning spears. I seem to have come to a dead end at the moment, which is why I've taken the first break for three hours ... so much for every 15 minutes. Really I ought to go to bed now, but, well, we're almost at the wall!

Desert Strike: the madman's getting away!

Well, that was a waste of a load of Hydras. I should have guessed that you couldn't destroy his speedboat, since that would rather ruin the next level ...

Level 3 completed. Level 4 is nighttime, and the objectives aren't set out, other than the first two. Let's save those oil fields.

Hotel Dusk: Room 215: completed!

My hunch was partially right, partially wrong. It's a bit of an unsatisfying ending, really, with lots left up in the air, concerning Grace and Bradley and Evans. I almost wish I hadn't completed it, so that I could at least imagine that the ending was more final. Still, I suppose that it's more realistic this way. Life's not perfect.

Hotel Dusk: Room 215: thwonk

Chapter 10 starts off in an interesting way. Ouch, indeed.

On the chapter title screen, the time is listed as "2am - " ... this may well be the last chapter.

Hotel Dusk: Room 215: getting ahead of myself

Halfway through chapter 9 now. Someone fainted, and I was blowing like a pillock into the microphone to resuscitate her, when I realised that Kyle's face was on the other screen and it was just another 'close the DS' puzzle.

Previous to this I've finally got access to room 111, and have been finding all the apple paintings just like I did in my first half an hour in the game - of course, then I wasn't allowed to look at them closely enough. I'd even noticed that there wasn't a painting with just one apple on it anywhere.

And I think I've guessed one of the big overarching storylines - let's just say that one character is the same person as another character who Ive not met yet. If I'm right, it's been very clever, but it's going to be increasingly frustrating watching Kyle be spoon-fed clues until I want to just shout "Get on with it, man!" at the DS.

Hotel Dusk: Room 215: I've been here for days ...

The in-game timer's broken. It records how long you've been playing, but it doesn't pause the timer when you close the DS, which is what I've been doing, instead of saving and quitting.

So, apparently, it's taken me 330 hours to get to midway through chapter 8.

Wii Sports: once, twice a pro

After a tense tennis match this morning, I'm now a pro at tennis - with a skill score of 1071 - as well as at bowling - with a skill score of 1070. Indeed, last night I got a new bowling record, of 204. Very pleasing.

I think I'm going to start concentrating on baseball now. I can't consistently hit it in any particular direction, which is very annoying.

Hotel Dusk: Room 215: chronological inconsistency

I'm on Chapter 6 now, and have tied up a few storylines - Martin Summer's deception, and Jeff Angel/Damon. The game still feels a little contrived in places, with Kyle being interested in really off things that don't matter. And I can't see why he has an issue with Iris. I certainly don't.

It's pretty well scripted, though the fact that you can't skip the text forward really annoys. It scrolls just a bit too slow, and tapping the screen or pushing in the d-pad does nothing. As a result, conversations seem a little too long-winded, even when they're not. There's one iffy bit that just sticks out:

• Helen stayed at the hotel ten years ago, and not since.
• Dunning bought the hotel five years ago.
• Rosa was hired by Dunning some time after this.
• Rosa claims to have spoken to Helen last time she was at the hotel.

Maybe I'm being too clever for my own good and this'll be explained later. We'll see ...

King Kong: down the rapids

I've just finished a long section of this where I had to run up a valley, avoiding brontosaurus legs, and killing carnivores in order to get some fire to burn through some bushes. Getting up there was fine, but on the way back for some reason the dinosaurs weren't moving, which made it a lot easier. When I got back to Hayes and Carl, they were shouting at me to be careful, with two massive brontosauri just standing there, looking perplexed. I threw lots of flaming bones at them, which all got wedged in their side, and they still didn't move. Most amusing.

We found Jimmy, and got on some rafts down the river ... and now we're being chased by two or three T-Rexes, who don't die no matter how many times you shoot them. It's just a case of trying to distract them by killing other things for them to eat, and hitting them with spears so they hesitate and your raft can get out of the way.

I've not managed it yet.

King Kong: hear me roar

It's really odd that I seem to be able to control this almost OK. Even when it comes to running around firing, I'm only slightly inept. Able enough to get through, in any case.

I seem to have died quite a lot, but luckily deaths don't put you back too far. It's an enjoyable game, with a good mix of action and puzzly bits. One part in particular had me confused for ages. There was a door and I had to find two levers to open it. In front of the door was a clearing, in which two dinosaurs were eating. I had to lure the dinosaurs away by throwing dead meat one way, then run through where they'd moved from to set fire to some bushes to find one of the levers. The other lever was covered by spiders which, again, I had to lure away by spearing a giant fly and throwing it to the other side of the room.

I've also played as Kong, chasing Ann through the jungle and fighting dinosaurs and big flying bat things. He's in third-person and it's much easier to control him.

29% done now.

King Kong: the movie

Not the game of the movie, just the movie. I watched it this evening, see?

Erm, it's got a completely different plot to the game. How odd. Rather good, though, I thought.

King Kong: Skull Island

Raaaaaaaaaaaggggghhhhh! RooooooooooooorrrrggghhhhhhH!

No, that's not my King Kong impression, that's my anger at finding out that this is another first person game with non-customisable controls. Why? Why can't developers recognise that some of us want to look with the left stick and move with the right? Imbeciles. I expected better of Michel Ancel too - after all, he gave us Beyond Good and Evil.

For some reason, maybe because this isn't really a shooty game but more of an exploratory one, I'm coping better with the controls than normal - though it's still not ideal, and I keep on finding myself running into walls or so on. Anyway.

I've landed the boat, skirted around some cliffs, and then was attacked by giant enemy crabs. Luckily I was able to target their weak spot for maximum damage. I made my way through the jungle and ancient villages with Ann, and was then captured by tribesmen and tied to a stake. I came too just in time to see Ann being taken off by Kong. Carl the director rescued me, we ran off and now I'm being attacked by dinosaurs, apparently 14% through the game.

It's a very pretty game, if a little dark. The other characters tell me to look "up there", don't point where they mean, and then after I've looked around they've disappeared. That might be the controls' fault though.

Hotel Dusk: Room 215: clever mechanics

There's not too much I can write about this without giving the story away. What I can say it that's it's great to have a different story to the usual videogame cliches, although this does seem to be a bit convoluted. I'm now well into the third chapter (6pm - 7pm) and there's a bit too much going on - concurrent storylines - which I hope will all get pulled together at the end.

One thing I do want to comment on, though, is a really clever use of the DS. Having done a jigsaw puzzle, Kyle remembered that on the back of one piece of the jigsaw before was some writing. He wants to see the other side of the completed jigsaw, but he needs to turn it over without it falling apart. The game shows you the completed jigsaw on the 'top' screen and a blank table on the touch screen.

It took me a bit of thinking before I realised that you had to close the DS up, and then open it again. Very clever.

Desert Strike: massive difficulty spike

Some would have a fit over the fact that I'm not playing it the way it was designed, but I'm really enjoying being able to save after every part of each mission, rather than having to complete a whole mission at once. I only ever reached the third level of the original Mega Drive game, so I'm hoping to do better on this.

I probably won't though, given my current idiocy. I got to a point on level 2 where I had to attack the chemical plant - but when I went near it, I got bombarded with bullets and missiles, all of which seemed to do about twice the normal damage. There was a danger zone around the plant, and I was struggling.

On my tenth or elevent attempt, I managed to complete the mission by shooting and running, unloading hellfires into the plant (and hydras when I ran out of hellfires) and then running away before the mobile guns found me. It wasn't easy.

Then halfway through the next mission (finding and capturing SCUD commanders) I realised I hadn't destroyed the power plant. Destroying this would have killed the power around the chemical plant, removing the danger zone and making it muc easier.

Dur.

I've finished level 2 now, and will be starting level 3 soon. It's set more in a city. Hoorah!

Playing US GameCube games on a PAL Wii

Oooh, this is exciting. No need for Freeloader, just a bit of good timing:

• Put a PAL GameCube game into the disc slot
• Enter the Disc Channel screen
• Point at the start button - but don't press anything yet
• Press the eject button
• Press A on the start button as late as possible, just before the button's disabled
• Take the PAL disc out and put the US disc in as quickly as possible
• The US (or, indeed, Japanese) GameCube disc should then load
  

Courtesy of Dolqube. No idea yet as to how this affects memory cards - bear in mind that with the GameCube you needed separate memory cards for Japanese and Roman characters.

Desert Strike: rescuing the secret agent

At lunchtime today I had a go of Desert Strike, and completed the first level. It's harder than I remember, or maybe that's just the PSP's crappy D-pad. It's great fun, though, and there's a lot of strategy there within the shooting - having to plan out a route to collect fuel on the way's a regular occurrence.

It did get me thinking about the time at which this game was released, though. Desert Strike sits more comfortably in history just after the 1991 rout of Iraq, where the US-led forces invaded in order to dispel Saddam's attack on Kuwait. The military operation was neat and powerful. For years afterwards, Iraq was kept in check through military restrictions and economic sanctions. It's all a far cry from the current situation, following the second war in Iraq. The country's hardly being governed at all, and the US can't keep control. It's a mess, and a game like Desert Strike probably wouldn't fit as well today. Even Conflict: Desert Storm wouldn't work as well today - it relies on the idea that your side will win in the end. And there's no real winner out there.

Road Rash: is Natasha supposed to be attractive?

Honest question. I'm halfway through level 2 now, with three 1st places under my belt. This bike is much better.

Hotel Dusk: Room 215: what's going on?

I've got a lot to say about this game, so you'll have to bear with me.

Firstly, the style of it is just amazing. Very few games have gone down the film noir path, and certainly none have combined film noir with Aha's Take on Me video. Even when the game's standing still, the characters shimmer in their pencil-drawn state. Combined with the well-modelled backgrounds and clever 3D exploratory bits, it's really good to look at. Sort of. The shimmering didn't half give me a headache after a while.

The story's really different from most videogames too. You're really thrown in at the deep end not knowing too much about where you are or what you're meant to be doing. So far I've established that I'm playing an ex-cop, whose partner went missing three years previously after being shot. I now work as a salesman and with a bit of private detection stuff on the side. I have to find things that have gone missing.

The game's split into chapters, which cover 30 minutes of real time. I've found out that some things are due to happen in the future - like the TV will be on between 7pm and 9pm. I've completed chapter 1 (5:00pm - 5:30pm) and I was impressed with the roundup at the end - Kyle Hyde (the character I play) gave a rundown of all that had happened so far and asked me questions to make sure I understood.

I also like the notepad on which you can write notes with the stylus. Unfortunately it's only available at certain times - I wish there was the option to write something down in the middle of a conversation. Maybe it's not really needed yet, though.

The way conversation's handled is a bit odd. Annoyingly, you can't skip the text scrolling, so it takes ages to read. As you go through, if something raises a question in Kyle's head, that question scrolls above his head - but while conversation continues on the other screen. So you have to read both at the same time - or, more accurately, the question first, since that scrolls past and doesn't reappear. But the question relates to something being said on the other screen, so you'll be reading it out of order.

Overall, I'm intrigued by the story and game, and will of course be continuing. I'll try not to spoil the story too much ... I'm sure Kieron will want to play it himself!

Road Rash

This morning I got EA Classics through the post, and so at lunchtime I had a quick go at Road Rash. It's still great. Well, the gameplay mechanic is. But it's got an appalingly low framerate, and on the PSP screen it's massively pixellated. There also seems to be a bit of a lag on the punch button, but then again I have a feeling it was like that on the Mega Drive as well.

I managed to complete the first set of five races easily enough, but I then stupidly bought the third bike which isn't fast enough to really compete at the second set of five. I had to come 2nd or 3rd a few times until I could afford to upgrade my bike again. I've now got a much better bike - the Kamakaze 750 - so am ready to win again.

The EA Replay packaging's bright orange. The copy from VideogamesPlus comes with the normal English manual inside, and a French translation cellophane wrapped onto the side of the box. But the French translation of the manual's bigger than the English one, so it won't actually fit inside the box.

Nothing

I've not played a game all day today. It's the first day since launch that my Wii hasn't got a "today's playtime" message on the message board. How sad.

Kororinpa: green crystals got

I've now got all the green crystals on the main 45 levels of the game. I can't see any crystals on the secret levels, so I presume that's it, unless there are an extra five main levels like the selection grid hints at.

I enjoyed getting these - some are pretty well hidden and require a leap of faith. It's a good job I found out about the view map option!

Super Mario World: Donut Plains passed

Nothing too taxing, and I think I found all the hidden exits too - I found two exits from every level with a red dot. The only bit that had me confused was the ghost house, which had me stuck in a loop for ages - until I realised I didn't need to push the button to go out of the first door.

Tomb Raider Legend: completed!

I killed the big monster, and then got out of the crypt despite being shot at by lots of gunmen. On the way I found a gold reward - my first, I believe. A short trip to Croft Manor, and then I was off to Nepal. While the story's a little bit convoluted, I felt a little sad for Lara having to go back to the plane crash which she lived through when she was 9. Nepal was quite a short level really, though it wasn't too straightforward - one section in particular had me wishing for a Prince-of-Persia-style time rewind function. Having to jump off of four slides in succession isn't easy.

So, I completed Nepal and found Lara's mum's brooch, which turned out to be the key to fitting Excalibur back together. It wouldn't fit into the stone in Nepal, however, so I had to go back to Bolivia. Not really a level, more a final fight. It was made all the more difficult since I only had Excalibur, no guns, and I couldn't get the hang of using the magic it threw out. Luckily I found a gun emplacement which made my job easier. And then onto the final boss, Amanda in her demonic form.

She died, I pushed the sword into the stone, I saw Lara's mum on the other side of a portal, and then Amanda told us that Lara's mum wasn't dead, she'd gone to Avalon. And that was the end of the game.

I did some more exploring in Croft Manor afterwards, and found a series of inscriptions ... which led me to the gold reward. I think my save file says 90% now ... I've not done any levels as a time trial, or collected all the rewards. I may well do so at some point, since this is an excellent game.

Kororinpa: main levels completed?

Kororinpa is a tray maze game, where you have to guide the ball through the maze by tilting the level. Obviously, towards the end the protective walls disappear and the walkways get thinner.

I've played this for a total of two hours and 39 minutes, and I've already gone through the 45 main levels, and then played through the 12 secret levels I'd unlocked. I have a feeling I've not unlocked levels 46-50, and secret levels 13-15, since there are blocks on the board.

Still, this isn't a game where the objective is to get through the levels. I've set a few best times on some levels, with five or six gold cups and a smattering of silvers. I've collected most of the green gems (which unlock secrets), and unlocked a lot of different balls to use. Some of these are really hard to use - like the planets or the galaxy, and especially the rugby ball. Ouch.

The levels are really well designed. Unlike Super Monkey Ball, there's no limit as to the amount you can tilt the stage - although if it's upside-down then it goes a bit glitchy. As long as you can control your movements, you can rescue just about anything. Consider, for example, Advanced 15 on the original Super Monkey Ball. If the monkey went too far down the zig-zag, and didn't take the corner tightly enough, then there was no way of recovering it. That wouldn't happen here. Indeed, one of the earlier levels is set on a semi-circular cake, and you can effectively travel along the side if you're careful enough.

This lack of consistent gravity leads to some really clever mazes, where you must use a corner to get onto a different side and keep the controller tilted that way for the next part of the level. Some of the later levels get really complex like this, with frequent jumps having to be landed by twisting the controller. I had a job keeping track of where I was sometimes; I dread to think how hard it was for the level designers.

It's not a perfect game, by any means. It does seem really short, although the fact that any level can be replayed as a time trial, and there are a number of secrets to unlock, does extend it somewhat. My save file is on 62%, and I think it'll be a lot harder to get it above that than it was to get it there - gold cups in particular are tricky to get. I've found most of the green crystals though.

Oh, and one last annoying thing - it doesn't use the pointer functionality of the Wii remote at all. No, not even for the menus.

How annoying.

Super Mario World: first level cleared

I've now got a classic controller, and it makes the game great. I've completed the first world - beaten the boss, hit the yellow switch palace - and am now looking around the first level in the second world which apparently has more than one exit.

One annoying thing is that I can't see any indication on the map screen as to whether I've collected all five Yoshi coins on any one level. It's good fun other than that.

It may have to go on hold for a while, though - Kororinpa's arrived.

Tomb Raider Legend: England

Coincidentally, a King Arthur museum was built on top of King Arthur's actual grave. Shock! The run-down museum was a great setting for the start of this level, with interactive displays in a state of decay telling you all about the Arthurian legend. I can understand the point of the game's subtitle now - it's regarding the fact that the same legend exists all over the world, with swords in stones and round daises (yes, that is the plural, I've checked!) and magic and mystical swords. Excalibur in this case. This was revealed through the narration provided by Lara's helpers sitting in the van outside. Ever helpful.

The level itself was pretty varied. After climbing down below the collapsed floor, I got to shift some boxes around with a fork-lift truck, drive the fork-lift through some shooty spear bits (breaking them in the process) and ram a wall to break it. Then I had to make my way down a staircase where half the steps had already fallen down and the rest were crumbing. I had to use some boxes to get through spinny blades of death by jamming them, then use the same boxes to climb over some fire. In the end, after surfing on some coffins, I found a massive underground temple, and inside ...

King Arthur. No, really him.

In order to get the sword which was encased with Arthur in a piece of Amber, I had to ring a bell. The bell was on the ground. I had to move half a tomb to next to a broken pillar, then get a chandelier swinging, climb up into the pillar and then jump onto a counterweight to raise the bell up. It took ages to work that out. After all that, the door opened and there was a big monster outside. My support outside has gone dead - I suspect others have turned up.

The big monster killed me. Next time, I shall kill it.

Tomb Raider Legend: Kazakhstan

It's freezing cold, and Lara's actually dressing sensibly for once. I've explored the complex, and have found the remains of magnetism experiments which could be turned on and played with. I tracked Amanda through the complex and fought a lot - it was another shooty level with not too much exploration - and then I got to the big boss battle. The big demon enemy from the flashback in Peru!

It took me a few deaths before I realised that I didn't really have to kill the boss - not that you could, because the only way to attack it is to push it back into one of the electricity arcs, at which point it loses 90% of its energy and disappears to recuperate. Instead I had to run around the room and flick four switches on, which brought a big contraption down from the ceiling. I then had to use the big magnetic gun in the middle of the room to push conducting orbs into the paths of the electric arcs, and then jump out of the gun and grab the sword fragment without being killed by the demon. I kind of missed what happened to it, and to Amanda, after that.

I'm now off to Cornwall, following a map that was found on the back of an ancient shield.

Tomb Raider Legend: Peru, Japan and Ghana

I finished in Peru, finding another dais and information about the civilisation that had lived there. Then I went to Tokyo to meet with a yakuza boss, in order to get part of the sword that Rutland had. This level took place at a cocktail party, which was a pleasant change of scenery. I met with and defeated the boss, then was sent to Ghana where Rutland was seen to be heading. Found my way through to the end of the level and killed him, but not before he revealed that Amanda was still alive. So I'm off to Kazakhstan to find her.

I'm really enjoying this. It's a really pretty game, and you get to absorb all of that when looking around for the path to the next checkpoint. There are some small invisible walls, unfortunately - stopping you walking all the way along a clifftop, for example, but generally it's well structured. It's a shame that Lara can apparently run through plants without touching them.

It reminds me of a slightly slower-paced Prince of Persia. Lara's not quite as athletic - she can't jump as high, not run along walls and so on - but the basic idea of working out a route is the same.

Football Manager Handheld: an update

I'm still playing this a lot, and have finished my first season in League 1 ending in 11th - a good midway position. The board of directors gave me only £55k to spend on new players though, which is a bit of a nightmare. Luckily I managed to get some people on the transfer list at a cheap rate - including Compton, a midfielder valued at £450k, for free.

Oddly it seems like the expensive players aren't actually that much better. I've started the new season and am just above the relegation positions after a constant stream of draws and losses.

Super Mario World: control idiocy

I bought Super Mario World from the virtual console. I played it for about ten minutes before realising it just doesn't work with the GameCube controller. You need to be able to hold down run and jump at the same time - and considering these use the Y and B buttons, that's impossible. Thay're too far apart and there's a massive A button in the middle.

Luckily I've a classic controller on the way from Amazon already.

Tomb Raider Legend: Bolivia

Really quite a stunning game. It looks lovely, and it's just enough like the old Tomb Raiders to be part of the series but distant enough to be a real evolution.

I completed the first two Tomb Raider games, found 3 to be far too long, and despite owning them for the Dreamcast I've never played Last Revelation or Chronicles. I've not got a PS2, so Angel of Darkness remains out-of-reach - probably for the best.

This seems to correct everything that was wrong with 3. I'm back to looking around tombs, puzzle-solving to progress, looking for clues in the scenery around me. There's perhaps a little too much shooting action, but otherwise it's great. I've finished the first level in Bolivia, and I'm now in Peru. The story's a little confusing, with you controlling Lara in flashback situations and so on, but it seems to have rewritten the whole Lara Croft history to suit the game. Probably no bad thing.

Football Manager Handheld: I won League Two

In the end, I won it by 8 points. And I won the League Two manager of the year award.

I'm chuffed.

I expect that League One's going to be rather tricky, but I have a pretty good team now so hopefully I'll be able to avoid relegaton in the next year and build upwards again. The board's only given me £140k to work with, though, so it might be a bit of a push ...

Rayman Raving Rabbids: completed!

As complete as I'll ever get it, that is. I've worked my way through the main story game, completing every minigame along the way. I've escaped from the cell, and got stuck in a rabbit hole. I've seen the end credits.

Now there appears to be a load more stuff to unlock from playing the minigames over and over again. I'm not sure I can be bothered, actually.

Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time: completed!

The final dungeon - Ganon's castle - wasn't that difficult, really. There were six distinct rooms, and in the second I found the golden gauntlets, which let me pick up massive things. Given this, I thought I'd go and find stuff I'd missed.

I was sure I'd seen massive rocks near the desert colossus and in the Gerudo fortress, but I was wrong. While I was in the desert, though, I did find a great fairy fountain and got given Nairu's Love, a protective spell. And in the Gerudo fortress I found a big block that I hadn't pushed, and more importantly a gap in the ceiling which gave me the last small key and the path to the ice arrows.

There was a massive rock on the outside of Ganon's castle, blocking another great fairy fountain - this one gave me boosted defense, reducing the harm enemies' attacks did me by half - and there were two inside, one in the fire room and one blocking the entrance to the light room.

After completing the six rooms, firing a light arrow into the orb in each one, I climbed the tower, beating lizards and skeletons and big armoured knights on the way up. And then I met Ganondorf.

Good storyline. Ganondorf has the triforce of power, and was sat there playing an organ. I don't know you, but playing an organ just identifies the person as evil. Zelda was floating above the organ. Poor girl. It wasn't even a good song.

Then the organ and Zelda disappeared, and Ganon started throwing balls of energy at me. I pretty quickly caught on the the fact that this was just like the Phantom Ganon battle, and hit then back at him. All this seemed to do was stun him, though. It wasn't until the third time I did it that I realised that the light arrows then shot him out of the sky, and I could go over and beat him up properly.

That took a while - with a break halfway through when I ran out of magic power and had to fall down a big gap to find some bottles in jars - and then he went down. And the castle started to collapse. A timed race out, with enemies on the way that stop progress until you've killed them. Great!

I got out within the three minutes, and Zelda told me it was all over - the big fat liar. A big bang from the ruined castle, and there was Ganon, big and ugly. He took a few swipes at me and the Master Sword went flying outside the ring of fire that had sprung up.

Luckily, Ganon was rather slow, and I quickly realised that I could get behind him and his tail was identified as a target. The hammer hit him, and after a few blows he went down. I ran over and got the Master Sword, and repeated it - though he was faster this time, so I stunned him with the light arrows first, then ran behind and slashed away. After a few hits, he went down again. Zelda held him down using her magical powers, and I delivered the final blow ...

... not quite as good as the final blow in The Wind Waker, but still impressive ...

... and that was it.

Great game.

Football Manager Handheld: Oxford goes down

After rivalling me for the lead of League Two for a long time, Oxford has had a run of bad results, and had slipped to third. Then I played them, and thanks to two goals in the last ten minutes of the game I won. They're down to fourth place now, outside the guaranteed promotion places, and I'm six points clear at the top of the table with four matches to play. I think that if I win another match, I'm guaranteed promotion - I'm nine points above Oxford.

How exciting.

Football Manager Handheld: coincidences

I'm currently second in League Two after a run of poor results in January. But that's not what I want to talk about today.

This morning I was knocked out of both the FA Cup (4th round, against Crystal Palace) and the LDV Vans Cup (Southern semi-final, against MK Dons). Both defeats came about because I had a player sent off, and the opposing team was awarded a penalty. Both sendings off were in the 83rd minute. Both players sent off were plaing in the defensive right position. Both players had the first name "Danny".

Both players are now on the transfer list.

R-TYPE: level 3's big long boss ship

I love level 3. The whole level sees you trying to overtake a big flying fortress, avoiding the guns ont he underside and above, and then having to loop around the front to get access to a cockpit area situated on the top of the ship, avoiding bullets and splurgy things or at least getting them to hit the force first.

I love it, but it's not half hard.

Football Manager Handheld: a late surge

There were a few duff games, but towards the end of the season Exeter did rather well and I've ended up 5th in the league, meaning I get to play in the playoffs for the chance to be promoted. I'm not sure that promotion would be a great idea, though, because I can see Exeter being demoted pretty much immediately. Still, we'll see.

Football Manager Handheld: life in League Two

I've progressed a bit, and seem to have settled half-way up the table, around 11th out of 24. Unfortunately I've been knocked out of the other cups:

• Crystal Palace (Championship) beat me 2-1 in the League Cup 2nd round
• Swindon (League One) beat me 2-1 in the LDV Vans Trophy 2nd round
• West Brom (Premiership) beat me 2-0 in the FA Cup 3rd round

Still, no first-round failures, so I'm happy!

Sonic Mega Collection

I've been playing this all evening. I managed to get to the Labrynth Zone in Sonic 1 without losing a life; I played the first few levels of 2, 3 and Sonic & Knuckles, and I even tried a bit of Sonic 3D Blast, which is as bad as I remember it. I also beat the first couple of characters in Dr Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine before getting fed up the the GameCube d-pad.

I wish I knew what I had to do to unlock the other games. I fancy playing Ristar without having to pay for it again on the Virtual Console ...

A mid-January update

I never did fill in the gap, as it were.

• Firstly, I gave up on Tales of Eternia. While normally I look for playability in a game, this was just too sedate and complex in terms of story without a clear picture of what the overall aim was. Maybe it was a bit too daunting. No doubt one day I'll regret giving up so quickly, but I've far too much to play to waste time of something I'm not enjoying
• I played a fair bit of New Super Mario Bros and Metroid Prime Hunters, after I got the former for Christmas and the latter very cheap in the sales. Metroid's a great game, and I've adjusted to the controls now, but they do start to hurt your hand after a while. Maybe it's because the DS is so heavy, and I'm supporting it on my little finger on my left hand.
• Of course, I've played all my Wii games quite a lot. Tam's rather good at bowling on Wii Sports, and she likes Find Mii on Wii Play. Possibly the most amusing thing was seeing Tam competing against my sister and her husband on Red Light Green Light on Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz. Huge amounts of fun.
• Also on the Wii, I've played Military Madness and R-Type, both TurboGrafx games I bought on the Virtual Console. Military Madness is sort of an early Advance Wars type game, which gets very hard very quickly. R-Type just starts hard.
• I've played a few turns of Naked War too, resurrecting some very old games where I'd forgotten my strategy. I feel I may lose those soon.

And I can't believe that I've not mentioned WarioWare: Smooth Moves yet. Utter genius. A lot of people are complaining that the multiplayer aspect's rather weak, but I'm not sure about that - after all, the WarioWare games have always, with the exception of the GameCube version, been about the single player game. I'm enjoying it, anyway.

Football Manager Handheld: struggling in League Two

Cheltenham equalised in the 95th minute. I'm not impressed.

After 9 games I'm 16th in the league, out of 22 clubs. I've managed to get through to the second round of the League Cup, but I'm up against Crystal Palace. Ouch.

The transfer window's closed and I had £45k unspent. I'll have to hammer the mid-season transfers! The problem is that nobody seems to want my rubbish players, so I've no room in my squad ...

Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time: the Spirit Temple

A huge amount of progress tonight, even if I did have to repeat a bit because my cats jumped onto the plug and turned the Wii's power off for a few seconds ...

I managed to rescue the four carpenters, and the last guard gave me a membership card which meant they'd not try and kill me any more. Hooray! I went to their training ground and cleared quite a few rooms but there were a few bits and pieces I couldn't do ... but I wanted to get on, so I gave up with those. I then went off to the big gate to the desert, and was let out to face the two trials. The first one - the river of sand - was easy ... I just used the hookshot to get to the other side. The second was more tricky, involving following a trail of flags ... but the flags were immensely difficult to see half the time, and it took me a few tried to get through the path. Then a (hidden) poe ghost took me the rest of the way to the desert collossus. I went inside and found both ways blocked; I went outside and Sheik told me to become young and told me a song to warp me back through the desert. So I did.

The Spirit Temple was quite straightforward. It involved doing half of it as a kid (meeting a thief on the way, who charged me with finding some silver gauntlets for her ... which I did, and then saw her be kidnapped before I could give them to her) and then warping back to the Temple of Time and becoming an adult again for the rest of the temple. I was happy to see the mirror shield make an appearance - I loved the way it was used in the Wind Waker, though here it played less of a part - and the final boss was genius. Two sisters, one casting fire, one casting ice - I had to reflect the fire to hit the ice witch and vice versa. They then combined and I had to catch three of the same spells in a row, avoiding the others. It was really tricky, but i managed it first life, and it was much more fun than Bongo Bongo ever was.

The thief I tried to help turned out to be the final sage; I was then told to go back to the Temple of Time. Sheik met me there and, oh, surprise, (s)he turned out to be Zelda. She told me all about the triforce, gave me the light arrows, and then was kidnapped. I've got to go to Ganon's castle to rescue her.

I have a feeling I'm nearing the end of the game now!

Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time: off to the desert

I finally beat Bongo Bongo, after a trip to the Lost Woods to catch a couple of fairies in bottles and to fill up my health meter. First, though, I had to go and sell the poe I'd caught in the castle town.

Anyway, what a surprise, I met the fifth sage, who gave me a medallion, and told me to go and find and protect Zelda. I have no idea where she is. Navi told me to go to the desert, so I did ... except I ran across the Gerudo fortress, and what appears to be a stealth section.

I've noticed you can fire arrows at the guards to knock them out. This should be fun.

Football Manager Handheld: 2nd!

The league ended and I was second! As a result I'm playing in the playoffs to be promoted. It's all very exciting.

Football Manager Handheld: 3rd?

Somehow I've managed to get Exeter to be 3rd in the Conference after 30 matches played. I've been knocked out of every other competition - even the LDV Vans Trophy, which I had no idea existed. But 3rd! I don't even know much about football!

R-TYPE: big snakey boss thing

I'm slowly getting better at this. It helps to not die during the first level, because then when you get to the second level you're not starting with a piddly little ship with no firepower and no force. Due to repeated play, i now know the first level inside-out, so can achieve this most of the time.

This morning I finally beat the second level boss - a big worm that comes out of one of four holes in a big plant-like thing in the middle of the screen. I was having difficulties before because the bit you've got to hit is on top, and I was having to dodge around all over the place to try and get any shots in. Then i worked out that by having the force with a diagonal laser weapon, I could just sit in the top left corner of the screen, where the work never goes, and fire away. Easy.

The third level's rather hard.

Football Manager Handheld: I won a game!

A momentous achievement, indeed. I only started playing this morning, admittedly, and continued at lunchtime. I've now guided Exeter City through nine games, and they won their ninth against Accrington - who were a whole 17 places above them in the league. One of my players even got man of the match. Morale is at an all time high. I'm now eighteenth in the league out of twenty-two. Hooray!

New Super Mario Bros: trying to get to world 4

I'm having trouble getting a mini mushroom and then staying alive through the boss fight in order to get to world 4. I wonder if there's a more reliable way of getting a mini mushroom than chancing one of the flying red blocks that hang around?

Oh, hello there. I know, dreadful isn't it? I've obviously been playing on the Wii too much.

Tales of Eternia: the great craymel

When I set my challenges this week, I forgot that I only had one day of work remaining before Christmas. Oops.

Luckily, though, I managed to reach the great craymel on the train this morning, after long protracted fights through a forest. What a stuck-up bitch she is, as well. After looking down her nose at us, she decides that she'll only talk to us if we fight her.

A very hard fight, in fact, which I lost. I'll have to try again, but fear it may need a slew of levelling-up first.

Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time: Bongo Bongo

Great.

I finally managed to reach the boss at the end of the Shadow Temple, with very little health remaining. He is really annoying - he's a big invisible eye and two disembodied hands, and the whole battle takes place on a drum which means that Link keeps getting thrown up in the air and uncontrollable. I was hoping that using the iron boots would stop this, but it doesn't.

I've worked out that I've got to use the lens of truth to see the eye, and hit the hands with arrows to disable them temporarily. But the thing is that I've only got three hearts, and one hit kills me.

I've died quite a few times and every time there's a long journey to get back to the boss - involving going on a River-Stix-like boat and fighting skeletons. Along the way there are hearts up on ledges but I can't work out how to get them. There are no other things that help me regain health. So every time, one hit inside the boss room and I die.

I hope I can beat him soon or I feel I might just not be bothered.

Midweek Challenges - 20/12/2006

I set myself five challenges last week and completed them all. Very pleasing.

I'm a bit stuck now, though, because my new commuting game is Tales of Eternia, and that doesn't really lend itself to setting challenges, since I have no idea how far anything is off ...

One
Find the great craymel in Tales of Eternia.

Two
Complete the shadow dungeon in Ocarina of Time.

Three
Get another three medals in Wii Sports training mode.

Four
Complete the fourth world in Super Monkey Ball Banana Blitz.

Tales of Eternia: setting off

I've not been grabbed by this yet, and I've played it a fair bit. Little things are annoying me:

• A lot of the game works in an isometric style, but it's really difficult to use the diagonals on a PSP d-pad
• Random enemy encounters are far too frequent
• The characters aren't overly likable and the translation's a bit poor
• The story's really confusing, with far too much to take in at once
• The combat system seems really complex but just pressing X lots of times seems to work almost as well

Having said all that, I am interested to know what happens. So far I've found a girl who fell from the sky and speaks a strange language; gone to the local university to meet an old friend who might be able to speak to her; found out he had to use a dictionary to do so; and gone through a tunnel to a whole new continent.

The graphical style's a bit odd - the backgrounds of specific areas are lovely, but the character sprites and overworld are ropey. I don't really like the characters' looks either. The girl, Farah, looks really frumpy.

Wii Sports: tennis training

No time for Zelda last night, but I did get the opportunity to play Wii Sports for quarter of an hour. My fitness age seems to have settled at 33, which is 4 years older than me. I think I'm let down by my baseball hitting.

I also played the tennis training a bit, including the last of the three games. In this game, you have to hit a target painted on the wall, which is pretty tricky once the targets are anything like off-centre since you end up running from one side of the court to the other. My highest score is seven. Pathetic!

Field Commander: online doesn't work

That is to say, it works technically, just not as a game type.

I played two games last night while watching TV. Well, I played a bit of two games. It's just too slow and isn't engaging enough for an online game. When you play Advance Wars against a human, they're right next to you, and you can see them working away at their turn. With Field Commander online you're left wondering if they're thinking about their move, or whether they're actually still there.

A play-by-email game like Naked War would work fine for Advance Wars online, but the real-time model is just too soulless. I doubt I'll be playing it again.

Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time: the shadow temple

Hmm, what to label this as? It's an N64 game, on a GameCube disc, being played on the Wii. How confusing.

I spent ages trying to work out where to go next. Navi kept on telling me to go and talk to someone who knew about the sages. I guessed this was Sheik, but had no idea where to find her. I ran around the whole world, and finally went into Kakariko Village where Sheik told me that something was hidden at the bottom of the well. Very cool cutscene, actually - the village was on fire, and sheik was grabbed by a shadow and thrown around. Anyway, I went down the well and there was nothing there.

After a bit more exploration, I went into the windmill, and the man in there told me he was all cross because of what happened seven years previously, when a young boy with an ocarina caused something to happen. I took out my ocarina and he taught me a stormy song. I then went back in time, went to the windmill again, and played the song. A storm started and all the water drained out of the well. Ah-ha!

Down in the well I found myself in a room with no exit other than the way I came in. Navi kept on highlighting a skeleton at the end of the room, and said that the spirits were telling me to get an eye of truth. All very well, but getting out of the room would help first. Purely by chance (I was trying to attach the skeleton) I found out that the wall at the end of the room wasn't actually real, and I could just walk through it.

This then led me to a mini-dungeon, where I got a magnifying glass thing which shows me the truth - with disappearing walls and floors and chests which are there but aren't visible. I actually really enjoyed this cavern, because it offered quite a lot of exploration to find all its secrets, but was a nice small manageable size.

The shadow temple, my next port of call, is much larger, however. I've got the map and have explored around three quarters of the dungeon, it seems, and while there's no particularly taxing puzzles other than the use of the lens of truth, it's just going on for a long time. Hopefully I'll complete it tonight.

Wii Sports: training mode

The bowling mode which adds a new row of pins each time is superb. I can't get that many strikes, but enough pins fall each time to make me think it's possible.

I'm also starting to learn how to place my shots in tennis. There's a training game in which you must hit the ball into a gate which shrinks and moves over time. I did quite well at that.

I didn't do well at baseball - I just can't hit home runs consistently. I'm getting better at pitching, though.

Super Monkey Ball Banana Blitz: crowning glory

For the first world, I've got a crown above the world number. I've completed worlds two and three but I have no such crown. I wonder why.

The game works so well with the remote. It's starting to get a little more tricky now, but thankfully there's been no sign of the switch gimmicks from Super Monkey Ball 2.

Field Commander: completed!

The last mission turned out to be not so hard after all. It helps that the computer is such a wuss, running away as soon as any of its units get damaged, meaning I could just steamroller my way across the map and destroy the weather machine with no hassle.

The ending sequence was dire, though. A few bits of congratulatory text but it all seemed to be a reluctant "well done". Then the boss of ATLUS appeared, and I couldn't see his face, and he told me about all the other things that needed sorting. But I wasn't going to be involved, even though I'd just been promoted.

Rubbish.

Still, overall it was quite an enjoyable game, but nowhere near as good as Advance Wars.

Rayman Raving Rabbids: the first four days

I'm into uncharted territory now. I'd played most of the first four days of Rayman Raving Rabbids during the Wiikend, but that was on John's machine and we hadn't copied the save. So, I've had to go through the first four days again, this time completing it all myself.

Strangely, I've had no problems yet at all, with only two games requiring me to replay them. When Kieron and I were playing in turns, some games had us stumped - particularly the worm-pulling, the bunny minecart launching, and the guiding a bunny around a maze without touching the sides. I did the last of these on my second go at it (with 4 seconds to spare!) and the first two on my first go.

I've now unlocked three of the on-rails 'lightgun' sections. The last one, set on a train, is excellent.

Midweek Challenges - 13/12/2006

I did get a couple of soul meteos, by the way, but I've not spent them yet.

One
Get a high score in the 100 meteos time attack mode.

Two
Get four medals (at least bronze) in the training mode of Wii Sports.

Three
Complete the first four days of Rayman Raving Rabbids.

Four
Complete the first three worlds of Super Monkey Ball Banana Blitz.

Five
Complete Field Commander.

Field Commander: they got away, again

I'm growing increasingly tired of the storyline of this game. At the end of every mission, you're told that you did really well, but, oh dear, they got away, we'll have to follow them. Yawn indeed.

The mission I finished this morning was great, though. It was another mission in which I had to destroy two transports before they escaped the map. I started with very few units, a long way from any factories ports or airports, and the enemy had a huge number of units. Corvettes, gunships, submarines, you name it.

Hilariously, however, with me positioning my units just out of reach of the enemy, they didn't bother to attack and instead just sent their two transports forward alone, within striking distance of my units. Two turns later, they both sank after a barrage of guns.

I think I'm now onto the final mission. It looks hard.

Meteos: soul meteos

I've been trying to work out how you get soul meteos, and I think now that you only get an opportunity to get them when you're battling the planet Meteo at the end of a story mode game. So that's what I'll be doing on the train tonight. It's pretty simple to complete the first variation of the story mode, although I almost always lose one life on the way.

A great wiikend part 2: using the console

(this article has been posted at a later date)

The Wii is just amazing. It took literally no time at all to work out how to use this new controller, with the pointing and selecting just coming completely naturally. True, to start with the pointer's a bit jerky, but after a few seconds you stop fighting it and it becomes just an extension of your hand, pointing. Creating Miis was fun in itself, but once we were playing Wii Bowling, with John's girlfriend watching both from the sofa and from the back of the lanes, it became something more. More intimate, more personalised? Something like that.

Wii Sports really is the best launch game ever. It shows exactly how the controller can be used, and while each of the games is limited, it paves the way for more extravagant and elaborate simulations at a later date. We had huge amounts of fun playing the five games, even if we ached afterwards.

Wii Play is also pretty good. It effectively costs £5, but gives a great overview of how the controls work, taking you through from pointing to motion sensing to moving in three dimensions. Again, the Miis work really well within the game.

What else did we play? Rayman Raving Rabbids performs the heinous crime of requiring you to unlock the multiplayer games in single player mode first. We therefore only played a few of these games, but they are generally really good. The characterisation is wonderful, too - really funny and well thought-out.

Super Monkey Ball works really well, with tilting the remote tilting the stage. It's a bit more difficult than the original, since you don't have a forward lock (from the octagonal gate on the GameCube controller) or automatic centering. The minigames are a bit hit and miss, but one had us in absolute hysterics - 'red light, green light'. You must wave the remotes up and down in order to make you monkey run to the end of the stage. However, if the monkey at the end turns around, you must hold your remotes absolutely still until they hide again. I mean absolutely still. Not easy when Kieron nudges you, and then you can't stop laughing which means you can' hold the controller still at all. It took us 15 minutes to clear one stage. Priceless.

Finally, Red Steel is surprisingly good in multiplayer. It took a few games to get used to the controls, but after they clicked then it became really good fun. Graham beat us all, repeatedly.

This really is great.

A great wiikend part 1: buying the console

(this article has been posted at a later date)

John, Kieron and I joined a queue outside HMV's back entrance at around half eight on Thursday evening. We played some Mario Kart, including a random Dan we were standing next to in the queue. Needless to say, I won. I think.

At around half nine, they started to issue people in the queue with wristbands. The majority of the queue was formed of people who hadn't preordered, and in fact we were the first ones there who already had a guaranteed Wii. We got special silver wristbands (those given to non-preorders were white) - in fact, John got wristband number 1. After getting a wristband, we were free to go and come back by half ten - but sod that, we went straight around to the front and got into the proper queue. We were in a pretty good position - around 50 from the front.

We were supposed to be in this queue until eleven, when they would let us all into the store for a party and Wii celebration. The queue was filmed and photographed quite a bit, but mainly focussing on a group of 20-somethings a little bit ahead of us who couldn't string four coherent words together. At least it meant we didn't have to answer any of the journalists' idiotic questions. Apparently, London is a long way from London.

Eleven came and went.

At half eleven, a white bus arrived and the celebrities - Pat Cash, Ian Wright, Nell McAndrew and Ricky Hatten - got off and went inside, after being photographed lots. In fact, Nell wasn't due to be there and it was actually meant to be someone else, but obviously she was available to fill in when the other person called in sick or something.

Finally at 11:40 they started to let us in, and they filtered us into the rows between the CD racks. Once we were in these rows, they put some footage up on the big screen above the stage, and people started to try to push down the rows to get closer to the front. They tried, but they didn't manage it. Kieron, John and I can make a pretty effective barrier.

The celebrities played some tennis and boxing, but it was all evidently rushed because they were late. They had a few words with the person who was at the front of the queue, then took him over to buy his Wii, and left the rest of us behind.

Finally, 15 minutes later, they started to let some of us go over to the tills. About 10 at a time, every 10 minutes. It was therefore around 12:45 when I was finally asked what I wanted. A Wii, Zelda, Monkey Ball, Rayman, Wii Play and a nunchuk, please. They were doing a special deal meaning that the Wii plus three games and an SD card was £25 less than just the Wii and three games, so I took that. And I got one of the very limited edition Zelda tins. Only 200 ever made, and 3 of them are in our hands.

The organisation was OK, if a little sterile. Security was doing their best to stop queue jumpers, but there were still some around and what with the queue being 3 people across there was a bit of ambiguity to the ordering. When we got to the tills there was only one person running around assembling the orders, which seemed a bit daft, with six tills open. Still, at least we were early in the queue. I can't see them having finished before 4 in the morning.

We got to my car by 1:05, then drove up to Cambridge, to John's house. To bed? You must be joking. We all opened our Wiis at the same time and marvelled at the tiny size of the console, the loveliness of the remote, and the stylishness of the stand. John set his up, and turned it on. He created his Mii, then Kieron replaced John's console with his and created his Mii so that it was based on the correct Wii. I repeated this with my console. Then John put his Wii back in the stand, and we loaded up Wii Sports.

Tennis - amazing fun.
Bowling - great but Kieron's just too good.
Golf - Really difficult to get the power right, but it works well.
Baseball - possibly the best game there, and it's really satisfying to hit a home run.
Boxing - absolutely knackering but great.

By this time it was six in the morning. We went to bed.

Wii in nine and a half hours

I'm going to the official Nintendo launch party at HMV on Oxford Street tonight, along with Kieron and John. It starts at 11 and we'll be buying our consoles at midnight.

John's taking his camera so hopefully I'll have pictures to stick on here at some point. But not tomorrow, since we're going to be playing all day.

Midweek Challenges - 06/12/2006

Not many challenges this week. Because on Thursday night, I'm getting my Wii.

One
Gain two more soul meteos in Meteos.

Two
Complete two more levels of Field Commander.

Meteos: fixed

It works again!

I played a bit on the train last night and this morning. It's not easy with the sun on the screen.

Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time: the water temple

That took a long time.

Amusingly, both of my predictions came true. I was expecting either an ice dungeon or a water dungeon, but instead I got both.

On my hunch, I went to the zora's place and found it all frozen. Even the king was frozen solid in a block of red ice. I went into the tunnel behind him and jumped across some icebergs into a cave.

The ice cavern wasn't very large, and there wasn't really an end-of-dungeon boss as such (there was just a white wolf thing, who died very quickly and easily). It was quite a clever dungeon, though, with rooms which were locked until five silver rupees were collected, and a clever block-pushing puzzle where the block slid on ice until it hit a wall or pillar. A lot of the level was blocked by red ice, and there was a blue flame which Navi hinted would be useful. It took me a while to work out that you could capture the blue flame in a bottle and then release it near the ice.

After beating the wolf, I got a pair of iron boots, which make you walk very slowly but also let you walk underwater. Which would be great if you could breathe.

I got back to the king and realised that I hadn't refilled my bottles with blue fire, so I had to go all the way back and capture some more, before going and thawing out the king. He gave me a blue tunic, which lets me breathe underwater. Evidently nobody's heard of an aqualung in Hyrule.

The king also told me that Princess Ruto had been saved by Sheik, and had gone to the water temple to defeat the baddie there and thaw out the whole of Zoras' Domain. I took this as a hint and played the song that Sheik taught me to warp to the water temple.

I arrived on a little island with a tree and a plaque, which said something like "when the lake is full, shoot the rising sun". The lake wasn't full, it was drained and muddy. After a bit of exploration I found a door underwater at the base of the island I was on; I equipped the iron boots and blue tunic and went down to it. It was locked.

Luckily, I had my hookshot equipped and could see that it was usable, unlike the other weapons I was carrying. I hit the switch above the door and it opened. And so I entered the water temple.

To get through the water temple took me four hours. Some of the puzzles were really hard, and some were obvious but just required a lot of backtracking. The decreased mobility underwater meant I became very low on health on more than one occasion, and I did die once when I got caught in a corridor with some horrible oyster-like enemies.

Half way through you come to this seemingly endless room with no walls, but with another door on the other side. I ran across the room to the other door, and it was locked. After exploring a bit, I noticed that I no longer had a reflection on the ground, unlike everything else. My reflection, in fact, turned out to have stayed on the central island, and proceeded to fight me. A few hits with the hammer and he died, opening the doors.

After such a long dungeon, I was rather disappointed to be given only an extended hookshot, instead of a new toy.

After getting the longshot, it took me ages to find the boss key, and then ages to get to the boss. Luckily I'd found the map and the compass, or I reckon I'd still be there. The boss was mean - a big water thing with a floating nucleus - and it took me a while to work out that I had to hook the nucleus out of the water and then hit it. It did kill me once, but luckily I'd captured a fairy in a bottle and it revived me.

After killing the boss, I was transported to the Sacred Realm again, where I was shocked and stunned to find out that Ruto was the water sage. Thankfully, this meant that she couldn't marry me, and so the world would never find out what a hylian-zora mutant would look like.

Back at Lake Hylia, the lake was full again, and I (luckily) remembered the plaque; standing on it I shot at the rising sun with my arrows and got the fire arrows. Hooray!

Meteos: broken

I tried to play it last night but the game card didn't work. How distressing.

Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time: the fire temple

After a bit of an explore as little Link, I realised that I'd explored most of the world already and had come to a dead end, so I changed back to adult Link and went off exploring again. Navi told me that Death Mountain looked odd, which I took as a hind, and headed up there. Inside the goron cave I found a goron rolling around, and eventually stopped him through cunning placement of bombs. He told me that the others had been taken away to be fed to a dragon. The king had gone to save them all. He gave me a fire tunic to allow me to go into hot areas, which looks exactly the same as the normal tunic but red. How that's going to prevent burning I have no idea.

Great.

A suspicious looking pillar in the throne room turned out to be movable, and I went through into the fire temple. I won't describe it in detail, but it was relatively straightforward, saving Gorons as you go through, with some clever use of connecting passages which open from the other side to allow you to shortcut to different areas from the start. I got a big hammer half-way through, and the boss was a whack-a-mole type affair. A big firey dragon, Volvagia. It took me a couple of tries but I killed him, got the heart, and legged it out of there.

It turns out that the king of the gorons, Darunia, is the fire sage, and he gave me a medallion.

Now, Ocarina's not my first Zelda game, so I fully expect the next dungeon to be ice or water-based. Furthermore, I've come across three races so far: the kokiri, the hylians, the gorons and the zora. The forest temple was the kokiri, the fire temple was the gorons. It's not too much of a stretch to put two and two together ...

Field Commander: big shooty invisible tank thingie

I've just finished a level in which you have to capture a city in the middle of the map, and a factory on the other side to where you start, all the time avoiding fire from a big invisible super tank, the range of which and position of which you can only guess.

I managed it by working out that the tank couldn't hit me if I sent troops around by utility copter sticking to the mountains. It was far too trial-and-error a mission, and it took me ages.

I hope the next one's better.

In any case, I'm up to around 85% completion now.

Loco Roco downloadable demo: completed!

20 flowers found, 3 muimui found, and all but one berry eaten. This was easier than the other demo level I had, but more enjoyable. And the music is amazing.

Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time: the forest temple

One week and one day until the Wii launches, and I've still not completed Ocarina of Time. I've got to make some decisions ... do I want to complete Ocarina before I start playing Twilight Princess? Will I have the willpower to not start the Wii game straight away? Do I remember the story of Ocarina, and where I'm at?

Well, for the latter question, the answer is yes, or 'absolutely' as Reggie would have it. Yesterday I looked up the most recent entry for Ocarina on this here Gaming Diary, and it told me that I was in the forest dungeon, searching for four fire-stealing ghosts. And indeed I was. I searched the dungeon extensively, and found a room I didn't recognise. I managed to progress through it and was rewarded with finding the bow and arrows. These let me shoot the ghosts in the paintings and reclaim two of the fires.

I then spent around half an hour wandering around until I realised that there were little eye things above some of the doors, which when shot turned twisty corridors into straight corridors and rotated some rooms. So I collected the boss key, found the other two ghosts, and travelled down to meet Phantom Ganon.

An excellent boss fight. To start with, he rides into the 6 paintings around the room and you have to shoot him with the bow as he gallops out of one. It's made more tricky by the fact that sometimes he'll approach down the path in two of the paintings, and if you're aiming at the wrong one you'll have to drop the bow and get out of the way pretty quickly.

After a few hits he then hovers around the room, and fires magic at you. It took me ages to work out what to do - I was firing arrows at him, and the hookshot, and trying to use my shield to bounce the magic back at him. Which is all really stupid, because I've fought Phantom Ganon in Four Swords and The Wind Waker, and I've fought Agahnim in Link's Awakening, and they all use the same trick.

Phantom Ganon dead, I then met Saria who told me loads of story stuff (I need to rescue some more sages ...), and I was back in Kokiri Forest with the Deku Tree Sprout who also told me more stuff. I went across Hyrule Field to Kakarico Village, and did some exploring there, being rewarded with a bigger wallet for my trouble. This is good - I could only hold 99 rupees before, and now I can hold up to 200. Nothing else seemed to have changed there, so I went into Hyrule Castle town and to the Temple of Time, where I met Sheik. He (ho ho ho) told me about travelling through time, and how I could become young Link again. So I did.

I'm back into the game now. I'll play more this weekend, and try to get further.

Midweek Challenges - 29/11/2006

I've not put any of these on here for a while. I've just been playing Field Commander most of the time, so it would have been a bit dull.

One
Get to 80% completion of Field Commander's campaign mode.

Two
Complete both Loco Roco demos with full locorocos and muimuis.

Three
Complete the advanced solo levels of TrackMania Nations with silver or above.

Four
Play Meteos in order to set a proper challenge next week.

Loco Roco: two new demos

I connected up my PSP to the PC and went to the PlayStation Store, and there were a few demos and so on that I could download for free. So I did.

I'm really impressed with the PlayStation Store, actually. The site used an applet to recognise my PSP and automatically install the demos and other downloadable stuff onto my machine. At the moment it's all free but given the ease of use I wouldn't mind paying a nominal amount for full games or so on from there.

Two of the demos I got were of Loco Roco, and both are different to the demo I've previously played. One appears to be pretty similar, while the other is themed around Hallowe'en and is much harder.

For the first time ever I plugged headphones into my PSP and listened to the music while playing. It's really great music, and the way it builds up as you collect more locorocos is really clever. The Hallowe'en music isn't as good, but for a free extra level I'm not complaining.

I'll have to buy this soon, actually. I really enjoy it.

Rally 3D

What? It's a free game that came on my mobile, and it's a pretty good indication of the phone's 3D capabilities. It also, unfortunately, demonstrates the poor controls for gaming that most phones have (another reason why Doom RPG was and is so good).

Anyway, the car accelerates automatically, meaning you just control turning left and right and braking. But it's an arcade game at heart, and braking isn't necessary. What is necessary is keeping up your speed in order to win medals. There seems to be a massive difference between, say, 108km/h and 109 km/h, with the latter winning you the gold medal and the former seeing you half a second behind.

So, keep up your speed at all costs. The only problem is that if your wheels touch the grass either side of the track, you slow down massively. And it's virtually impossible to not touch the grass in some cases, especially when you jump over a hill and the road immediately curves. Of course, you could brake, but that loses you speed anyway.

Of course, the track isn't always surrounded by grass; sometimes there's a big drop and sometimes there's a cliff face rising up. If there's the latter, this is great news, since it appears that you can scrape along the cliff and not lose any speed at all.

It's quite compelling all told, though. I've collected all the silver medals, and am now trying for the golds having unlocked the catchily named "Fast Racer". Well, I say medals, but although the text says 'medal' you actually win a cup. Of course.

Mr Driller Drill Spirits: 1000m completed

I was sure I'd completed the 1000m level of this before, but it didn't have a 'clear' stamp so evidently not.

Last night I was really good at this game. I completed the 1000m level on my second go, and got to 1350m of the 1500m level as well. I wasn't quite so successful at the Dristone mode though.

This morning I was rubbish.

I'd forgotten how great Mr Driller was.

TrackMania Nations

In an attempt to bolster our online gaming capabilities, I got John and Kieron to download TrackMania Nations for the PC - it's free, available from here. I've had TrackMania Sunrise for ages, and while the online game is a little disjointed (while you do race at the same time, you're racing against ghosts of the other players) it's good, solid fun.

TrackMania Nations is more of the same. Some of the courses available online are pure madness, but the core set - the set that's available for practice in solo player - are really well designed. I've managed to complete the beginner 30 tracks with silver medals or above, and have started on the advanced levels. I've also played a fair bit online, which has also given me some medals on these tracks already.

I think it's easier on a keyboard rather than my joypad, oddly ...

Online multiplayer 'fun'

Last night, because I had the TV to myself, I arranged to meet John and Kieron online for some multiplayer games. At around 8:10 I saw Kieron was online in Halo 2, so I saved Amped 2 and went to Halo 2 instead. I logged in and had a party invite waiting for me.

This is how online gaming should be, Nintendo and Sony.

Well, the previous paragraph, at least. On trying to join Kieron, I got a network error; the same error occured when he tried to join me. We could both see online games and see each other online, but couldn't join the other's party.

So we thought Live was playing up ... until John came online and joined my party straight away.

Much annoyance followed, with Kieron rebooting his router, reconnecting and still being unable to join. In the end we decided to drop Halo 2 and try something else.

This is where it got worse. Kieron tried to load Conflict: Global Storm, and his Xbox wouldn't recognise the disc. And then it wouldn't recognise the Halo 2 disc. And then it wouldn't recognise a CD lens cleaning disc. John and I were kept updated through the voice chat in the Xbox dashboard. This would have been OK, but Kieron's connection was still playing up so while he could invite us to join him in a room, he couldn't join us. So rather than simply having a room for Kieron to drop in and out of, every time he wanted to try something else we all had to leave the chat room, John and I had to join each other in a new room, and then we had to rejoin Kieron when he sent us an invite.

In the end, we decided that Kieron's Xbox DVD drive was probably broken, so we wouldn't be able to continue. If anyone knows how to fix a DVD drive, please let us know here! The connection issue is more worrying, but still ...

Since we were able at least to talk to each other, we tried a game of Mario Kart DS while sitting with our headphones on. Well; John and I talked; Kieron tried turning his Xbox off for a while to see if that fixed it (it didn't). This led to some amusement when John and I colluded to pick all the tracks that Kieron hated. For the first time in a while, I was the overall winner. That was good.

Since we were having no luck with the Xbox, we decided to try a bit of PC gaming. We arranged to meet in MSN and iSketch. The former worked; the latter was running like treacle and was unplayable.

Oh, joy!

I then remembered that TrackMania Nations is free and has online multiplayer. I sent John and Kieron off to download it. I installed it, then ran it, and it told me I needed to upgrade my videocard drivers. I went to the ATI site; after 15 minutes I found the drivers and installed them. TrackMania Nations ran. I set up a profile and created a private server, to work out how we'd meet. I logged off, went back to MSN ... and the other two were just leaving to go to bed.

I suppose I can't begrudge them that; it was 11pm after all.

Amped 2: tutor me!

You can get tired of American teenagers after a while, so an hour of Halo 2 was enough for me. I bought Amped 2 ages ago for £3, and had never played it. So I ran through the tutorial. The fake radness in the voice was dire, but it was a well structured tutorial which more games should copy - it introduced new concepts in each lesson then gave you a task to practice them on.

I did have a slight problem, though. To grind on rails, you have to press the B button. In Tony Hawk's American Sk8land on the DS you press the X button. To save you from looking, Xbox B is the right-side button; DS X is the left-side button. Most confusing. I played through the first level and achieved the first score targets, but I kept on missing the rails. I was about the see if I could reconfigure the controls, but then something else came up ... but more about that later.

Halo 2: ranked up twice

My wife's out, so I've set up my Xbox. I'm still paying for Xbox Live (well, in a way - my last 'starter pack' subscription lasts until next July) so I want to get some use out of it!

Given that the point was to play online, the obvious starting point was Halo 2. The servers are still full of players, and I had a few games of team skirmish and rumble pit. Amazingly, despite my rank not increasing at all for the last few months when I was playing, tonight it went up twice.