The Homebrew Channel: ugly GUI

For various reasons I've not felt the need to mod my Wii up to now. There would have been a few advantages - being able to play my American and Japanese GameCube games, importing US games that didn't get released here, backing up some of the saves for games that don't allow copying.  But these advantages were outweighed by the idea that it was a difficult process and would make my Wii behave oddly.

I now have a bit more impetus to do this. I don't want to replace my Wii with the Wii U completely, for various reasons - GameCube support, Lost Winds not transferring, an extra step needed to get to the Wii menu. However, there are now benefits to moving data to the Wii U, including a cheap upgrade price for the various Virtual Console games I've bought.  If Nintendo had a proper account system in place this wouldn't be an issue; I could just transfer the games I'm interested in. They don't; I have to move everything across or nothing at all.

However, by modding the Wii I am able to have the stuff I've bought in both places; back up the system before transferring, transfer, restore from backup. I can continue to use my Wii for playing Wii games, but can pay the upgrade price for Super Mario World.

It wasn't a difficult process at all. I followed the guide here, and it took twenty minutes all in, from plugging the sensor bar in (as this moves between the Wii U and the Wii) to looking through the Homebrew Browser. The Homebrew Channel has a nice channel icon and a pleasant enough background, but as soon as you start installing anything else you quickly see why companies pay people so much for graphic design. Some of this software is very ugly indeed.

So first stage complete: I have a modded Wii and have it backed up to an SD card.  All I need to do now is to transfer my data and then restore it back to the Wii as well.  And then work out how to make everything region-free.

Super Mario 3D Land: gerrorf me cart!

With Rhythm Thief finished, it's time to move on to a game that I've waited a while for. SM3DL had some great reviews but it came out at the same time as Mario Kart 7, and the latter won out.  I've been waiting to see this reduced somewhere; I finally found it in good condition second-hand for £20.

It being second-hand, it had some save games on there already. Two of the slots had been used by one person and one slot by another. They'd got as far as world 2 before deciding the game wasn't for them.

It was sad, deleting their profiles. Did they give up because it was too hard, they just didn't like the game? Maybe they were short of money. I was going to get rid of all their hard work with two button presses.

Bye, random girl.

As for the game? It's OK. The viewpoint can be confusing in places, the controls feel a little imprecise, and the level design doesn't feel hugely imaginative. It's fun, but it's not amazing.  I'm on world 3 now, and it feels a little light on content so far - there are few levels per world in particular.  It may get better.

Super Metroid: nearly dead

I've been waiting for this to be on special offer since I got my Wii U.  The first Metroid game I played was Fusion on the GBA, which pre-dated this blog.  Metroid Zero Mission was completed in 2005, after an intensive playing time.  I've since wanted more of the 2D games, but there wasn't an easy way to get either the second game or Super Metroid - I have a feeling that the latter may have been on the Wii Virtual Console but I never thought to look there.

Anyway, I've started this now.

Oh no!  And that's where the last Metroid is!  I'd better go back!

But nobody's home.

Eventually I got through to the end of the space station, where a big bird thing stole the Metroid and fought me.  I was massively underpowered and nearly died - but luckily the enemy scarpered before I died.

Arriving on the planet, I descended down a shaft until I found a blue door.  Going through ... and I could go no further.  Huh.

After a bit of exploration, I finally found the morph ball, meaning I could go through the tunnel.  A little way.  There was a block just a way down a tunnel.

A bit more exploration ...

This meant I could go through the tunnel at last.

There wasn't much at the end (a bunch of missiles), but at least on the way back I could take a shortcut.

At least I have a few upgrades now, but I still feel pretty underpowered - so walking into this room I was rather apprehensive.  Luckily it appears to be a statue, or at least it is at the moment.

I found another lift down, but I didn't want to go down until I'd coloured in the blue.

There's quite a way to go ...

Heavy Rain: pedestrian

I played Heavy Rain back in late 2011, getting to a thoroughly miserable part where my character's life changed completely. It says something about the quality of the story that I still remember that and as I continued the game last night I could identify everyone.

I'd forgotten, though, how incredibly slow everything moves, and how awkward it is to move around the world. Placed in the run-down house with my son, I found it rather jarring when he didn't comment on my character constantly walking into walls and turning light switches on and off.  The son (Shaun) was pretty poorly animated at times as well. Maybe this is something I glossed over before, or maybe it just wasn't evident in the first two chapters.

The game is trying so hard to be a film, but it suffers from pacing issues. Nothing really happens for long periods, partially because of the character's slow walking speed and partially because of the fact so much time is spent on minute details like getting Shaun a snack or watching him eat dinner. Maybe that's partially because of the way I'm playing the game - sitting with my son while he eats is something I'd do (although I'd probably at least try total to him). In some ways it's reminiscent of Shenmue, but with more awkward controls (particularly given the idiotic shape of the controller's triggers).

And then I'm given control of a different character and there's a fight scene which is almost too fast paced, particularly given the fact that after 16 years of owning PlayStation systems I still don't know which way around square and circle are.

And then I'm given control of an FBI detective who looks a bit similar to the first character. I have to investigate a murder scene.

Again, I'm not sure whether such character switching works well in games. I was building an affinity with one person and then I'm switched to another. One character seems to have an odd moment of being transported elsewhere, but even though I'm playing as him I'm not told if he's dreaming or not - it seems from the game not, but it's not clear.  Before I can find out, I'm playing as someone else.

The story remains intriguing but elusive. I've worked out that there's a serial killer who leaves origami models behind. The murder investigation was for such a killing. The model in the dead man's hand was the same as the model in Ethan's hand during his dream sequence but Ethan's not dead. Piecing things together like this works well for a two-hour film, but it remains to be seen if it works in a much longer game that I'm going to be playing over a matter of weeks. Or years!

Mark of the Ninja: sneaking

I evidently bought this a while ago in some sale, but had forgotten about it until I was looking through my purchased games list.

It's a good game.  There are multiple ways of getting past any section, and I'm doing well at not alerting any guards.  It takes me a while to get through each level, and there have been times when I've caught myself holding my breath in real life as a guard walks past.

I may well complete this at some point, as long as it doesn't get too difficult.

Sega Rally Online Arcade: second, again

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

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

Rhythm Thief and the Emperor's Treasure: completed!

Napoleon wasn't Napoleon, he was a random bloke who announced his name with great flair but I had no idea who he was or what that meant.

Navigating the gardens, there was a particularly difficult battle where control shifted between Phantom R, Charlie and Inspector Vergier and I couldn't work out the timing for Charlie's sections at all.  I managed to get past it in the end - with a B rank - by just making no mistakes on the Vergier and Phantom R parts.

And then to Napoleon, with a particularly cringeworthy line.

I wish there was a better way of taking photos or screenshots on the 3DS.  You have to tilt it to avoid glare and reflection, but then you have to try and correct the skew ...

After a final battle, Napoleon jumped off the side of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon (which were in the air over Paris, do keep up) and I had to flee with Marie.  Lots of questions remain unanswered - where is Raphael's dad?  How did the Duchess survive being shot at point-blank range? Will Phantom R ever be arrested?

He really ought to be, even if it's just for chat-up lines like this.

I enjoyed this game.  It didn't feel as padded as a Layton game, which is good as I'm not sure the rhythm games would have carried it that much further.  Some of the side games were pretty tough, including the Rub Rabbits theme performed Samba de Amigo style.  I may go back one day to pick up any last bits I've missed (a few of the music scraps, for example), but for now, I'm done.

Conceptis Puzzles: freemium done right

According to Mr Kavanagh, I have somehow missed the launch of the follow-up to my third most-played 3DS game.  I'm somewhat loathe to download this, as I know I'll end up playing it exclusively for the next few weeks.  I'm frequently tempted to do so anyway, but only at work and I can't connect my 3DS to the Internet there.

But yesterday I fancied a bit of a puzzle.  As I'm unable to buy Picross E 2 using work's WiFi network, I investigated what was available on the iPhone for my journey home instead.  There are, as you'd expect, a lot of picross puzzles, at various prices. There are also slitherlink puzzles, and other such grid games.  Some of the best I've found are by Conceptis, who provide a decent number of free puzzles in their (free) apps, with lots of additional puzzles available at a cost.  The controls of the puzzles have been well thought out given the limitations of the touch screen - a lack of accuracy in particular.

Investigating their catalogue has introduced me to some new puzzle types as well - link-a-pix and hashi in particular.  Hashi is a bit tricky to work out the logic at times, but I'm getting there.

New Super Mario Bros Wii: infinite lives

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

Portal 2: completed!

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

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

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

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

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

New Super Mario Bros U: lava waves

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

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

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

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

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

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

New Super Mario Bros U: so pretty

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

This is a really pretty game.

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

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

New Super Mario Bros U: choosing a route

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

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

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

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

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

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

Super Hexagon: ADD

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

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

Gunman Clive: Completed!

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

Gunman Clive: pew pew

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

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

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

Portal 2: in the depths

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

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

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

Bulletstorm: I'm not a git, unfortunately

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

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

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

Forza Horizon: finding my way

I've never been excited by the previous Forza games, which is largely driven by the complexity they model and the feeling that unless you have an hour to spend tinkering with your car before each race you're not going to do very well. This is one of the reasons I've largely ignored the Gran Turismo series ever since playing around with it via bleemcast.  I just want to get in a car and race.

Forza Horizon allows you to do that, though there are loads of cars to choose between and there's the possibility of upgrading them with parts as well.  I've not done that, I've just bought a few new cars and raced those.  I've explored a lot of the world in free drive mode, have challenged a fair few of the other competitors (but only those driving crappy cars), and have participated in a number of the event races (and a couple of street races).  I've nearly gained the blue wristband which will open up even more content.

It's an excellent game.  It's an iteration of what's gone before, but it pulls things together excellently.  It has the free roam of Test Drive Unlimited, linked to the social gaming nature of Geometry Wars (constant updates of what friends are up to), with collection and exploration of Crackdown.  And an excellent driving engine underpinning it.

And it cost me £15.

Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed: not fun any more

I didn't lower the difficulty to easy, and have managed to progress through all five sets of levels on medium.  And now I've reached a gateway that requires more stars than I have, meaning that I need to go back and play levels on hard.  I managed a couple, but the game just feels too random and the framerate doesn't help. It's just not fun having to repeat the same race over and over hoping that the leader - who always has a speed greater than you - makes a mistake somewhere.

Nintendo Land: no more

It may take me more than a few weeks to complete the Pikmin game, since my Wii U appears to have died.  it won't turn on; instead it just flashes a red light at me.  I am not a happy bunny.

Nintendo Land: catch me!

Indeed, a Wii U game!  I was given a Wii U for my birthday, which was an unexpected treat, and coincided with my brother and his wife coming for the evening last night.  We played Nintendo Land all night.  It was great.

Of the three competitive games, the best is probably Mario Chase, which we played loads - learning the nuances of the maps together, and by the end of the evening everyone had managed at least one catch.  I'm surprised that Nicholas didn't wake up given the shouting between the chasers of Mario's location.  The ghost mansion game was similarly frantic, though that seemed a little too unbalanced in the ghost's favour; only one game finished with the ghost losing.

Possibly the most fun of the evening came from playing through a few of the Pikmin levels, which felt like a fully-fledged game given its scope and size.  I suspect I'll be playing the rest of the levels by myself over the next few weeks ...

Little Things Forever: an owl within an owl

Little Things Forever is a hidden object game, where the objects aren't hidden - there are just a lot of them.  A large picture (of, say, an owl) is made up of loads of little objects (such as spades, cameras, arrows, trumpets, pelicans, funnels, paper planes, and owls), and you are given a short list to find.  On some levels you are given this list one at a time, and you have an overall time limit of two minutes; on some levels you are told to find a larger number of a single type of object (for example, four keys); on other levels the number of objects you need to find increases with the number of levels you've passed.

As you complete levels, you collect puzzle pieces, and after you've collected a certain number you then get to do a square jigsaw that lets you play on another large picture made up of small pictures. I have unlocked a fair few of these now, the most recent being the octopus.  It's a lovely, polished game, which i can see lasting for just long enough.

Civilization Revolution: scenario testing

The Xbox 360 version of Civ Rev was cheap in the sales last week, and given how much I enjoyed the iPhone and DS games it was a bit of a no-brainer.

It's even better on the 360; graphically it's superior of course, but the controls seem to be a little more intuitive as well, which is surprising given the touch-screen nature of the other versions.  I've been concentrating on playing a couple of the scenarios first, which is something that I never really got into on the iPhone, and they seem to be taking a while to play through.  The English are a pain with their fleets of battleships.

GRID: hitting many cars

In general I don't like racing games where you can damage your car and it impacts on performance.  I'm not great at driving a clean race, and like to be able to graze the walls in order to get around corners when needed.

You can't really do that in GRID.  You have quite a lot of leeway before the damage gets too much, but a lot of that is often lost in the first corner when one of the opponents drives straight into you.  After this, it's a case of driving very carefully around the course, ending up on the podium at best.

Still, the car handling works well and there's a good sense of accomplishment each time you finish a race.  You can't complain for £2.69.

Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed: judder judder judder

First: stupid title. The previous game (which I've played on the Xbox 360 but can find no mention of on this blog) was called Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing.  The sequel loses the "Sega", despite almost all locations and characters and everything still being Sega.  There's the addition of Wreck-It Ralph, but the 360 version of the old game had Banjo-Kazooie as a playable character and that retained the "Sega".  It's just daft.  Moreover, why couldn't they make it into a series with the tennis game and call it "Sega Superstar Racing" in the first place?  Sonic doesn't really have a leading role here.

Second: really impressive to look at.  From what I've read about the other console versions, this has all the same content in the same structure; the courses are vibrant and detailed.  An impressive achievement cramming this onto the 3DS.

Third: at least, it would be if the game wasn't a juddery mess at times.  The framerate dives on many courses (and if I can see it, it must be really low) which means that in order to play the game you really need to turn the 3D effect off (which doubles the framerate).  With 3D off, the vibrancy and colour means that it's really difficult to see where the track goes, and you keep crashing into background objects.

It can't all be bad, though, since I've played it a fair bit, finishing the first chapter at least.  It's not an easy game; I'm setting the difficulty to "normal" for everything so far but fear I may need to revert to "easy" for some courses and races.

New Super Mario Bros 2: even more completed

All the levels opened and completed, three coins on every level, all toad houses opened, and a stupid number of lives (represented by three castles).  I have four stars on my profile, which looks odd since there could be space for a fifth but unless that's gained for getting a million coins (which I'm nowhere near) then I can't see what that would be awarded for.

Coin Rush is just a little too fraught for me - one life, dying at the last minute wiping out any progress - no, I think I'll leave it here.

New Super Mario Bros 2: completed!

Completed as much as the first game, at least, maybe more so.  I've unlocked every world and completed them.  There are a few exits I've missed meaning that a couple of the extra levels remain unlinked, and I've hardly touched the coin rush mode - and I find that a bit frustrating given the short timescales and one life and random levels.

A great game, and I'll continue to play bits of it, but it may need to take a rest now.

Sega Rally Online Arcade: practice needed

I love Sega's arcade racers; I always have, since I first played Virtua Racing in an arcade in Hastings, and then bought it on the Mega Drive for £70 on release day.  I remember friends deprecating my powersliding round the corner on a Daytona USA cabinet in Bexleyheath Superbowl, describing it as a "barely controlled skid" - yet I beat them.  I had precious little experience with Scud Race, but Sega Rally consumed many pound coins - and I've three copies of the marvellous Saturn conversion, for some reason.

They may not get played again, for Sega Rally Online Arcade is a marvellous expansion of the game.  Unlike Daytona, the graphics have had a massive overhaul, with new tracks, new cars, and it's all been rebalanced.  The control's been updated as well, and while it's not as satisfying as the Saturn wheel, it's better than the Saturn joypad.

The only issue with this version of the game is that I'm not very good at it.  See the screenshot - this is me finishing the Tropical course, with plenty of time on the clock, but still in 13th place.  I will have to attempt manual transmission and learn the tracks better ...

Hidden in Plain Sight: who am I?

On Saturday night, Matt and Gaby were visiting and we killed each other, once we'd worked out who we were.

Hidden in Plain Sight is an Xbox Indie Game, which means it cost about 50p.  For that excessive sum you get five different games, all of which revolve around the idea of not knowing who your opponents are.  The first, and possibly the best, is Ninja Party, where your objectives are to either be the first touch five statues dotted around the room, or kill all opponents.  You can guess who your opponents are by seeing who's walking over a statue as a ping goes off, or who's walking purposefully around rather than wandering aimlessly.  There are many computer-controlled characters who are wandering aimlessly, but who look the same as you.  So the idea is to look as if you're wandering aimlessly while still making your way between statues, and at the same time watch the whole screen to see if you can spot someone else walking purposefully while pretending to wander aimlessly.  If you do spot them, you can make your way over to them and try to kill them, but if they see you coming they may well kill you so you need to wander aimlessly over towards them while making sure you get there before they hit all statues.

Since you're all on one screen, the only possible way to ensure that people don't know who their opponents are is to not tell anyone who they are themselves.  Instead, the first few seconds of each game is spent wiggling the controller in certain directions and seeing which character moves in that way.  If you see a character moving erratically and it's not you, it may be someone else ... but you'll normally have to take your eyes off of them in order to find your character anyway, which is amusingly frustrating.

Other games felt a bit unbalanced with three players.  Death Race - be the first over the line or shoot your opponent - was the most broken, with the player who didn't shoot anyone being the one to win.  The thief game was really hard if there were two thieves or quite easy if there were two snipers.  The assassin game was similar.

Matt complained that Knights and Ninjas was too biased in favour of the knights, but that's because he kept losing.

It's a shame that the 360 can only connect four controllers; this would be amazing with eight players.

New Super Mario Bros 2: sort-of-completed

I've seen the credits, at least.  It feels a little bit of a letdown to see the end of the game and know that there is so much still to explore.  After defeating Bowser (which I did last weekend, but never got around to writing about), I've been exploring some levels where I think there may be alternate exists based on the positioning of level markers on the map.  I've found a few, including the exit to the cannon on World 1 which leads you to the mushroom worlds.  These are a little trickier than the main numbered levels, but not massively.

I'm now exploring levels for more secrets, and trying to get enough star coins to unlock the star worlds.  From what I wrote about the original game, it looks like I'm pretty much where I called the game 'completed' last time, but the ennui's not set in yet.  Let's explore some more.

1000 Heroz: losing patience

I've not been playing this every day recently.  I've not decided it's rubbish - far from it - but the game itself is conspiring to make sure I can't play it.  When I open the app, it spends an absolute age trying to connect to the server, then half the time it just gives up and says that no connection is available - even when I'm connected to a WiFi network.  If it does manage to connect, then sometimes the score I get on a level isn't uploaded to the leaderboards.  It's just not fun.

I'm not the only one with this issue.  This is a game that people paid for, which is seemingly being left to die by its developers.  The dark side of online gaming.

New Super Mario Bros Wii: excessive lives

I am very pleased with myself.

I'm still finding the game relatively tricky, but I've progressed a bit more.  The main issue, as with all console games, is just finding time to play it.  I've been continuing with around 10 lives, losing some, gaining some, sometimes dropping to just a few left before completing a stage.  It's made some bits pretty stressful.

And then last night I found a way to get infinite lives.  If you can kill a number of enemies in a row through a continuous action, then you get a lot of points - 200 for the first enemy, 400 for the second, and so on - and eventually you start to get an extra life for each enemy.  This action could be jumping from enemy to enemy without touching the ground, sliding down a slope, or hitting enemies with a thrown shell.

On world 2-5, I found an area in which Lakitu is dropping spiky enemies over and over. I was able to jump on a yoshi just before this section.  Yoshi ate one of the spiky enemies, spat it out, and it bounced between two blocks on the ground.  As long as I avoided Lakitu's thrown enemies, they would land on the ground and be killed by the bouncing shell.  After a while, each one that landed and was killed gave me an extra life.

Avoiding the shells thrown by Lakitu wasn't always easy, but I died the first time after getting 10 more lives; the second time after 20 more, and then the third time the counter went up to 99, which seems to be the maximum.  I recorded this on my video capture box, so may well upload the video at some point.

Of course, on searching I found a number of videos of people who had already done this.   But I found it myself, which is why I'm feeling so smug.

New Super Mario Bros 2: lots of coins and lives

I have now collected over 10,000 coins - still some way to go to make a million - and have 92 lives.  The last couple of stages (I think 5-2 and 5-3) have been very easy indeed, and I've been able to collect a large number of lives just playing through them normally.  There was one section with numerous bullet bills where I was able to collect six or seven lives just bouncing on enemies in sequence.

That's not to say this is a bad thing.  Because it's easier, I'm being more reckless than I was in the Wii game, and a few deaths have come from trying to be too flashy or quick.  I've not felt that any deaths were unfair or out of my control - indeed, they've almost all been because I've been trying to be too clever.  That makes the game fun.

I've not found too many secret exits as yet, and have obviously missed the entrances to the other worlds at the bottom of the map.  I've got quite a few of the star coins though - normally two or three per level of the three available - and I can see that I'll be trying to get all those at some point in the future.

New Super Mario Bros Wii: excessive difficulty

I've had this on the shelf for over a year and never played it. The brilliance of New Super Mario Bros 2 has encouraged me to play it.

I may have lost a few lives in the 3DS game, but that is much easier than this. I was struggling for ages to get past the end of the first world, in fact, but after a while I realised that my video capture box was on the post-processing setting which adds a slight lag to controls, and so I wasn't able to react quickly enough.

Even with that corrected, I'm still not breezing through the game. The sand world with its collapsing platforms and annoying wind has caused a fair few deaths already, and I'm only up to 2-6. I've not quite got the hang of the propeller hat, and the shake-to-activate is frustratingly imprecise.

Despite these criticisms, it's still a great game; it's well designed and looks lovely. There are some great touches, such as the way the enemies dance to the music. The encouragement to play levels again through hidden giant coins and captured toads is hardly needed - this isn't a game I'm rushing through.

Who doesn't like me?

According to my Xbox 360's blog, my reputation fell last week.  This means that someone who I was playing against marked me as someone he'd prefer not to play against in the future.

The only game I'd played multiplayer during that time was Peggle.  I won a couple of games of that, once with a very skillful (read: flukey) shot that got me 80,000 points in one go.  I feel there must be a sore loser around.

Sob.

New Super Mario Bros 2: ker-ching

I completed New Super Mario Bros almost six years ago.  At the time, I knew there were bits of the game I hadn't found, but I had at least unlocked all the worlds and played through all the levels.  I hadn't found all the large coins.  I thought I might go back and complete more at a later date.

I didn't.  I have a feeling the same will apply to the sequel, which seems to be more of the same although more inventive with different types of level, puzzles to get to different routes, and a clever overall mechanic of collecting lots of coins.  There's a meta-task of collecting a million coins, which the game tries to assist with through the provision of coin fountains, golden leaves meaning that enemies create coin trails, golden fireballs turning blocks to coins, and so on.  And yet collecting 100 coins still gives you an extra life.

As a result I've over 60 lives now and I'm just starting world 3.  I would have more, but my skills at Mario games seem to have disappeared to some extent since 2007.  Maybe it's because I'm using the analogue stick.

Professor Layton and the Miracle Mask: Completed!

Completed in which way?

Story: completed.
All story puzzles: completed.
Layton's challenges: completed.
Shop minigame: completed.
Rabbit minigame: completed.
Robot minigame: completed.
Robot extra game: not completed because it's dull and I can't be bothered.

The end game was a bit more exciting than I was expecting, and the controls and story became less of an issue as I continued to play.  In fact, the story was, in the end, probably the best written of any of the Laytons, and although I guessed the identity of the villain early on, there were enough tricks to lead me to doubt myself a few times.  Not least Henry's evasiveness.

I must pull together all the Layton games at some point to open up the hidden doors in them all - and make sure that all the minigames in earlier games are complete, since I can't remember that far back (and my posts on this blog don't really help).

The Walking Dead: get off her!

I don't like zombies.  I'm not a huge fan of horror films in general, but zombies are just disgusting and scary.  The idea of waking up in a world where everyone is walking around eating each other and turning others into zombies is very disturbing indeed.

So why am I playing a game where I'm experiencing just that?  Even more so when you consider this isn't a House of the Dead style blaster, or even a Resident Evil style action game; this is a scripted adventure about survival in a world of zombies with virtually no way of fighting them.  It is at times scary and lonely; at other times it is sad and emotional.

I've now finished the first episode, and while the lack of inversion on the look control is a hindrance there's nothing that's sufficiently action-based to ruin the game.  The storytelling is great, and it's clear that a lot of attention's been paid to the game writing.  There is a sense that actions do matter, with the smokescreen dropping only occasionally.  There was a big decision at the end of the first episode, which I presume affects the story considerably going forward - I saved Carly over Doug, since he seemed a bit hopeless and she's good with a gun.

I got the rest of the episodes for cheap in the Xbox sales, and I'm going to start episode 2 soon.  Maybe when it's daytime though.

Journey: completed!

Journey is the other half of the artistic game bundle I bought on PSN at the end of last year.  With The Unfinished Swan completed, I've spent a bit of time on this during the past week.

It's amazing.  You enter the game controlling an armless figure who can sing, and soon you learn to jump.  The game guides you across the sand dunes, with no instructions other than a clear visual symbol of the mountain in the distance.  You reach stones, you find a door, you learn how to jump further.

You stop reading now if you want to play it yourself.

Professor Layton and the Miracle Mask: repetition

The fifth game in the Layton series, and it feels like it.  It's a little over-familiar, except the side puzzles aren't as good (the robot and rabbit are annoying, though the shop is a neat puzzle), the controls are more annoying (since you no longer directly touch the background, you instead have to guide a magnifying glass on the 3D screen while touching on the lower screen), and the story is all over the place.  Randall died many years ago, and Layton may or may not have had something to do with it.  Angela was Randall's girlfriend but is now married to Henry who's a bit of an oddball.  Dalston is a bit of an outsider.  A masked man is pulling off "miracles" which are blatantly faked. You jump back and forward in time to see Layton when he was young, and see what happened when they found the mask of chaos.  I don't really care much.

I think some of my ennui is caused by the appalling battery life of the 3DS when this is running.  Normally the system would last a few days in sleep mode, but with this I need to charge it every other day or it runs out of power and loses all my progress.  I've had to redo quite a few puzzles now - including the dull rabbit stuff - just because I forgot to plug the console in.

Still, I think I'm over half way through the game, and most puzzles have fallen at the first attempt (in fact, I think all but two), so I should be able to complete this before getting completely bored of it.

The Unfinished Swan: completed!

Indeed, I've completed the game - and found the balloons and stories and everything.

The Unfinished Swan: balloons

Most balloons have colour to them, but some are white and so are easy to miss.  I've not missed any yet.

I've now completed the second chapter.  Again, read no further if you want to experience it yourself.

Flower: completed!

The tower was indeed the key to the sixth level, and indeed the whole game.  Winding up through the city, lightening the buildings and swings, I entered the mass of girders and destroyed as many as I could as I was blown ever upwards.  There were few flowers inside the structure, but as I reached the top I had a huge number of petals following me.  The tower fell, and a tree grew.  End of game.

I've found three hidden flowers on the first level, and one one every other level.  I'll be back to play this again.

Flower: purple and pink

By level five, it's getting a bit fraught.  The flowers and the wind do have an enemy, it seems, in the shape of electricity pylons.  Getting too close to these sets fire to accompanying petals, and smoke trails follow the wind for a while.  The pylons seem to be broken and falling, but at the same time they're a menace to the world.  Chiming with blue flowers at the base of pylons turns them from black and rusting to silver, but they remain no less broken.

By the end of the fifth level, this had turned from being a happy and cheery game, to being dark and depressing.  The flower given for finishing the level is wilted and dying.  I almost didn't carry on to the sixth level, but I'm glad I did.  The petal and wind are stronger here, and can break through the pylons - something I found by chance after trying to avoid them for ages.  Destroying pylons brings colour back to the world, and I find myself in an overgrown city with repairing buildings and roads.  The centre of the city seems to be a huge tower of pylons, and maybe that holds the key to getting past this level.

But I've been stuck on the road system for six minutes, trying to make sure I'm colouring the whole city, and I've not got there yet.

Limbo: into the haze

I now own Limbo on three formats: Mac, Xbox 360, and PS3.  I've only even played it to the first encounter with a big spider, which I found to be intensely annoying since I died jumping over the bear traps over and over again.

On the 360, I seem to have a little more control.  Certainly I was able to get past the spider not just once but a number of times (including being caught in its web, urgh), and have found some people who seem to want me dead.  I've been killed many times but have progressed a lot further than I ever did before.  Recent progress has been down into caves where it's even darker than normal, and everything is hazy.  I'm a bit claustrophobic.

The Unfinished Swan: feet

The Unfinished Swan is an experimental game, in a number of ways.  It's an experiment on the part of the developer, who have included a number of different gameplay mechanics from the first level onwards.  It's an experiment in terms of playing it - it requires the player to try and work out controls and where they are, with no instructions other than a brief story.  It's an experiment on the part of Sony, who are increasing the exposure of more artistic games such as this and Journey.

Warning: if you want to play this game yourself (and I recommend you do) I recommend reading no further.

Super Mario Galaxy: lost

Arriving at the hub world, I was given five lives by a toadstool who shuffled over, breaking the cobwebs that had bound him. Peach had sent me a letter, despite being in captivity. I'm sure she's thinking that she'll never escape.

Rosalina asked me if I wanted to go to the special place. There was a sense of longing in her voice, as she pointed out I now had enough stars to go and rescue the princess. Longing and perhaps disbelief, that the hero had returned after all these years to complete the job that he had left unfinished.

But no. I spent a few minutes reacquainting myself with the space station, and found a chubby star thing (what are they called? Lumia? Or is that a Nokia phone?) who showed me a map. Where can I go to get new stars? It's not entirely clear. But there's a new galaxy in the engine room.

It took a while to find the engine room. Despite years of neglect, the robot inside was still whirring away, carving his trails into the mountains of dust. I jumped to the central star, and found that as well as the new galaxy, I had only collected one star from the toy-themed one. I elected to go there.

Mario meets Mario. The last part of the stage was a Mario-shaped floor with disappearing tiles. In order to get there, I had to navigate a complicated shape collecting jump star pieces, which took a while given the fact I couldn't remember how to ground pound. I was expecting the screw mechanism encountered half-way through to have rusted up, but someone's been keeping it oiled.

Onto the Mario floor, and I died several times as the yellow tiles flipped over and left me with nothing to jump from. Luckily there was a 1-up near the start. I had to collect five silver stars, which then became a gold star and was positioned at the start of the Mario floor. Unfortunately, I'd stepped on the tiles around that and they'd disappeared. Fortunately Mario has a long jump.

So I collected one more star. After I saved, as I turned the console off, I'm sure I heard a whisper. No, I won't forget, I'll be back.

Batman Arkham Asylum: completed!

It was indeed the finale. I fought the henchmen in the hallway, I fought the two titans in the main room, and then I was worried that Joker was going to be a boring boss battle of just another titan charging around the room. Oh no. The last parts on the rooftop were tricky, and I had to restart twice before I finally defeated him, with a sliver of health left.

Overall, this has been a great game. I'm not really interested in the whole superhero universe, but this game took the established characters and made them into something really interesting. The setting is pretty creepy at times, and it felt a very solid world (even if the rationale for the batcave was a bit flimsy). It wasn't too long, but if I wanted to get more out of it there's a number of extra modes which I've not touched, plus the main game on a hard difficulty level. For now, though, I'm done.

Batman Arkham Asylum: riddle me this

Up to what I presume is the finale now, where I've been invited to the Joker's party. Before I went in, I was clearing up the Riddler's puzzles; this exercise was made easier by the fact that I'd already found each of the maps which indicate the general location of each puzzle - with the exception of the Joker's teeth, which were annoying to find in a couple of the buildings.

After much exploration, all the puzzles had been collected - I had to cheat and go online to find out the location of the last Chronicle of Arkham, since that didn't show on any map, and though I guessed who it was that was being referred to I saw no real link to the location - and I've gone in to see the Joker.

He killed me, and it was late, so I'll come back to that.

Mario Kart 7: time trialling

I've managed to get at least one star on every grand prix now, so my name is displayed with a star on online races.  Interestingly, I got a star for the Lightning Cup on mirror mode when coming second overall, while I'd previously won the series and hadn't been awarded a star at all.  I'll still play the grand prix from time to time, but for now I've been concentrating on time trials.

Mario Kart 7 has a great implementation of time trials, where you get shown the worldwide distribution of times plus are presented with a number of ghosts across the spectrum.  You can then choose to race against seven ghosts randomly chosen from the ones surrounding you, or any specific ghost at all.  These are updated any time you connect to the Internet via SpotPass.  In addition, you get sent time trials via StreetPass of people you meet in real life.  The only thing I've not seen is whether your friends are included in the ghosts anywhere - since I have no MK7 friends.

Sad face.

Anyway, I've been playing the time trials trying to beat the median time for each course.  Some have been easier than others, but there are a few which have oddly-shaped distribution curves with two peaks where there's a trick to the track, such as boosting over a certain corner and ramp.  To compete on these I've been trying to find the shortcuts myself but also following some of the faster ghosts to work out the strategy.

The track I most hate is Kalamari Desert.  You have to avoid the train going around the track through use of two different ramps (to get to which you have to use a boost over rough ground first.  But you have to line yourself up to the first ramp and commit to it before you can even see if the train is going to be in the way.  It took a lot of experimentation to find that you have to use the second ramp for the first two laps and the first ramp on the last lap, but if and only if you've been closely tracking the best times.

I'm ahead of the median on all but two tracks now.

Picross e: completed!

I have very little willpower. This has become even more apparent as I've worked my way through the puzzles in Picross e, making increasing use of the game's feature which highlights which rows and columns have a possible move in them.  While I am able to say "no" at the start of each puzzle, when it asks if I want any hints (meaning it doesn't fill in a random row and column to start), I find it hard to not press the shoulder buttons to reveal the the row and column highlighting as soon as get remotely stuck.  This is made worse by the fact that I try to do it even on the puzzles where it's not available.

There wasn't anything particularly difficult, though I did work out a new technique (thanks to the row highlighting) which allows you to put a blank in space 2 if space 3 is filled and the sequence starts with a 1.  The end pictures were normally quite evident from the outlines, but I did struggle to understand what the pelican was until the name appeared.

More please.

Batman Arkham Asylum: taking over the island

I was stuck in one room for ages.  There were seven (I think) armed guards, and I could only ever lure two or three to their deaths under a gargoyle before the others spotted me and gunned me down.

I got past in the end more by luck than judgement, as the enemies kept on walking around in a circle underneath me.  It was very tense gliding down to take the last one out.

Now Poison Ivy is making plants grow all over the place, so I have to find her.  I should have captured her when I had the chance.

Mr Driller Drill Spirits: reminiscing

Last year, I played Peggle.  At the time, I vowed to never again play Peggle, due to the unfairness of its randomness and impossible goals.  of course, its randomness and impossible goals are one of the things that makes it so compelling, and I've played it many times since.

But screaming and shouting at a console is not the way to remember Owen, and so this morning I played Mr Driller instead.  I'm rather rusty at it, but after fifteen minutes or so I was back into the rhythm the game demands, dodging under fused X blocks, dashing for air across the screen, and rushing to the two-colour stages which give a break from the action to some extent.  I played the 2000m stage, it being the only one that's not completed yet (other than the moon, which has items so is a bit of a variation from the pure Mr Driller experience).

Mr Driller remains a fine game, and the DS version is probably still the best version available to me.  Drill Land requires the GameCube to be set up (with Freeloader), and its unique modes are mostly multiplayer.  Mr Driller Online has virtually nobody online.  The Dreamcast version of the original works well but is hampered by the controller.

Of course, a 3DS download game which is always available could be better still.

Batman Arkham Asylum: creeping

I've now collected the sequencer from the head warden, which means that I can override the security doors dotted around.  There are lots of places to go back to at some point, but I'm being driven on through the story.  Harley Quinn is running away but it's only a matter of time until I catch up with her.

It'll be a while, though, since I'm off to Kuwait for a week tomorrow.  Joy.

Professor Layton and the Last Specter: completed!

I went back to it finally, and have finished the story.  It was a bit far-fetched, as is the Layton way.  I then went back and searched for the 10 puzzles I'd missed.  I completed the fish games, and the train games, and have downloaded the weekly puzzles, all of which are completed.

The only thing I've not finished are Layton's challenges, and also working out what the hidden door is for.  The first of these will be this weekend's task; the second may require Google.

A great game, as always.  I'm not overly tempted by London life, though.  I don't have 100 hours to spare at the moment ...

Batman Arkham Asylum: over the shoulder

The time requirement for F1 2010 proved too much, so my F1 fix will come from F1 2011 on the 3DS while I move onto something else in my short morning babysitting slots.  I bought Arkham Asylum a while ago after hearing that it was amazing and excellent; my time with it so far is consistent with this.

Each time I start playing it, thought, it takes me a few minutes to get used to the over-the-shoulder view; the camera is ajust a little too distant from Batman, making me feel a bit divorced from his actions. This is particularly odd when the camera shifts during fight scenes to be more behind him; it's just a littel too dynamic.

I'm having trouble following the story, because the sound on the TV is kept very low in order to not wake Nicholas.  It's obvious that the Joker has taken over the asylum though, and Batman is working his way around the island in order to regain control.  I've reached a Batcave now, which was put in place many years ago just in case.  What foresight.

F1 2010: rules confusion

I don't really watch F1 on TV, though I used to a few years ago.  Having seen F1 2010 in the Game sell-off for £2, though, I thought it could be interesting to see how things had progressed since F1'97 on the PlayStation.  They've progressed a lot.

The game looks stunning. A lot of this is down to the high-definition display, of course, but there's such attention to detail on the cars that it's difficult to not just stop and stare when you're driving up behind them.  Driving up behind them is something I'm doing a lot, since my qualifying positions are well down the pack and I have a tendency to brake late.  My first two races went OK other than the fact I had a penalty applied at the end for "causing a collision".  It wasn't me, it was the other car stopping in front of me.

I'm using many driving aids, and it's almost as if the car's driving itself at times, but at least this means I have a hope of getting somewhere through the game.  I may need to turn off the automatic braking though - that just feels a little too hand-holding.

The other thing about the game is the investment of time it requires.  Each race takes ages, through the practice sessions then qualifying, then a ten-lap race.  Since most of my gaming time is in half-hour chunks while Nicholas is asleep on the sofa next to me, this is hardly ideal ...

King Kong: completed!

You may be feeling as if you've gone back in time to March 2007, as I completed this game then as well.  It's rare that I will play through a story-driven game such as this more than once, but I remembered really enjoying it and when I had the opportunity to buy a copy for the Xbox 360 for £2 I jumped at the chance.  High definition should be a bonus ...

I remembered the game as graphically accomplished with recognisable characters and beautiful locations. Maybe that was a standard definition illusion, as when played on the 360 it looks pretty basic. It's stunning to see how far games have come in the last five years.  Not only does it look rough, textures are repeated far too often and a lot of the game is just too dark.

Yes, she is meant to be attractive.

I also remembered the game as varied and well structured. It's varied to some extent, with levels split between controlling Jack and Kong, but there are limited puzzles and enemies, and by the time I was 75% through I was getting pretty bored. The chapter system works OK, but games have developed more elegant checkpoint and save systems now - in fact, they had developed them back in 2002 with Halo, but that's by the by.

Most of all, I remembered the game as good.  And it still is, though the difficulty is all over the place and if it went on any longer than it does it would soon turn into a grind.  As it is, it's a good fun short game that's starting to show its age.

Limbo: big spiders

Limbo is a black and white game, with the main character's eyes shining more than anything else in the world.  It's a game full of danger and death.  I have died many, many times - and not every death has felt like it's my fault.  I'm getting a bit past pixel-perfect jumping, which seems to be required to get past some of the traps.

I got to a big spider, who impaled me on its legs.  After a couple of deaths, I realised that I could push one of the traps under its feet and it would lose its leg.  I did this a couple of times, but kept dying in the trap as I jumped over it.

Bah.

Bit.Trip Saga: bopping along

I really enjoy some of the games on this compilation.  Runner is undoubtdly the star of the show, even if I'm not vey good at it.  Beat gets hard to quickly and makes my eyes go funny.  Core is just too tricky from the start.

The 3D isn't used very well at all, though.  It's much easier to play with it turned off, which is very disappointing indeed.

Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Anniversary Edition: completed!

My commuting game of choice over the past week or so has been the 3DS conversion of the GBA game that was included alongside Link to the Past.  The 3DS game has the benefit of being adapted so you can play it in single-player modes, rather than being restricted to only playing when there's someone else with a GBA and link cable around.

Nintendo evidently realised that such time would be few and far between, so Four Swords actually has relatively little content.  There are three main "dungeons", with three or four levels each.  In the new version, you control two Links, switching between them with a shoulder button, and puzzles have been redesigned so simultaneous actions aren't needed.  It's been really well done.

There have been a couple of times where puzzles have left me stuck for a few minutes, and I only died (properly) once - there were a few deaths along the way but they were paid for with rupees so no progress was lost.  The final boss had a few different forms, but died pretty quickly.

A nice freebie from Nintendo!

Assassin's Creed: completed!

Although some parts of it were a bit annoying - particularly the informer missions - this has been an excellent game.

I was wrong about there being two more missions in the animus - the last block is full of the additional missions such as collecting flags and killing Templars.  There was an obvious twist to the story in the end, though I wasn't expecting that the enemy at the funeral would turn out to not be Robert.  That makes it 50% on the twist-is-a-surprise-o-meter.

After spending most of the game trying to be sneaky and quiet and hiding from the guards, the last bit of the game forced me to fight out in the open, which grated somewhat.  Luckily, I had had plenty of practice at this since the guards throughout Jerusalem had a knack of seeing me even when I was trying to keep out of their way, and so I had been attacked many times over by the time I got to the final mission.  The fights against Robert's men were tricky, and I frequently had to run away to regain some health before returning to the fight.  Robert himself was a skilled fighter, blocking most of my attacks and forcing me to constantly parry.

But he went down, as did the super-secret-obvious end boss, and the game is finished.

I may well go back to collect some flags and kill some Templars, but will need to use a map if I don't want to end up wandering the kingdom forever.

New Star Soccer: completed!

I'ver probably played this a bit too much.  After coming second in the premiership with Spurs by a single point, I lead England to world cup glory scoring a hat trick in the final against Brazil (which was won 4-0).  Rather than go back to Spurs for another season, I decided to move to Winter in the lower Swiss league - which I presume is FC Winterthur.  This has been a bit of a disaster, with team mates not passing me the ball and fans hating me.

I'm tempted to start over, but there are other things which have piqued my interest recently.  Maybe once I'm able to come back fresh.

Assassin's Creed: splosh!

Im on the 'final' mission now, which is to find the Templar organising all the blockades and book burning and general malpractice. Except I know it's not the last mission, since there are two more mission blocks in the animus.

The last assassination was exceptionally annoying. The port master was, as his name suggests, at the port. Specifically, he coops himself up on a ship. This would be fine if Altair didn't die with the slightest contact with water. This would also be fine if Altair didn't decide to randomly jump at an odd angle rather than onto the post directly in front. I spent ages working may way around the North dock, as the intelligence says, and on my 267,396th try finally made it to the large boat. At which point I realised that I hadn't triggered the cutscene starting the assassination, so Siread wasn't actually on the boat yet.

When I finally completed the assassination, though, I did so very well indeed. Siread is a jittery mess, and wanders around his boat all the time. I managed to get to a position where I was hanging off the side of the boat, and as he went past I jumped over the railing and killed him with one blow. All that was left was to flee the guards - which I did using the paths along the walls, rather than jumping over the boats and poles again. It's a little samey now, and the informant missions are a bit annoying given the propensity of guards to spot you just because a random drunk has pushed you. Still, off to Jerusalem ...

New Star Soccer: the quadruple

New Star Soccer is the best game on iOS. I have dedicated hours to it while commuting, and am now aged 40 in-game and still playing. Given that you start at age 16, and each year represents a full football season, that's a lot of game. It plays to the strengths and weaknesses of the platform superbly. No virtual joysticks, no overly-long matches, no diddly controls. You watch most of a match in text form, as in Football Manager Handheld, but then when your player receives the ball, you act - either in terms of passing, shooting, or intercepting (of course, that last one isn't after you've received the ball, that would be daft). As you do more training, the strength of your shots and the extent to which you can curve them increases, and your teammates appear in better positions as well. I started playing for Tonbridge in the Conference South. I've made my way up through the leagues, mainly staying in England with a brief flirtation with the Faroese league and some time in Portugal. I've now been playing for Spurs for a few years, and last year we managed to win the league, the League Cup, the FA Cup, and the Champions League. And I'm still playing, since England keep getting knocked out of international competitions at the semi-final stage; the last Euros saw a particularly annoying defeat by Greece of all teams. A superb game.

Assassin's Creed: back to Damascus

I've now completed Memory Block 4, which looks to be the longest in the game, and am back in Damascus to explore the last part of the city.  I'm getting through things much quicker now, especially since I fully understand what is expected of me.  It took me just over an hour to climb all the high points and save the citizens, with a few of the investigation missions along the way.

I've been trying to complete all investigations before going for the assassination, but there are two informer missions in this part of the game which are really difficult.  You have to kill certain guards without being detected - but the issue is that the guards in general are all on heightened alert and so you need to constantly blend in with the crowd to hide.  Within the crowd are people carrying pots and bits of wood, and if you get near them they drop these, alerting the guards even if you're blending.  As a result, you need to blend and then stop walking any time a pot carrier comes near.

An exercise in patience then?  It would be if the missions weren't timed.  Very frustrating.

The rest of the game continues to entertain.  The missions are a little samey in some ways, but the story that they impart is interesting and the information you collect can really help with the key assassinations.  The overall story has an obvious twist coming up - all of the victims after death seem to be happy with their actions, after all - but one of the last victims (the executioner) seemed to actually be a thoroughly unpleasant man after all.

Wario Land 4: gem collecting

One of the 3DS ambassador games, this isn't something I'd normally have picked up.  While Super Mario Land and SML2 were excellent examples of handheld gaming, taking home consoles experiences and reducing them to more immediate and shorter challenges, I had heard that from SML3 (Wario Land) onwards the games got just a little too complex.

That's true of Wario Land 4 to some extent, with levels being just a little too big to play on either part of my commute.  The character of Wario is a little too large to show enough of the level, and the jumping physics are a bit suspect as well.  It just doesn't feel like a Nintendo platform game.

I think it's unlikely I'll be back to this given the wealth of other games on the console ...

Assassin's Creed: touring the Holy Land

I've completed an assassination in each of the cities now, and am on Memory Block 4 which has three parts to complete, one in each area.  I've killed the man in Damascus, and have completed my investigations of Acre.

This is a really good game.  The gameplay flows well, and there's enough variety in missions to mean that at the half-way point (which is roughly where I am) it feels as if there's still a lot to experience.  The difficulty is starting to increase, with guards being tougher and more numerous, and targets are better protected and hidden.  Before each target I'm carrying out the full investigation - including climbing to all high points and saving all citizens - but at times I'm just getting lost in the metagame of assassinating guards and sneaking around.

Controls are still on occasion awkward, and the entire idea of losing your abilities after the first mission is just daft - especially the loss of the ability to catch a ledge as you fall past it.  I can understand not being able to carry certain weapons if you're demoted, but stopping yourself falling to death?  It's also constraining only having five throwing knives, and I hope that I can carry more at some point soon.

Assassin's Creed: to Damascus

I started this five years late in the early hours of this morning. It's a game I've always fancied playing, but have never had as a priority and had never seen cheap enough to warrant a purchase. In the GAME closing down sales I picked it up for £3; while sitting up with Nicholas I have the time.

The controls are occasionally awkward, with an unhelpful camera, as was the case very often back at the start of this console generation. I've died twice due to the camera swinging around meaning that I ran straight back at my attackers. Fortunately, dying isn't a massive issue, and the fluidity of movement generally makes up for it.

Indeed, one disadvantage of playing a game so long after its release is that there are many things you would expect to be included which aren't, or are a bit rough. The map is a little clunky, distances are very long, and riding a horse is more hassle than just running everywhere.