Halo: backtracking

Sort of backtracking, at least. I've decided to try and finish this over the next few days since Tam's going to be busy writing her dissertation. Some pleasing progress tonight, past the big outdoory snowy bits and I'm now back to the corridors of the covenant ship that you get beamed up into from Halo near the start. It looks like I've got to try and get back to places I've already been, but the ship's been blown up a bit and rather than just covenant enemies, there are the flood as well. I've already watched some pretty spectacular battles between flood and covenant - watching from afar so that I could just take on the survivors - normally flood. The shotgun is my friend.

Games Night XI

Something like the eleventh this year, anyway. John and I went around to Kieron's, in order to get beaten by him on Advance Wars: Dual Strike. But we didn't get beaten by him at all. Oh no.

What actually happened is that half-way through the first game, John went into the kitchen, and the connection on all the DSs dropped. Then half-way through the second game, nobody went anywhere, but the connection still dropped. We have no idea why - although John did make a suggestion that someone's cordless phone might have interfered with it.

But anyway. Rubbish.

We also played some Halo 2 (online - we're crap and proud of it) and tried to play Pac-Man . Except Kieron's got a US copy of that, and his brand new big widescreen swanky funko skillo TV doesn't accept NTSC. It works with 60Hz, though. I'm sure it could take NTSC, but Kieron refused to go and get the manual to look. I think he was just scared of losing at Pac-Man.

I mean, he was scared at losing at AW:DS, obviously, which is why he "dropped the connection". And on Thursday, he was obviously scared of losing at PES4 online, since the "connection dropped" with about 10 minutes to go. Chinny reckon.

We now know that in the future, if anything technical goes wrong, it's because Kieron's afraid of losing.

Maybe.

Advance Wars: Dual Struck

Or, at least, I thought it was.

I was on mission 27, where you have three armies split by pipes, with the Orange Star army about to get mullered by masses of black hole troops on their way down the middle. I'd tried the mission a few times, but was never very happy with the way I started - Orange Star was getting almost anniliated by day four (especially if the enemy used his CO power), Blue Moon was getting stuck halfway up the screen with battleships blocking each other, and Green Earth was stuck in stalemate on the right with neither of us wanting to move our aircraft in range of the other's fighters.

So I decided to just blast it. I chose Eagle as one of the Green Earth COs, and basically sacrificed my battle copter (down to one point) so he'd moved his fighter in range. I took out his fighter with my fighter and my stealth, and manoeuvred my bomber up towards the crystal. I had a few turns left before the infanty at the top of the screen could capture a base and build an anti-aircraft.

Meanwhile I was basically defending with Orange Star, building tank after tank and trying to eliminate as much as possible. It wasn't working that well. Blue Moon was ... well, I don't really think much of boats anyway, but I was doing quite well at destroying the cruiser and battleship, until I was ambushed by a hiding sub. That was awkward.

But anyway. Day six, bomber over the obelisk, 114% damage, level done. Just with a very poor power score. Another B rank. But never mind.

So, anyway, Lort Dolt has been using this obelisk to get energy so that he can carry on living. The obelisk is destroyed. Surely that should mean his life force is also destroyed?

Oh, no. Apparently he's taken all the energy that was in the obelisk and is going to use it to kill all my COs. When exactly did he take all this energy? Before or after it was bombed? And how's he managing to keep on living?

Level 28 looks nasty. I wonder if that will be the end ...

Sonic Heroes: suicidal Amy

There's a boss battle where Amy decides to attack Sonic and co for some unexplained reason. She says something like "You're not getting away from me any more, Sonic!". Then she and her friends jump over Sonic's head, off the side of the platform. The mission complete sequence runs.

I don't think that was supposed to happen.

Advance Wars: Dual Strike: my first B-rank

Boo!

It was a tricky mission - I was commanding three armies, and had to capture nine silo sites within fifty minutes in order to stop the enemy firing at me with their giant space laser. I had to stop their infantry landing on any silo sites, and also had to take account of the fact that they were sending units out to destroy me at the same time.

I managed it in twenty minutes in the end, after a bit of luck with the enemy deciding to regroup infantry rather than making a run for a silo site. The only problem was that then I had units all over the map, with no real strategy open for getting into the middle and finishing off the big base crystal thing.

Green Earth on the east of the map had a lot of defending to do - killing off rockets, infantry and helicopters. They'd already polished off the big cannon with an artillery unit, but that was then left up at the north of the map with no support. Green Earth had a lot of regrouping to do.

Orange Star was stuck in the south with very few units (after the megatank had done its rounds, followed by the oozium). This wasn't helped by the fact that there was a missile site which had the Orange Star airport in range, and Green Earth was nowhere near it to destroy it.

Blue Moon, on the other hand, had quite a few units on the west of the map, and control of a well-placed factory. I built a few rockets there and sent them up, while blocking the route of any enemy units trying to get out of the pipe spiral. The rockets could hit the central enemy base easily. And they did. Two hits later, and the level was over.

Speed - 47/50.
Technique - 48/50.

But power ... I hadn't killed enough of their units first. Their second oozium was laughing at me. Their medium tank and their fighter were sniggering. I got 32/50.

B.

Sigh.

Pokémon LeafGreen: elite for nothing

I tried to beat the Elite Four again.

And failed again.

It wouldn't be so bad, but I get loads of experience from getting past each of them. The problem is that I'm a bit short of funds, and so can't really go back to the beginning and retry with newly-levelled-up pokémon, since I'll have run out of the essential potions and other healing stuff to make my pokémon able to fight the next battle.

I think I'll have to do some more levelling up, and fundraising.

Advance Wars: Dual Strike: Oozium

Horrible stuff. You have to make sure that you'll be able to finish it off in one go before moving next to it, otherwise one of youtr units is going to be killed. And that's not a good thing, especially when it's your megatank.

The first map where you fight Oozium has fog of war turned on. This makes it even worse, since an ambush can be potentially deadly. Having got through that mission with an S-rank (dopping only two points on technique), the next one's massively intimidating. A desert, with about 20 Ooziums (Oosia?) scattered around. I went off and played in the war room instead.

Advance Wars: Dual Strike: Pivot Isle

More colons are better.

I just played Pivot Isle, a War Room map in AW:DS. I got an S rank, first time through, obliterating my opponent with no mercy shown. It was another map really suited to the Colin/megatank combination, but even before I could afford my first megatank I'd taken the centre island almost completely and had positioned two normal tanks on the southern bridge to stop the blue army getting past. That started the money rolling in, and production of megatanks in the south and on the centre island started soon after.

Bish bash bosh. 290/300 - and I think I was just a day over.

Sonic Heroes

Sonic Adventure was great. Sonic Adventure 2 was also great - I even enjoyed the crystal searching that everyone else seemed to despise. However, there was one level that I got fed up of - it involved Sonic being blasted around by cannons and then missing a grind rail. I got fed up of the grind rails.

How overjoyed I was, therefore, to see the grind rails make a reappearance in Sonic Heroes. But they've made them even better. No longer can you just jump and land near them, and the game gives you the benefit of the doubt. No, now you can jump and even pass through them without the game registering. Sometimes you have to stand next to the start and press B, but that doesn't always work. Very odd.

And boss battles. In the good old Sonic games, you could watch the boss for a while, avoiding his attacks, working out when and where he was vulnerable. Sonic Heroes has to tell you, and more to the point Sonic Heroes has to tell you because half the time the camera hasn't managed to get Robotnik on the screen. Dire.

Yet I'm enjoying the game - it has a certain carefree easiness to it which means you don't mind dying a few times through random issues, since you know you'll get past that bit sooner or later. There a lot of speed and destructiveness and fun. As long as there are no grind rails.

Advance Wars: Dual Striking

Ten hours' play now (nearly), and I've reached mission 15 in campaign. The problem is that it looks like a big mission, and I've not built up enthusiasm to tackle it. Especially since he's got a megatank and loads of rockets, and there's fog of war which I hate.

So instead I've been playing some of the war room maps. Two A ranks and two S ranks so far, which I'm quite pleased with. I do like the megatanks - they give a new strategy for some of the maps where there are limited movement possibilities. Colin's a much better CO in this game too, since the big expensive units become more affordable.

Advance Wars: Dual Strike

Predictable, I know.

I bought this yesterday lunchtime. At the time of writing, I have played the game for three hours and ten miutes in total, which is impressive given the fact that most of last night was spent unpacking and washing from the honeymoon.

It's a bit confusing. At first, it almost seemed as if they've broken the game, with the addition of tag team tactics, and altered unit abilities and so on. I'm sure that Md Tanks can now move a shorter distance. Some of the new characters are a little suspect too, with odd CO powers. Still, there's plenty of time for it to improve - or time for me to get used to its quirks.

One mission in particular intrigued me. The enemy had a piperunner - a sort of big gun thing - but it was sat on a single piece of pipe a little way from my bases. I was able to build two tanks and send them down to destroy the piperunner in a single turn. As a result, I still know very little as to the piperunner's abilities - what damage can it do; can it actually move? I'd have thought that the idea of introducing new bits a piece at a time was to give an idea of how they worked, but in both this example and the first Black Hole tag-team match, I only learnt the name. Very odd.

Maybe I'm just too good. Doubtful, seeing as Kieron always wins.

I do like the stylus control, though. There was nothing wrong with the GBA games' controls (and considering they've had around 20 years to refine the games, that ought to be no surprise), but the touch screen suits it perfectly.

I'm back

So, what gaming went on during the honeymoon?

Er, what videogaming went on during the honeymoon? Not too much, as expected. I played about 15 hours of Pokémon Sapphire, which is great but pretty similar to Yellow/LeafGreen; I taught Sammi loads of tricks and got her up to the Master level for obedience trials and agility tests; and I bought Meteos and played that loads, because it's great fun.

For once I may have to wear my headphones on the train. Normally I just turn the music down, but Meteos's music is great and really adds to the game.

Not that I'll be playing Meteos any more. For I have just bought Advance Wars: Dual Strike. My life is about to disappear again, I fear.

Gaming Forecast: Bleak

Since I am going to be leaving to get married, then go on honeymoon. I will only have my DS to keep me company, along with Pokémon Sapphire (which I just got free from Nintendo), Nintendogs, Bomberman and Fire Emblem. I doubt I'll be playing them much, though, apart from during train journeys.

I'll report back.

Games on a BIG SCREEN

Last night was GAMES NIGHT 05 PART VIII. I think it was Part VIII anyway. I've lost count. Anyway, we travelled to John's and took along Matt as Player Four. We also took along Matt's projector.

What fun we had, playing Halo 2 split screen on the wall. And many other games as well, including Donkey Konga 2 and Ace Golf.

I was almost convinced to buy a projector, until I remembered that I'm getting married next week and therefore have no money. And I'd prefer a big LCD TV anyway, I think. But the projector was so great. Strange internal wrestling match going on here.

Nintendogs: Sammi and Angel

They fight all the time. Sammi seems to be really well behaved most of the time, but if she ever mets Angel while on a walk she'll be attacking her like a mad thing. Stupid dog.

Angel, that is. Not Sammi. She's great, since she came first in a disc competition without much practicing at all, and she can now do backflips.

Top Spin

Weak, I know, but I've given up on little monsters for a bit. Too frustrating.

Instead, Kieron's been persuading me to play Top Spin a little more. I got it ages and ages ago (when Woolies was doing it for £13 instead of the then-RRP of £40) and thought it was OK, but not as good as Virtua Tennis.

I know think it's pretty good, but not as good as Virtua Tennis. There's quite a lot of control given to you over where the ball should go, and how you hit it, but often it's just a case of getting to where the ball's going to be and pressing A, because the computer's hit a blinder of a shot even though by rights, due to the smash you sent over to them they should have been hitting it backwards over their head while holding the raquet with their left foot.

But it's not bad at all, and I'll be playing some games online in the near future. Bet I lose.

Pokémon LeafGreen: just ... one ... more ... attack

But oh no. The third of the Elite Four is so nearly crushed, on their last pokémon, with a red energy bar. I launch an attack ... but it misses. And then I watch as every pokémon I wheel out gets killed in one hit without a chance to attack.

The game cartridge is currently stuck under my sofa.

Pokémon LeafGreen: over a ton

Over a hundred pokémon collected now, and Raichu is levelled up a fair bit, and I can get up to the third of the Elite Four with ease. And then all my pokémon get wiped out in a row. Even ones which shouldn't. Gah.

In Memoriam

I don't have that much money left in Pokémon LeafGreen, but I do now have 98 pokémon. Still haven't beaten the Elite Four, but I've not actually tried - I've been travelling around trying to level up my Raichu, and wondering where I can get another moonstone from to evolve Clefairy.

A game that I've got back into is In Memoriam, on the PC. The main reason for my reinterest was that I put together an entry for it on GamerWiki, and in doing so I remembered how interesting the story was. I'm quite a way through the disc now, I think, but my brain started hurting with the moving circles, so I've stopped again.

Erm, that's it.

Pokémon LeafGreen: boss boss boss boss

Don't you hate it when videogames roll out that old tired cliche of numerous boss battles one after the other which you must complete all of before being able to progress anywhere? A bit like that sentence, it just runs on and on and on.

And I've met the Elite Four in Pokémon LeafGreen, who are exactly this: four bosses you must complete all at once, although you can use potions and revives and so on after defeating each one. No going back to the pokémon centre to get healed for free, though - oh no. Basically, you have to spend your way through the bosses. Rather pointless.

Luckily I've got lots of money.