Midweek Challenges - 26/04/2006

One
Complete the boss fight I'm currently up to in Prince of Persia Revelations. It's hard, both in difficulty and in the crap controls.

Two
Get my gaming diary up-to-date.

Three
Fix my brother's N64.

Moving ...

I'm moving house over the next few days, so don't expect (m)any updates. I'll try and catch up (and post-date entries) when I can.

Exit: that's not the correct order

I'm onto stage 04-06 now. I know what needs to be done, but just can't work out what order it needs to be done in. It's very annoying indeed.

Pro Evolution Soccer 5: strange coincidences

I've not played this for a couple of weeks, but appear to be doing better at it than ever before. I don't follow football much (if at all), but over the last few games I seem to have accurately followed Chelsea's progress this season, according to BBC sport:

• 1-1 away at Aston Villa
• 2-0 at home against Liverpool
• 2-1 at home against Spurs
• 2-0 at home against Man City

I've got some quite amazing goals saved on the memory stick now, as well.

Midweek Challenges - 19/04/2006

One
Complete up to and including level 04-05 of Exit.

Two
Win three more matches in PES5.

Why only two? Well, we're moving at the end of next week, so I'm not going to have a lot of free time ...

Prince of Persia Revelations: what's going on?

I tend to play handheld games on the tube to and from work. At the moment, in fact, that's when I do most of my gaming. On the tube it's pretty noisy, and as such I can't really rely on hearing everything. Also, I don't really like the hassle of putting in earphones if I want a quick 5-minute game of something. So I turn the sound off.

For most games, this isn't a problem. Either they don't really need the sound (PES5, Advance Wars Dual Strike, Phoenix Wright, Pokémon ...) or they provide you with subtitles (Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories). Lots of games don't have a story as such to follow in any case. But Prince of Persia Revelations does, and it doesn't have a subtitle option. As such, all I know is that there was this woman on a ship who rammed my ship, and I chased after her and beat her up, and then we somehow transported to a ruined castle. And after making my way through the castle I found the woman again and we were transported into the past - I presume it's the past, because the castle's all whole again.

The other tricky thing is the darkness. The PSP screen's great, but it does reflect a fair amount, and it's hard to see dark areas. I do wonder if the testers for Prince of Persia Revelations actually used PSPs to test the game, since at times you can't see anything at all. It really is quite dire.

Yet I'm still playing it. OK, so it's slightly more focussed on the combat than The Sands of Time, but there's plenty of platforming in there, and it works really well when you can actually see the level. The save points are sometimes a little spread out, but the sleep function of the PSP is excellent. It looks like a finisher, if my eyes can take it.

And when I've finished, I'll go and look at an FAQ to know what the story was about.

Outrun 2006: Flagman challenges

Basically just a race against rivals. The first lot were pretty easy; although occasionally getting past my rivals was a bit of a pain - they like hogging the road.

Clarissa's challenges are rather a lot harder.

Exit: who needs brain training?

Stage 03-10 is very hard indeed. Or, rather, not hard, but taxing. Trying to work out what order everything needs to be done in is a bit of a pain.

In case anyone else is stuck here, and is frustrated by the lack of an FAQ, here's my solution:

Walk left and lower yourself into the gap
Pick up the plank
Jump and climb up to the right
Push the crate one space to the right
Stand on the crate
Jump and climb up to the right
Jump over the gap to the left
Rescue the two people
Jump over the gap to the right
Climb over the crate, make both people follow you
Make one person pick up the key
Make one person take the plank off of you
Push the crate one space to the left
Stand on the crate
Jump and climb to the left
Walk to the left end of the platform
Jump and climb to the right
Running jump to the right
Walk right and pick up the plank
Go down the rope
Go down the ladder
Tell one person to push the crate left off the edge
Tell both people to walk left, down to the platform below
Tell both people to push the crates right off the edge
Tell the person with the plank to lay it across the gap
Lay your plank across the gap
Call both people to where you are standing
Tell the person with the key to use it on the lock
Open the door
Exit!

I think I'll actually start writing down my solutions and put them into an FAQ. That'll give me even more incentive to complete it.

Midweek Challenges - 12/04/2006

One
Complete the first set of flagman races on Outrun 2006.

Two
Complete up to and including level 03-10 of Exit.

Three
Finish the first chapter of Prince of Persia Revelations.

Animal Crossing: Wild World: real-world friends

Kieron, a friend from the real world, visited Bangaio last night. We had a great time, with him selling stuff at Nook's, stealing stuff from the boot fair, sending me some presents and meeting my animals. Then we went over to his town, and I wrote on the notice board about how the flower festival was a fix.

Oh yes, the flower festival. Tortimer said that it wasn't going to be about numbers, it'd be about order and prettiness. I had a display next to my house ordered by colours (in rows) and types of flower (in columns). I has lots of rare colours - three black flowers, two orange, two pink, two purple, and one blue. I should have won it.

Instead, it went to Joey, who doesn't even live next to one of the Flower Cultivation Zones.

I hate the mayor.

I'm still playing this game every day, by the way. Hopefully John will be able to visit Bangaio tonight as well.

Prince of Persia Revelations: stunted progress

If you're wondering what the sudden influx of posts is due to, I was in Amsterdam at the weekend with my wife. I didn't play much as a result - bits and pieces here and there. The gap between save points in Prince of Persia Revelations was a bit of a killer. In real terms, I made no progress. In actual terms, I got a bit further then tuned the PSP off without saving.

Outrun 2006 Coast 2 Coast

I'd better specify that this is on the PSP, since I'll probably end up getting this on another format as well.

This is a superb game - I'm impressed with how well it's been made to run on the PSP. It's not perfect - the controls, if nothing else, see to that - but it's great fun. The package is well put together, too, with various missions and other bits and pieces to make it longer than the arcade game would otherwise last.

The only slight downers are the controls, occasional framerate issues, and the noise of the PSP due to streaming the levels. I can see the battery wearing out pretty quickly.

Exit: fatties are annoying

They can't climb up anywhere, and you have to be very careful about where they're running in case they fall down a gap and can't get up.

Kids are also annoying, if only because they need help getting over the slightest ledge.

I'm up to around level 03-04 now, and some of the puzzles are quite tricky. I've had to restart a few times, where I've become trapped in a room with the door switch on the other side. However, there's always a way around the level that's quite obvious; it's just a case of doing it.

Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories: jumping the bridge

I rescued Salvatore, and he told me that he needed to lay low - so to go to the next island. Hoorah, I think, I'm off to Staunton. At last.

On the way, he tells me that the bridge still isn't quite ready, and the ferries aren't running. The police are chasing us. We're going to have to jump. Excellent.

Midweek Challenges - 05/04/2006

One
Get onto the second island in Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories.

Two
Finish the first chapter of Prince of Persia Revelations.

Three
Complete up to level 30 of Exit.

Four
Complete a course of Outrun 2006 on the PSP.

Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories: the drugs bust

Sill making progress through this, but not off the first island yet. The last mission I completed had me picking up some drugs for Salvatore, but as we were about to hand over the money the police arrived. Fairly reminiscent of the start of Grand Theft Auto: Vice City. I managed to get from one end of the city to the other on three flat tyres, which I was quite impressed with.

Prince of Persia Revelations

A remake of Warrior Within for the PSP. So far, it looks as if they've taken out most of the bugs, and left the rest of the game intact. I've heard they've added in some extra puzzles though.

It's a good game so far, if not as good as Sands of Time - although given that Sands of Time is one of my favourite games that's no really bad thing. There's a lot more emphasis on combat than there is on platforming, but that's just my impression from a very short playing time - around 20 minutes. I'll be playing more of this soon.

Exit: a little exciting

Up to level 25 of this now. Because the main character is very slow, it can get a little frustrating when you know what you want him to do, but have to wait until he gets there. Still, that's not really unlike Lemmings, and some of the levels are pretty ingenious.

I'm still trying to remember all the controls, though.

Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories: Maria

Salvatore's daughter is a bit of a pain - she's now asking me to drive her to shops, which she then robs. And I have to lose the police. I managed to roll the car and kill her five times before I completed the mission.

Black: level 4

Really, really fun. The only problem is that it took me one hour and twenty-eight minutes to work my way through it, and because of the retarded checkpoint system I had to do it all in one go. But there were some really good parts - fighting through the factory complex with cover from a sniper (who took out more than their fair share of terrorists), destroying machinery, and shooting large concrete cylinders which rolled down a hill and crushed enemies as they went.