Thursday, January 31, 2008

Advance Wars: Dark Conflict: big rotating gun

I've just finished a particularly nasty mission - where, to start with, I was hindered by mountains on the east side of the map, and there was a big cannon think in the middle, which attacked everything within range each turn reducing the health of each unit by half. Nice.
I built up a massive force, of bombers and tanks, and took them into the centre, bombing the anti-tank guns and shooting the missile launchers, avoiding the interceptors and rocketing their megatank. I was all ready to attack the HQ after destroying the big cannon - but once that went down (after one megatank strike and one bombing) it was mission over. Run away, fools!

Wednesday, January 30, 2008

Advance Wars: Dark Conflict: run away!

I've just finished the first mission that caused me real trouble - even to the point where I failed the first time. In it, I had to escort the Zephyian troops to the East, while the enemy chased me. The first time I thought I had to defend the captain's tank as well, but the second time I just ran for it and generally got in the way of the opponents. I only just made it - with two red units left - but that was enough for an S rank. Hoorah!

Dark Conflict is great. It's much more concentrated around the campain than previous games in the series - the war room equivalents are trials off the main campaign path - which in a way is a shame since the story's the weakest part. The combat, on the other hand, has been tightened up, and the revised mix of units seems to work very well. I particularly like the carriers, which can produce four seaplanes each over four turns, giving you an instant airforce even with no airports. The ability of mobile workshops to form a temporary airstrip is also genius.

So far, 10 S ranks and 5 A ranks, all from the main campaign.

Sunday, January 27, 2008

Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games

I have a world record at the 100m sprint, the 110m hurdles, and the triple jump. There's something rewarding about seeing your Mii cross the finish line ahead of Tails, the jumped-up little fool.

Tuesday, January 01, 2008

Super Mario Galaxy: forty-nine stars in

This game keeps on giving. This evening I've encountered fire and ice flowers, skated around a pit of lava, and found Luigi twice. I've become a ghost, and climbed massive walls of honey. I've listened to the story of the girl and the luna, and I've defeated moles and a massive poltergeist.

It's just great fun.

Super Fruit Fall: ow, my head

For Christmas, my sister bought me Super Fruit Fall, which was one of the Wii's launch games. I have a feeling I've seen the basic idea in a pub quiz machine, but this is obviously a lot more developed. I've played through the arcade mode, getting over half way through, but I've now got to the stage where I'm reduced to randomly rotating the stage around through lack of time, and my head can't keep track of what's going to move.

The idea of the game is to get three of a kind together, by flipping the stage through 90° at a time and letting the fruit ... er ... fall. On the stage I've reached there are two ends where one piece of fruit can get stuck and won't come out. I can't work out how to ensure that I don't get a piece stuck at both ends. I've played the stage several times now and each time I'm left with three pieces of one type, with two stuck a long way from each other.