Official Xbox Magazine Demo Discs

OXM is a dire, dire magazine. Luckily, I managed to get hold of a load of demo discs from the front of the magazines without having to have the magazines themselves. I've had them for a while but never sat down to go through them in earnest.

Well, now I have. I didn't bother with games that I've already got, for obvious reasons. As a result, the majority of games I played were pretty dire - Futurama being a particular lowpoint - with only a few holding my interest at all. Amped seems pretty good, and Crazy Taxi 3 is quite fun - but not as fun as Crazy Taxi on the Dreamcast.

Also on the discs were movies - some trailers for games (which I ignored, because they're crap) and some showing either amusing bugs in games or high score runs. There were a disproportionately high number of Halo movies - with people blowing up warthogs, trying to explot glitches, finding hidden rooms - it was quite obvious there was a shortage of good games in the early days of the console!

So, interesting as they were and are, it's not really worth me keeping the discs, so they're off to the boot sale next time we go.

Rainbow Six 3: bye bye RPG

There was a trick to that outside area after all. Rather than dashing out, getting shot at, and the person with the rocket-propelled grenade blowing up the plant, I instead slowly opened the door to the outside and spotted an explosive barrel. I shot it, and four enemies ran around the corner - so I was able to eliminate them with my sniper rifle before they hit any of my team. Went outside, shot the men in the window above, and then realised that one of the four that I killed at the start was the RPG man. Lucky he didn't fire at me, really.

So, that mission's complete. I'm now exploring the house belonging to the president of the oil company, who's been taken hostage there.

Super Monkey Ball Deluxe

I bought this just after Christmas for £10, and haven't got around to playing it yet. This is quite amazing given the amount of fun I had with the first two games on the Gamcube. I suspect it's party due to the knowledge that most of the levels are the same. But still.

I couldn't find the option to play a "traditional" game - where you're presented with levels one after the other - so instead went for story mode, where each level consists of around 20 trays and you must pass ten of them to continue. This is rather different to the previous games, where it's necessary to complete every tray of each level. And it makes it rather a lot easier too.

In Super Monkey Ball 2, you could be stuck on a level for ages because you couldn't get past a single tray. Anthropod, for example. But now you can decide not to play Anthropod, but a different level 4 tray instead.

I still played Launchers, however. I like that level, it amuses m. I managed it on my fourth go.

The controls are much less responsive and defined than on the Gamecube games. It really is a struggle to keep the monkeys on the level even when there's a relatively wide path. For example, what was Beginner level 10 in the original game (and is now called something like "Exam Level A") held me up for a couple of falls, whereas I can do it first time, every time on the Gamecube.

But it's still a great game. I'm trying to find the new levels, and some of them are really good - getting rid of the gimmicky switches of the second game, and instead relying on simple design. For example, there's a really cool swirly one where you have to spin into the middle and then out again. I can't describe it very well. Anyway, go too fast at the beginning and you can jump over the ridge into the swirl near the exit. But if you do that, it's easy then to jump back into the beginning groove again.

I look forward to multiplayer.

Rainbow Six 3

Yes, I'm about 5 years late.

I've played through a few missions of this online with my friends. Well, I say "through" - I think we've only ever completed one. But i've never played it single player.

Tonight I got through the first two missions - one set in an alpine village, and once in a blockaded tunnel in Switzerland. It's fun, if a bit nerve-wracking at the same time. In the second mission I took along a sniper rifle, which was excellent - I managed to kill half the enemies without them knowing it.

The only thing that lets the game down is the AI - both on your colleagues and on the enemies. Enemies will hide behind a car and shoot just over the top of it, so you can't get them. And then they stand up to reload. Dur. Your team mates run all over the place, and get in your way as you're lining up a shot. Dur.

I've got most of the way through the third missions, but have got stuck at a point where you enter a clearing and there's someone hidden behind a corner with a rocket launcher. I think I need to find a different way into the area so I can kill him before he kills the hostage I'm meant to be rescuing.

Animal Crossing: Wild World: I'm a bellionaire!

Well, I've got a million bells anyway. Someone on rllmuk had a price of 553bells this afternooon, so I did a couple of runs over there. I left him with 30,000bells and had 1,200,000bells when I returned. So I've paid off my latest mortgage (which was 600,000bells) and have got a nice sum to invest on the stalk market next week.

Hoorah!

Midweek Challenges - 01/02/2006

Well, I did play Advance Wars: Dual Strike, but kept getting very frustrated with it. It's almost like the other games on the DS have spoilt it - Animal Crossing, Mario Kart DS, Nintendogs, Meteos - all are either short-term games or relaxing. Advance Wars isn't - each game in the war room is a big commitment and it almost makes me not want to play it. Which is a shame.

But I will play it. I will.

One
Go through my pile of Xbox demo discs to look at anything interesting before I get rid of them all.

Two
Clear all goals for the fourth and fifth levels of classic mode in Tony Hawk's American Sk8land.

Three
Get at least an A ranking on Twin Isle in Advance Wars: Dual Strike.

Tony Hawk's American Sk8land: classicly sk8ing

Having completed the story mode, I've been playing the classic mode of this. Each of the levels has around ten goals tocomplete, and you get two minutes at a time to complete them. The first few goals are easy - a lowish combo score, a lowish total score, collecting the letters S, K, A, T, and E - and you can clear a few in a single run. But later goals are harder, and I've been stuck on a few.

However, I have now completed every goal for the first three areas, including some very long combos of grinds, manuals, jumps and reverts. The goals are getting harder now though, and progress is a little slower.

Midweek Challenges - 25/01/2006

I did play Advance Wars: Dual Strike abit, and nearly completed one war room map twice, but it was taking too long and I was losing too many units. I'm claiming a half success on that one.

One
Get at least an A ranking on Twin Isle in Advance Wars: Dual Strike.

Two
Clear all goals for the first three levels of classic mode in Tony Hawk's American Sk8land.

Three
Finish the fourth level of Spartan: Total Warrior.

Tony Hawk's American Sk8land: story mode: completed!

I've completed the story mode of this tonight, and I've enjoyed it. It's relatively simple, with you having to travel around areas and find people who'll give you some money to perform a certain trick or sequence. You only have to complete a few of these before the pro turns up and challenges you to something a little harder - but completist I am, I was clearing each stage of challenges before talking to the pro.

The final challenge was set by Tony Hawk himself, and was to do a 900° Japan - erm, a spin in the air holding onto the board. I managed it on my second try - you just had to jump high enough. There were some much more tricky challenges in the game than that ...

Anyway, I've now started playing the classic mode, which is a little more tricky. The challenges are all given to you at the start and you have two minutes to do as many as you can. Some are easy, some less so; I've now got past the first level (10/10 challenges completed) and am exploring the second.

Animal Crossing: Wild World: Yay Day

Joan was selling turnips for 110b each this morning. I bought some through gritted teeth - 810 in total - and have stored them outside my house. I hope nobody steals them.

Today is Yay Day, where you have to compliment everyone. it started off well, with Nibbles appreciating my compliment of "cute cheeks", and Bones being extatic about being told he has a "nice shirt", but the game failed to recognise the non-complimentary nature of what I said to Gabi - I don't think "horrific acne" is what every girl would love to hear, actually. Bill had a "shiny beak", and Gwen had "overkill eyeliner". Well, "overkill eyeline", since I ran out of letters.

I also have some orange pansies. They've grown between a bunch of yellow pansies and a bunch of red pansies. Flower breeding is a new concept.

Nintendogs: Sammi and Baby Gee

Gaby got a pink DS and Nintendogs for Christmas, and she wanted to link up to see what happened. First, however, I had to feed and water Sammi, and give her a bath to stop the fleas jumping off of her. Animal Crossing has a lot to answer for.

We put our DSes into bark mode, and they both barked soon after. "Baby Gee" had brought Megan to play. While Megan was active and bouncy, she didn't like to play with the ball, or the frisbee, or the bone, or the skipping rope. In fact, she was rather boring.

Multiplayer has no interaction, other than seeing how the other person has trained their dog. You both get to play independently with the dogs, and obviously you can't give the visiting dog voice commands since they won't recognise you. It's rather limited, really, but endearing. It's a shame that you can't really expect people on the tube to have their DS set to bark mode, however ...

Still, at least the kennel now has some shi tzu puppies in, if I ever decide to get another one.

Kururin Squash

Despite loving Kuru Kuru Kururin long time, five dorrer, I've never even had this Gamecube game out of the box. After some initial Freeloader difficulties, I got it working, and we guessed our way through the options to a multiplayer race game.

Which was superb. We were in fits of laughter knocking each other out of the way as we squeezed through some really tight passages, then banging against the wall in a masive cavern and being sent back to the checkpoint.

I can only image the carnage which result from a four-player game.

After the seventh race, the girls got back, and that was almost it ...

Beach Spikers

I love Beach Spikers. It's a really well thought out adaptation of the sport, and is pretty intuitive. I explained the three shot/two shot rules to Matt, and what the three buttons did. And he sat through the basic demo of running into the circle and setting up the spike.

And then we played. I won, of course.

But the second game was closer. I'm not sure that Matt was entirely overwhelmed with the excellence of the game, in terms of the controls or the rules of gameplay, but he got better at it very quickly, and it was certainly better than Xtreme Beach Volleyball.

Go go go!

Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball

Continuing on the Dead or Alive theme, Matt had noticed Xtreme Beach Volleyball on my shelf, and asked if we could play it.

Now, I've never had much luck with this game. I can't get the hang of the actual volleyball at all, which means that I lose almost every game I get to play in the single-player game. And because I don't win, I can never persuade anybody to be my partner, no matter how many presents I give them. So I never get to play any more games.

In two-player, this was OK, but the volleyball is so woolly and your AI partner so unpredictable, that we got fed up pretty quickly. And I decided to show Matt how beach volleyball should be done.

Dead or Alive Ultimate (2)

... and, indeed, Dead or Alive 2 is a rather good game. The immediate differences in graphics and the way the game controlled made us play a number of matches, and we appreciated the way that some levels allowed us to move around and use the arena itself to cause damage to our opponent. Throwing Matt over the edge of the roof was great. Being hurled onto an electric floor wasn't quite as great.

Again, though, the fact that there are quite so many special moves makes the game a little intimidating, and while we were starting to get the hang of counter moves (pressing hold as the other person tried to punch or kick), it still seems that the game would require a lot of time to be invested in it to really appreciate the gameplay.

Dead or Alive Ultimate (1)

Fighting games are made for multiplayer.

I bought Dead or Alive Ultimate for a fiver when I saw it in a sale months ago, and had got so far as reading the manual and getting turned off by the huge lists of special attacks. I had put DoA1 into the Xbox before, but had never really played it.

Dead or Alive 1 looks awful - really bitty, poor textures, poor fighting arenas, and low polygon counts. And the framerate's all over the place too. As for the actual fighting mechanic, it seemed far too slow and restrained, with joypad commands having little effect on what happened onscreen.

Not a huge success. But I did remember reading that the real meat of the compilation was on the Dead or Alive 2 disc ...

Mario Kart Dual Swearing

After lunch, we broke the "not played" rule and played some Mario Kart DS, single-cart multiplayer. Matt was a great fan of the SNES game, apparently, and he seemed to really love the DS update. With the exception of the blue shell, of course.

I was impressed with the way that the single-cart system works. Tracks were downloaded really quickly, and there wasn't too long a wait in the first place. Matt was restricted to playing as Shy Guy, but I could choose any kart and character I wished.

Matt claimed that I chose an unfairly fast character and kart, of course. But I didn't - Luigi and his standard kart hardly set the world on fire.

We had to stop playing in the end because my DS battery started to drain - red flashing lights are a bad sign. Maybe I shouldn't have spent so much of Friday night online in Animal Crossing. Oh well.

Wetrix+

I played a bit of this when I first got it, but only in single player, and it seemed just a little too complicated so I soon got disinterested.

To start with, multiplayer seemed a little tame. We were just building up our own sides, basically playing the single player game simultaneously. Matt had played the game before, and explained some of the nuances - the number of pools, the use of the bombs and rain and so on. Some of these things didn't matter in multiplayer, however.

But then it all changed. I pressed the Y button by accident, and sent across an 'ice attack'. Matt sent back an 'earthquake attack'. We realised that the meter along the bottom of the playing field built up over time, and allowed you to influence your opponent's playing field.

And it really unbalances the game. While you can send over water, ice and earthquake attacks, the best thing to do is just to continue to build it up until you can send over a bomb attack - which drops a few bombs on the playing field, opening massive holes and draining most of the water out. And your opponent probably loses instantly.

I'm sure that if we were more skilled, we'd be able to prevent losing immediately after such an attack, but as it was it pretty much killed the game. Shame.

Matt played single-player while I did some lunch, and got ten pools at one point, and lots of rainbows. He considered himself to 'rock'.

Charge 'n' Blast

Another Dreamcast game which I'd never played in multiplayer - in fact, I'd only ever played this once, and gave up after five minutes after it was just a bit too hard.

However, in multiplayer it shines. This is a out-and-out arcade game, with your movements limited to a single plane, and you having to concentrate more on where you're shooting than where you're standing. You can't just shoot everything though - you must first select which weapon to charge up (using X, Y or B on the joypad), then fire it with A. You can fire immediately, but it's best to wait for the charge meter to build up to the maximum.

The reason it works so well in multiplayer is that you can arrange to use different weapons at the same time, allowing some experimentation rather than having to sit with the boring ordinary single rocket over and over again. And you can work well as a team, with one member concentrating on where the vulnerable points of enemies are, while the other watches out for incoming attacks and shouts for both to move.

Pretty shallow, then, but good fun.

But the absolute best part of the game lies in the options screen: You can choose to turn 'viblation' on or off. Viblation. Hahaha.

Pod 2

During the day, my friend Matt visited my flat while his girlfriend went shopping with my wife. I think we got a better deal. We decided to play some games which either I'd never played before, or which I'd played very little and not in multiplayer.

First up, we played Pod 2 on the Dreamcast. What fun we had, seeing how the options screen allowed you to limit the online communications to 28.8k. And then we started to play.

There were some downers, indeed. The track was horribly foggy so that it was difficult to see where you were supposed to be going. Some of the cars handled like ... well, a ton of concrete. It was difficult to work out how weapons worked and how they could be used. It was difficult to stay on the track, without going really slowly ... and then you never made any of the jumps. And there were no other opponents.

Yet in multiplayer it was pretty fun. Once we'd got the hang of which pickup did what, and how to use mines and not crash, the game became a lot more strategic. And once we'd found cars which did actually turn when you pushed a direction, it got even better.

I got this for £1.99, I suspect long after the online servers had closed down. But it was pretty fun to play, and I think we got my money's worth in the half an hour we played for.

Animal Crossing: Wild World: turnip situation improving

I managed to get out last night and sold half of my turnips in Arkham, courtesy of Dante, for 250b each. This more than covered my investment, and I kept some in case I got access to a 400b+ price.

This morning Nook offered 62b. This afternoon, he's offering 60b.

I need to find somewhere else to visit tonight ...

Animal Crossing: Wild World: turnip situation desperate

68b this morning, 66b this afternoon. I hope someone's online tonight.

Animal Crossing: Wild World: turnip situation growing

I bought 1300 turnips from Sow Joan on Sunday morning, at 103b each. Since then, the prices offered by Nook have been:

Monday morning: 76b
Monday afternoon: 81b
Tuesday morning: 83b
Tuesday afternoon: 86b
Wednesday morning: 91b
Wednesday afternoon: 71b

I think I may have to kidnap and kill Nook if he doesn't buck his ideas up.

Meanwhile, an online friend has a price of 205b this afternoon/evening. I've very tempted to sell half my hoard, in order to get at least my original investment back. But I could be waving goodbye to more riches then.

Hmm.

Midweek Challenges - 18/01/2006

One
Finish the fourth level of Spartan: Total Warrior. That is, if I get to play on the TV at all.

Two
Finish the story mode of Tony Hawk's American Sk8land. I'm up to the warehouse.

Three
Finish two War Room maps in Advance Wars: Dual Strike - not necessarily 4CO ones.

Viewtiful Joe: kick kick punch

It's all in the mind.

My access to the TV is very limited at the moment, with visitors in the evening and "good" programmes on the TV. At least the awful Soapstar Superstar's finished.

Last night, I got a whole ten minutes to play. I chose Viewtiful Joe, and, of course, didn't get anything like anywhere near the end of a level. But I did get to beat up people with style, and it was great fun.

Coming tomorrow: my 5 seconds of playing Sonic Heroes.

Spartan: Total Warrior: kill all Romans

Throwing massive hunks of flaming stone at us really isn't fair.

I'm really enjoying this game. It's much deeper than it initially seems, with quite a lot of strategy required in using your colleagues to your advantage. They are a bit pathetic at times, though, so you can't rely on them creating a particularly effective barrier against the onslaught of Romans.

I've completed the third level now - that is, Act 1 Chapter 3 - which involved burning down guard towers which had been erected by the Romans. Sort of crate puzzles with a twist - no pushing them, you just had to find and break them. Then there was a boss battle against the Roman commander. He was mean.

On to Act 2 now.

Advance Wars: Dual Strike: lengthy 4CO war room maps

They take far too long to play, and the very fact that it's 3 against 1 makes them very hard. I'm not a genius at this game, I'll readily admit ... but playing these maps gets boring, since I'm getting locked into a stalemate and just can't progress. So I start a new map, and get to the same state. I think I'll leave these for a while.

Mario Kart Driving Skills

Kieron only let me win 4 games against him before quitting. Meanie.

He only won one game.

Animal Crossing: Wild World: saving up for turnips

My house is now very large, and Nook's put an obscene mortgage on it. I do, however, have enough bells to pay around half the mortgage off immediately.

But no. I'm saving my money to buy turnips tomorrow. 100,000 bells spent on turnips could turn a pretty healthy profit if I get to sell them for over 300b each later in the week. Here's hoping.

In the meantime, Gabi's moved back from wherever she'd moved to before, and has told me she'll never move again. Nibbles keeps on giving me clothes. And Lobo has challenged me to catch a dace before him, again. And again.

Animal Crossing: Wild World: turnip situation salvaged

I managed to sell my turnip stock to Nook this morning for 394b a piece, making a nice profit over the 102b I'd paid for them. And he paid 16000b for the red turnip I grew from the 1000b seed I bought.

I'm in the money.

Animal Crossing: Wild World: closing Nookway

I just realised that I only had 4000bells left to pay on my mortgage, so I went and collected some fruit and took them into Nook's shop to sell, and then went over to the post office. I've now paid off my second mortgage.

The only problem is that Nook now says that his shop will be closed tomorrow, so my turnip situation is getting slightly desperate, especially given that after tonight I won't even have access to an Internet connection with which I could travel to other towns.

Midweek Challenges - 11/01/2006

I didn't manage to complete any of last week's challenges. The turnip market has been dire, meaning I had no money to pay off my mortgage. The War Room maps were really hard, so I've not completed them. And I never even loaded up Populous: the Beginning.

One
Finish two of the 4CO War Room maps in Advance Wars: Dual Strike.

Two
Finish to the end of the third level of Spartan: Total Warrior.

Three
Beat Kieron at Mario Kart DS at least five times.

Advance Wars: Dual Strike: 4CO war room maps

Not fair.

I was expecting a four-way battle, since each of us start with our own defined territory. I was not expecting the other three COs to be ganging up on me, to the extent that they can even pass through each other.

Of course, I didn't realise this until I'd spent loads of resources fighting blue on Strong Land, assuming that green and yellow would keep each other busy until I got there. Restart, I think.

Spartan: Total Warrior

A great game, this. It's graphically very impressive, which really adds to the setting when you have hundreds of enemies at once. I'm now at the stage where random button mashing doesn't help much, and you need to concentrate on blocking enemies and take care of being surrounded. There's a big battle outside Sparta, and we're being attacked by ballista. I think I'm going to have to make a run for it.

Animal Crossing: Wild World: barky wark

I've got a bone to pick with Bones. A couple of weeks ago he asked me to come up with a new catchphrase for him. What with him being a dog, I thought "barky wark" was amusing. But he's been spreading it around, and now Nibbles, Gwen and Dora all finish their sentences by saying "barky wark".

Chipmonks should not say "barky wark".

Animal Crossing: Wild World: oranges galore

Graham visited Bangaio this evening for about a minute, and left six oranges on the floor. I was most surprised. I was also visited by OJ, who came to collect a painting I bought for him. Amusingly, he then mistakenly attached that painting to a letter which he sent to me. Fool.

Midweek Challenges - 04/01/2006

I will play Advance Wars: Dual Strike again sometime. I will.

One
Pay off my (second) mortgage to Nook. I've got about 60,000 bells to pay off, and since I'm now able to keep this copy (and send the new copy back) I've got incentive to do so. However, due to the new year celebrations in Bangaio, Joan wasn't wandering around on Sunday morning (yes, I did get up to check - at half eleven) so I can't make money on the stalk market this week. Luckily some of my peach and pear trees are bearing fruit.

After this challenge I'm not going to set challenges from Animal Crossing, however. I think it's a game to be experienced slowly and without trying to go too fast.

Two
Two of the 4CO War Room maps in Advance Wars: Dual Strike, as recommended by Kieron. I'll take Animal Crossing out of the DS at some time.

Three
Kill the greenies in Populous: the Beginning, and then don't get wiped out.

Mario Kart Defeating Someone

Kieron and John both got Mario Kart DS for Christmas. I've raced against Kieron online a fair few times now. For modesty's sake, I won't post how many times I've won.

Unfortunately, John can play online in the worldwide or continental modes, but it won't connect us if we all try playing the friends mode. Very odd.

Populous: the Beginning: total massacre

I killed the greenies, at last. It was a long hard battle, but I won by manoeuvering all my fighters to the green shamen worship site, and killing her as soon as she reappeared, over and over again. Eventually she died for good, but her and her warriors had severely reduced my fighting capacity.

According to the markers, there were battles going on between the red and yellow armies. Or so I thought. I returned to my village to regroup and strengthen my army, to find the reds attacking from the north and the yellows from the south. My village laid in tatters and my tiny army offered no resistance. I died.

So I'll have to go back to the pre-greenie-battle save. Bah, humbug.

Father Christmas and his Gaming Goodness

I got very little gaming stuff for Christmas this year, but that was partly by request, since most of what I wanted, I knew I'd be able to get in the sales after Christmas. Indeed, I sat with Tamsyn on Christmas Day evening browsing the sales on various websites.

I now own:

Animal Crossing: Wild World (hoorah!)
Super Monkey Ball Deluxe (for the Xbox)
Spartan: Total Warrior (for the Gamecube)
Pinball of the Dead (for the GBA)

And something else which I can't remember at the moment ... but I got it for a fiver. Hmm. I'll keep you posted.

Midweek Challenges - 21/12/2005

Since I've got to give Animal Crossing back (boo), I might play some other games.

One
Kill the greenies in Populous: the Beginning.

Two
Two of the 4CO War Room maps in Advance Wars: Dual Strike, as recommended by Kieron.

Three
Complete the second level of Viewtiful Joe.

Animal Crossing: Wild World

I've been leant a copy of Animal Crossing: Wild World for the purposes of review. This is quite possibly the worst game that you can be leant for review, since the whole point of it is to build up relationships with your townmates, which you then keep for years. I can't bear giving it up.

Anyway, the game is charming. I've been online a few times and met some other people (visiting their towns, and having them visit me). It's what the Gamecube game should have been. The only downside is that the online service is a bit flaky, and I've experienced one crash - other people seem to have worse luck than me.

But it's lovely and relaxing. And very addictive. I hope I get this for Christmas ... and if I do, I'll cunningly swap the game cards so that I don't lose my town. Oh yes. Otherwise I'll be very sad indeed.

Populous: the Beginning: Bloodlust

Bloodlust is one of those eternal levels, where you start doing quite well, and then everyone attacks you at once, and you're left with very few believers, and you have to build up to the point where you're doing well again ...

Still, I've been attacking the green faction relentlessly, and they're reduced down to a few huts. But they've got some strong warriors, who've been protecting their shamen and village well. I need to wipe them out with my shaman before I can properly finish them off. Fingers crossed.

Viewtiful Joe: big bad helicopter

That's fair. I fight my way through loads of enemies, slowing down time as needed, being cool, and then this big helicopter thing attacks me.

Great.

I beat him up though.

Midweek Challenges - 14/12/2005

OK, so I didn't play Populous: the Beginning at all. Boo to me.

One
Two more new war room maps to be completed. Anyone want to nominate which ones?

Two
Complete the first level of Viewtiful Joe. I've never played it - only the demo which I got from the US.

Three
Complete Bloodlust in Populous: the Beginning. Or at least kill off one of the factions.

Advance Wars: Dual Strike: Kita Strait

Sami's a bit of a nightmare with her super power - she can take any property by just landing on it. So imagine my panic when I realised she'd just landed six infantry on my shore and her superpower meter was just tipping over ...

Luckily, I had eight neotanks lined up around the bottom of my island, and completely wiped out the invasion before it had a chance to get a foothold. No hesitation as on the last war room map, either - I started ferrying neotanks and mechs across the water before Sami had a chance to react.

An A rank overall, though - I was let down by my power score. Considering that I wiped out everything of hers apart from a cruiser (which was pootling around on two health while I captured her HQ), I'm not sure what else I could have done ...

Advance Wars: Dual Strike: Bounty River

A B rank, I'm afraid - mainly due to my hesitency to get on with doing anything.

I'd taken half the map pretty easily, and was just having trouble getting across the river to start taking Jugger's lower peninsular. I was trying to fight off his advances along the river as well as trying to fight too much on the landing site. What I should have done was to send and hide two subs just up the river so that he became jammed in, and then concentrated not on defeating everything on the peninsular but just sending a loaded APC flanked by three neotanks down to his base. That's what I did in the end, and it worked.

By that time though, I'd lost far too many units, and had a technique score well down in the sixties.

Mario Kart Disjointed States

I played quite a lot of Mario Kart DS over the weekend, mainly online when I could. Most of the time I was playing on the "continental" setting, and had some great games - mostly pretty close, and I won a few and lost a few.

However, on Sunday morning, I played on the 'worldwide' setting. Never again.

• I don't think that Nintendo intended the avatars to contain pictures of an extended middle finger, the word 'fuck' repeated three times, or a crude rendering of an arse.
• I don't get huge amounts of enjoyment out of winning a race and then having every other opponent disconnect as soon as I get into first place on the next lap.
• I don't think "limey fag" is a particularly friendly name to use.

It was a pretty big jolt back to reality, and it's made me rather positive about the feature in Live on the Xbox 360 where you can specify whether you want your opponents to come from the same region as you. I will.

Anyway, 34 games won.

Pokémon Sapphire: Flannery flanneled

At first, Flannery's gym looks horribly complicated, with holes in the floor and boosting pads to let you jump back up to ground level. And a two-level maze. It's quite simple once you work out where you're going to end up each time, though. The tricky bit is the fact that some of the holes aren't holes at all, but cleverly-disguised gym people. So you think you know where to go, and then can't go there.

Anyway, I quickly realised that this gym was full of firey pokémon, and so a watery pokémon would be a good idea. I'd previously invested some time in levelling up a magikarp to evolve it into a gyrados, so I went out of the gym and collected that. It was only level 20, with three moves - splash (hah!), tackle and bite - so I went for a walk to evolve it. And got lost. It took me quite some time to make my way back to the gym, by wich time my gyrados was level 25 and had learnt dragon rage.

And it was because of this that I beat Flannery hands down. Her first two pokémon crumbled almost immediately, and her last one took four turns before it too bit the dust.

So, where next? It was hinted that I should go to see my dad again, but there's that big boulder in the underground passage that I want to shift ...

Websites Nobody Wants

The Guardian has an interesting article in its Technology section today about government-run websites that nobody (or at least nearly nobody) visits. Such websites, people claim, cost the taxpayer thousands or pounds a year and are of use to a small minority of the electorate.

Now, let's leave aside the fact that lots of things provided by the government cost thousands of pounds a year and are of use to very few people - population growth data collection, official forms in Urdu, regulation of noise levels near airports, and so on. The two questions I have regarding this are:

1. Why do these websites cost thousands of pounds a year to run when they often have no updates and no maintenance during that year?
2. Why is it a bad thing that the government is providing people with information?

I would hypothesise that the answers are:

1. Civil servants like spending money (and bear in mind that I was one for a year - I know)
2. It's not.

Information is a good thing, even if people don't want to know about it. A low number of visitors really is no indication of how useful that information is, anyway.

But the above ramble is just something that reminded me of a similar sort of website. http://askaboutgames.com has been set up by the UK games industry to inform parents primarily about age ratings but also about the industry, the types of games that are produced, and the fact that games aren't just for kids any more. It's a good site, written in friendly language and easy to understand.

But considering that it's not being advertised anywhere, it's not likely to get many visitors at all. A shame really; we'll have to endure the "Manhunt made my 5-year-old a killer" stories for a while yet.

Midweek Challenges - 07/12/2005

Mixed success last week, then. This week:

One
Get my 'games won' of Mario Kart DS online up to at least 30 (it's currently on 10, with 8 losses).

Two
Complete Bloodlust in Populous: the Beginning. Fingers crossed.

Three
Complete two new war room maps in Advance Wars: Dual Strike. Happy, Kieron?

Mario Kart Done - Sort of

I've got a gold trophy in all GPs at all classes. I was 'treated' to a new credits sequence, where Luigi was driving faster than normal, in the opposite direction, and caught up with all the other racers at the end to overtake them. This makes a bit more sense than the normal end sequence, where you have to watch as all the computer players overtake your player during the course of the sequence. And I've got a new background on the title screen. And I can choose any kart for any character. Fitting Waluigi in Toad's kart should be fun.

The reason I say "sort of" is that there's at least one GP where I've got a B rank, and I won't be happy until everything's an A or above. And probably a star or above.

Populous: the Beginning

Every time I play this, I realise that no matter what else is taking my fancy, Populous: the Beginning is the best game ever. It's got the perfect mixture of strategy, action, intelligence, shine and gameplay. With other games, I've occasionally sat down to play and then realised I couldn't be bothered. That's never been the case with Populous: the Beginning.

Populous itself was excellent, but it quickly became slightly monotonous. And I always felt as if you were rather detached from the world you were influencing - even more so than the fact it was running in a computer. There were in effect two gaps: player to god and god to world. Populous: the Beginning manages to overcome this. Although you're still the god, then you're more focused on your shaman than the world at large - and maybe it's this focus that provides the link between god and world. And the fact that you're no longer all-powerful without your shaman helps to erode the other link.

It's tricky, though. I've written before about the fact that I've got three worlds to conquer to get past level nine. I've conquered only one. Bloodlust, one of the four, is proving rather tricky.

I've made progress, though. I've now got a massive village with loads of followers, loads of warriors, priests and fire warriors. But the green and red enemies keep on attacking me, meaning that I can't get a force together to go and wipe one of the groups out for good. Which I really need to do.

Greens, your time is almost up.

Pokémon Sapphire: to the gym!

Running down the slopes, I'm told that a skilled bikesman can get back up them. I can't. I'm obviously not skilled.

Still, at least I caught some new pokémon.

DS online!

I'm back online after a bit of a hairy ride. I decided to finally upgrade my router's firmware to the Australian version. I followed the steps, changing my IP where needed. I got to the stage where I could connect to my router with my computer, and Tam's computer, and even my Xbox. But when I tried to plug the phone line in, I couldn't connect wirelessly at all, and had to resort to using an ethernet cable to do any further configuring. Not great.

After a few tries, I tried changing the default gateway that had been entered (which wasn't actually being used, since it was set to automatic) and it connected. I don't think I've ever been quite so happy to see the Google homepage.

And then the magic part. I turned on Mario Kart DS, chose "Nintendo WFC" ... and it found my router. I entered the WEP key and it connected. And I played. And played. And it was good. And then I realised that it quarter to two in the morning, so I came to write this in celebration before going to bed.

Mario Kart Damn Shells

I'm most of the way through the single-player of this now. I've passed the 50cc races with star ranks or above; 100cc GPs with A ranks or above, and 150cc GPs with B ranks or above. I've got (I think) two more 150cc mirror GPs to complete. I've been through mission mode, and have completed level 1 and 2 with star ranks, and the others with varying degrees of incompetence. I'll improve soon, I'm sure.

I just want to play multiplayer now. Gnnh.

Midweek Challenges - 30/11/2005

After not much success last week, here are this week's challenges:

One
Complete Mario Kart DS's 150cc mirror mode. I've only come third in the first GP so far, so some way to go.

Two
Catch five more pokémon in Sapphire.

Three
Complete Bloodlust in Populous: the Beginning. Not got high hopes for this one - I've not been able to do it for the past two years ...

No DS online

The Nintendo DS doesn't work with my router. At all. It can't even see it.

It's not just me that has this problem. I've posted to the Expansys forum, and it turns out that lots of people are having trouble. The only workaround appears to be the installation of Australian firmware on the router, but there are rather a lot of horror stories around people losing their Internet connections. Tam's dissertation's due next week; I don't think I'll risk that just yet.

To compound the misery, Nintendo's collaboration with TheCloud appears to have been rained upon. I went to three Cloud hotspots and none of them would allow access for my DS.

Rubbish, Nintendo, rubbish.

Pokémon Sapphire: Mount Chimney

I'm on a volcano, and it appears to be snowing. I reckon it's dust though. Team Magma and Team Aqua are having a bit of argy bargy. Why can't they just leave me out of it, eh?

Mario Kart DS

In 50cc it's slow - but it's always been. The blue shell is annoying and unavoidable. The opponents in each grand prix are frustratingly fixed so it's always the same racer vying for the lead.

But it's great. In fact, it's the best in the Mario Kart series, by far. And I've not even played it online yet, or even in multiplayer.

No Pac'n'Roll

I was meant to be playing Pac'n'Roll, but I've left the game at work. Mario Kart comes out tomorrow. I strongly suspect I'm not going to complete challenge number one.

Krat: a definition

Krat (n) cra-t
(1) A small motorised vehicle driven by a cartoon or video character
(2) An evil feline
FROM hilarious misspellings of the word 'kart'

Midweek Challenges - 23/11/2005

This week's challenges are as follows:

One
Clear another world of Pac'n'Roll. I can't remember how many I've already done, but Advance Wars Dual Strike sort of got in the way. I didn't play it much - I didn't even mention it on here - so I really ought to give it a proper go.

Two
Get my router working with the DS. Even if it is rather out of my control. Actually, make the challenge to play a DS game online. The pub across from work has a Cloud hotspot in it ...

Three
Catch ten new Pokémon in Sapphire.

Remaining Midweek Challenges - 16/11/2005

Since these aren't covered elsewhere ...

I've worked out how to create the GamerWiki page and so it's effectively launched. And I've started to advertise that in places. So that's passed.

And I've only written one ugvm review. I feel shamed.

Tony Hawk's American SK8land, and DS online

Yes, it is called that.

I bought this from Game to assess two things: firstly whether I should put it on my Christmas list, and secondly to check whether my router works with Nintendo's WiFi stuff.

Firstly, the good news. This is a superb game, and I almost don't want to put it on my Christmas list because that means I won't be able to play it until then. I've already played it far too much, unlocking three areas in the story mode and one in the classic mode. It controls well, it's graphically really clear and stylish, and the levels are almost perfectly designed. I used to really enjoy playing Tony Hawk's Skatebourding on my Dreamcast, and this really is 100% better than that. I can't wait for Christmas now.

And apparently the multiplayer's really good. I say apparently, since my router seems to be incompatible with the DS. The DS just can't see the network at all - it can see my neighbour's network, but he's got that encrypted so that's not a lot of good. I've done a lot of research and it seems that this is due to the router's firmware - an issue which has been resolved by D-Link in Australia, but that firmware's not available to us in the UK yet.

Some people have got the Australian firmware running on their router - see here - but it's a bit risky and I can't do without a net connection for the next couple of weeks for various reasons. After that, it's fair game ... but hopefully D-Link UK will release new firmware. Thay've had enough people phoning up tech support about it by now, I'm sure ...

Ace Golf

Probably my favourite golf game of all time, and that's mainly because it doesn't take itself too seriously. It has an inspired control mechanism, where you use the C-stick to swing the club.

I played two rounds of this today - one in a normal tournament (ending 2 below par) and one a skins match against some french girl. I won that too, and unlocked her so I can now choose to be a french girl myself. Hmm. I also somehow managed to unlock a new caddy - an Australian bloke called Shane. Challenge five completed.

Advance Wars: Dual Strike: completed!

I finally managed to get my DS back off of Tam, and replaced Zoo Keeper with Advance Wars: Dual Strike. I was halway through a mission, and shortly after starting it my colleague finished off the enemy on the secondary front. So it was just left to me to go and blow up the big oozium thing that covered the top half of the playing field.

I sent loads of units north, taking out the ooziums that were being spat out of the big blob one by one, and taking over the bases that were right next to the issue points. Then a few antiair units went and did a lot of shooting. And that was it - a lengthy story bit where I decided if Jake should shoot Von Bolt's chair (and thus kill him) or not. A big moralistic speech about how we all kill to stay alive. A rather obvious lack of comparability. Credits. Campaign completed.

Of course, I've got a hell of a lot of war room maps to go now.

Metroid: Zero Mission: completed!

I found out where I was supposed to be going. I killed this big flying pterodactyl thing, not by elegance or avoiding attacks, but by just firing lots of missiles at him. Then more exploring until I found the big brain in a jar, which was rather tricky to kill - but I did in the end, by freezing the little circle things to keep them out of the way, and jumping around like a loon. Then the self-destruct sequence started and I had to run. And that wasn't the end of the game.

No, that led to another cutscene which showed Samus's ship being shot down by space pirates. And she'd taken off her suit and guns, so she was left with a crappy pistol that couldn't kill anything. And I had to go and find her suit, avoiding the pirates (who could kill me rather easily), then go and escape. And to escape I had to kill this big metal version of the pterodactyl thing, which was really difficult to do. But I did. And had to run away again, and steal one of their funny-looking stingray ships.

And that was the end of the game.

So, challenge one completed.

Midweek Challenges - 16/11/2005

On uk.games.video.misc, every Wednesday we set ourselves challenges to complete by the next week. The idea being that it gives us added incentive to progress in games, and to think about what we're playing.

That's sort of the idea of this blog, too.

So, why not combine the two? My midweek challenges this week are:

One
Complete Metroid Zero Mission. I think this should be possible. I hope.

Two
Get the weekly releases drive for GamerWiki properly launched. Each week I'm putting up a list of the games released that week. And then by the end of that week, all those games should have been added to the database. And you can help. Yes, you. http://www.gamerwiki.com/index.php/GamerWiki:Games_to_be_Added

Three
Test that my router works with the DS's online service by buying Tony Hawk's American SK8land on Friday and returning it on Monday ... and at the same time deciding if it should go on my Christmas list. But believe me, returning games is always a challenge.

Four
Four reviews for ugvm. ugvm is a web-based PDF magazine that uk.games.video.misc puts together from time to time. The last one was produced for Christmas 2003. Now someone else has volunteered to be the editor, and has asked for contributions.

Five
Unlock another caddy in Ace Golf. This'll help introduce some variety to gaming nights, without the same caddy saying "IN THE HOLE! YOU CAN DO IT!" over and over and over and over and over and over.

Lego Star Wars: completed!

Something my brother said last Thursday made me realise that I've never completed Lego Star Wars. I got two-thirds of the way through, and then stopped at the point where Episode 3 started - since at the time, I hadn't seen Episode 3 at the cinema. And then I never went back to it.

It took me about an hour to work through the levels - it's not a difficult game, after all, and the infinite lives aren't a hindrance either (not, of course, that I died very often) The final battle against Anakin was a bit of a let-down, since it really did just involve doing a double jump over him and pushing into the lava again and again.

But overall it was really enjoyable, and I'll certainly be going back to it, especially the cooperative mode. Even Tam likes that - probably because she manages to 'win' somehow.

Halo: completed!

I was closer to the end than I thought. After working my way back to the shuttle bay, I found the captain - or, at least, what remained of him. A face. Urgh. Then down to the crashed Truth and Reconciliation, and an unwelcome return of the sentinels. Through there to the cockpit, set the self-destruct sequence, know full well it's not going to be that easy, guilty spark thingy wants to save the ship (stupid, stupid thing), really easy bit of firing big rockets into a nuclear reactor (yes, great idea), then really tricky bit of running away very quickly afterwards. I reached the escape ship with ... well, I have no idea how much time. I was watching the seconds count down and the distance count down ... and they both hit zero at roughly the same time. Good job really, I wasn't looking forward to that big long run again.

So, Halo's completed. On Normal. It was a very good game, which got better as you progressed. The highlight really is the enemy intelligence, and the way the levels are designed so that you have to hide from them and lure them into range. The flood was a bit of a disappointment, since they don't exhibit the same intelligence, and to fight them you're best off just standing still with a shotgun.

But it was good. I might even play it again some time.

Only just got up ...

Not because I'm lazy, but because I was awake most of the night making sure that there was no food left in my body at all. I'm starving now, of course, but the chance of me being able to keep anything down is minimal. I tried to do some work (since I do have a rather looming deadline), but it's just not possible given the fact that the numbers 2 and 3 (and indeed any other number) just mean the same to me. I think I'm going to go and curl up on the sofa with a cup of tea and a book. Or maybe Halo.

Metroid: Zero Mission

A day-trip to Brussels on the Eurostar - so I had a bit of time on the way home to start playing Metroid: Zero Mission (I was working on the way out). I bought this ages ago, and never started it. I took it away on honeymoon, just in case, but it never got near my DS.

And that's probably a good thing. This a a really great game that for some reasons seems to work best on the SP. It's an extended conversion of the first Metroid game, which I've only ever played a small bit of due to the linkup between Metroid Fusion and Metroid Prime (I completed Fusion when I got it - as the first game I had for the GBA, I played it rather extensively). I wish I'd played more, since I'd love to know where the differences are, and to see if Metroid originally was as good as this.

But Zero Mission is superb. I can't remember the last time that a game has had such a "just a bit more" feeling when I'm playing it, to the extent that I missed my stop at Canada Water and had to change trains, and I was sitting on the train at New Cross Gate for a few minutes until I realised that everyone else had got off.

So far, I've got the morph ball, hi-jump, ice beam, varia suit, bombs, 100-odd missiles, five energy tanks, and a couple of unidentified things. It's been not easy, but not overly taxing so far - the most tricky bit to get past is a giant fat monster thing, which really you ought to just leave to die from a heart attack. But I'm now lost, knowing where I need to get to but having no idea at all how to get there.

But I'll keep playing it until I find out.

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.

Pokémon LeafGreen: Zapdos, er, zapped and dossed

On the tube home, I got some quite odd looks when I finally caught Zapdos and couldn't really contain my excitement.

It's only a game, Tim.

Pokémon LeafGreen: back to Kanto

I think it's called Kanto, anyway. No doubt I'll have enraged thousands of Pokémon fans with my inadequate knowledge, but never mind.

As I said before, I'd played Pokémon Yellow a fair bit when it was released, but I only got up to just after the Safari Zone, I think. I'm further than that in LeafGreen now, which pleases me. And the game's actually gripped me properly, in that I'm playing it in preference to everything else at the moment. I'm up to 71 pokémon owned, which is depressingly not even half way - but I don't think you can get all 150 with just LeafGreen anyway. I must convince either John or Kieron to get FireRed.

I've just been to the Seafoam Islands and managed to catch the Articuno after restarting around ten times. The artwork for that bird when it's on my team is crap. And it's rather limited in terms of attacks. But it's mighty, and I've put it on my list of six to carry around everwhere.

I've beaten the fire trainer at Cinnibar gym - hardly difficult, given that my Charizard is now level 45, I've got a level 44 Dugtrio, and Nidorina and Lapras and Articuno - and have gone north to find Pallet Town again. I've never seen a charmeleon in the wild.

Someone said something about a firey or an electrical bird somewhere, but I've not found it. I've forgotton what the hint was now as well. But there's a power station which I've never been able to get to, so I'll have to have an explore around there, since that's the obvious place for anything electrical to be. Including maybe a Pikachu, which I've not found otherwise.

I've got further in this game than I did in Yellow, and am off soon to try and find the eighth badge. I've not seen my rival David for a while, so I have a horrible feeling he's going to turn up shortly and fight me. I didn't catch much in the safari zone, so I might go back there at some point soon to see what else is around.

But for now, it's nice to see my mum again. Except because it's a US English translation, she's called "mom". Stupid.

Astro Boy: Omega Factor

Generally, I like to play games through on their 'normal' setting first, since I think that's the way they've been designed to be played. But I think in Astro Boy's case, "normal" means "we're having a laugh". It's hard. I'm only up to the third level, and have had to try each boss section around five times at least in order to beat it. The in-between-boss sections are a bit easier, but they're still frantic.

But that's good. The limited number of buttons on the GBA means that the controls are simplistic, and as a result you can concentrate on the game's fun rather than wresting with what you're doing. You don't feel the game is unfair, as such; you just feel that it's too hard.

But it's hard in a good way, and it makes you want to play more. The only problem is that it's not really suited to playing on the move - especially with the way the buses and tubes jolt around all over the place - so it's a play-at-home kind of game. On the GBA.

Goldeneye: Lipstick and Blusher Agent

I was playing with a couple of friends on Xbox Live last night (one of whom is responsible for the play-on-the-word-rouge in the title). We played Halo 2, and Project Gotham Racing 2, and Rainbow Six 3 - in the last, we even managed to complete a level, which was quite amazing for us, given Kieron's propensity to get lost and my propensity to die. Then we decided to go and try Goldeneye: Rogue Agent, which we all have due to the genius that was the senitel weapon in Nightfire. There's no senitel weapon in Rouge Argent.

Anyway, we went online, and found that we were the only people in the world playing the game. Three of us. Never mind; we're quite happy to blow each other up, shoot each other, and try and activate a pit as the others walk over it.

But we couldn't. Unless there's some hidden option which we've entirely missed, it seems that each map has a fixed number of people that are needed to play on it. Unless there are that many people, the game won't start, and while you can go around and kill others and pick up weapons and so on, it won't keep score.

There are three maps on which you can play with two players. For the rest, you need at least four. There is no map you can play with just three players. None of us has ever seen anyone else playing the game online. As a result, 90% of the game's online content is utterly useless and will never be played by anyone.

It's a shame, as some of the arenas look quite interesting. There's certainly been some care put into the way they were designed, and there's a fair few good ideas floating around. If I were one of the level designers, I'd be feeling amazingly downheartened knowing that due to iditoic decisions made by the game design team, my maps could never actually be properly used.

Good job, EA.

Solitaire?

I've had very little patience for games recently, which is odd. I put on Ocarina of Time, walked around a bit, and turned it off because I couldn't be bothered to get back into it. I put Pikmin 2 into the GC, turned it on, watched the intro, and realised I wanted to put more than just half an hour into it on my first play since it's such a charming game. I managed one more checkpoint in Halo before turning it off.

About the only game I've played to any great extent is Bomberman DS, and that's because the games don't last too long.

It's probably because it's hot. This has two effects: firstly, it makes everyone irritable; and secondly, it means you want to go outside more. And the sun refelcts off of the DS's screens to make seeing whatever you're playing next to impossible.

Three gold crowns in WarioWare Touched, though.

Bomberman DS

Thank God for idiot Dixons staff who don't understand the concept of release dates.

It's really good. And I've only been able to play the single player so far, which is normally crap on Bomberman games, so for me to think it's great already must be saying something. The single player game is a basic SNES/Mega Drive type game, where you have to go through the level killing the enemies and clearing the blocks until you find the exit. It looks quite pretty, but the graphics are a bit simplified (which at least means that they're clear on the screen).The clever bit is that when you pick up a powerup, it isn't automatically added to your character's abilities. Instead, they're stored on the bottom screen, and to activate them you have to touch them. When you die, you lose the powerups you've activated, but not those that you've stored. So you can come back with three bombs and longer fire each time, as long as you've not been using them all before.

Of course, you control normally using the D-pad and the buttons, so you'll end up with thumb prints all over the bottom screen since it's not really possible to use the thumb strap. The buttons are nice and large so you can easily select what you want; the most common powerups are all grouped together so you won't have to concentrate too much on finding what you want.

I'm up to the second location now after about an hour's play, because I'm crap. I've faced one boss, whose level took up both screens (which got quite tricky), and am currently hating those ghost things that float over the blocks.

Hopefully I'll be able to play some multiplayer soon. Up to 8 players, off a single card. Yum.

Singles: Flirt Up Your Life!

Take The Sims. Give it a bit of a graphical polish. Add a proper storyline. Add naughty bits. Remove half the game's options and gameplay. Add a ropey control interfact, stuttery animation, and continual crashes. Retitle the game to "Singles: Flirt Up Your Life".

I'm glad I only spent £2 on this in the sale.