Wii U Transfer Tool: Nintendo's attention to detail

After backing up my Wii, so that I could restore everything afterwards, I transferred everything over to my new Wii U.  That's my new new Wii U, after the first one was replaced by Nintendo when it developed a fault after two weeks.

In order to transfer everything, you have to download a transfer tool on the Wii, which then packages everything up onto your SD card and transfers the licences to the Wii U.  It looks, on the home screen, a bit like a toaster.

The little pikmin are a sign of things to come.  Before they appear, though, there are some stark warnings.  Some of them are in red so you know they are important.

It's a shame that the Wii's Internet channels haven't survived.

I must get around to redownloading these.  I'm not sure I ever got around to playing escapeVektor.

Updated to make me actually play them, maybe?

Then, more red text and we can start.

Ooh, a big blue pool.  And pikmin.

Pikmin carrying toasters.

Pikmin carrying cardboard downstairs.

Purple pikmin and white pikmin seem to be able to carry the same weight.

Annoying they couldn't make the passageways straight.

No pikmin fell down the pit, as far as I saw.

The percentage counter went up pretty slowly.

I think that will be about 3kB, given how much of it I played.

TurboGRAFX games seem to be based in curving corridors.

That's been 90% for a long time now.

Ah ha, a rocket!

Which closed its door too early!

But luckily they saw little Peter Pikmin had been left behind, and let him on.

And off to the Wii U!

On which I have to do quite a bit of downloading.

And gaming.

Papers, Please: sending people off to die

Quite a grim game, it must be said, and difficult as well.  You play as a border control official in a 1980s communist country, and must verify passport details and grant or deny access.  As you work through the game, the complexity of your task increases - entry tickets, entry permits, work permits, ID cards, fingerprint searches, X-ray scanning ... all of this serves to slow you down, you make mistakes, and you serve fewer travellers in a day.

And serving fewer travellers is bad, as you get paid per traveller and it's not just you relying on your salary.  You will find yourself faced with choices over who gets the needed medicine, and whether food is affordable.  Couple this with days ending early due to terrorist attacks, and you may soon find yourself alone.

The game's currently in beta and ends after a few days.  There are some intriguing plot narratives which start to open, with people asking you to refuse entry to a certain individual to protect them, cards passed across with secret society details, and husbands and wives broken up.  There's a repeat character that turns up with fake details each day, and I'd be intrigued to see if he ever gets everything together.

It's brutally hard to keep your family well, and for the final game I hope there's an easier mode (maybe unlocked after playing the main difficulty, which highlights the difficult conditions in those countries at the time) where you're not expected to earn quite as much.  Even after much practice, the third day still saw me with virtually no savings to carry forwards.

I recommend that you all play this at some point, whether it's now or when it's eventually released.  Details can be found at http://papersplea.se/.

Thomas Was Alone: blocks with personality

I'm not sure how I feel about Thomas Was Alone. Its basic graphic style doesn't subtract anything from the gameplay, and in many ways it enhances the story and narrative, with faceless blocks being given ordinary names. The narration explores the thoughts of these blocks and is really well written. Parts of it have made me laugh a lot.

Claire needed to come up with a superhero name. 'Claire' was rubbish.

But the actual game feels pretty uninspired. The idea of each level is to get all characters into defined positions. Different blocks have different properties - Claire, for example, can float on water. None of the puzzles are particularly taxing, however, and often I'll get to the end of the level before the narration has finished. I can appreciate the style of the game, but it's not the most engaging thing to play.

Animal Crossing New Leaf: my lovely town

On the 3DS you can take screenshots and post them to Twitter.  have a look on there if you want to see all the screens I've shared, but here are a few.

In my position as town mayor, my secretary has been making some rather untoward advances.

Tom Nook is still a shady character. Paying off my first mortgage, he didn't trust me to give him the right amount.

I made a lot of money on the stalk market.

Reese's husband has finally woken up, and he's immediately in a jealous rage. I've not found anything he's interested in renovating yet, either.

I hated Leonardo.  He was a fitness fanatic, and finished every sentence with "flexin'".  I hit him with my net and dug holes around his house.  He got the idea in the end and moved out.  Unfortunately, just before he did so, he taught Olaf to say "flexin'".  I hate him.

I have collected a number of fossils so far, but there are still some holes in the collection.  The T-Rex demonstrates this well.

I've caught a few sharks now, but I'm a bit uneasy that Blathers has put them all in a tank with other fish.  I fear I may need to catch more bass in the future.

Lego City Undercover: a compuper game

Over the past week or so I've been playing Lego City Undercover when I'm at home, Nicholas is asleep, and Animal Crossing isn't calling.  I was loathe to leave New Super Mario Bros U before completing it, but I was suffering from Mario ennui after 3D Land.  I will go back to NSMBU, though, as it's excellent.

Not quite as excellent as Lego City Undercover.  The quality of writing in the game is superb, and it's a sandbox game that's appropriate for kids and people who don't want to kill all the time.  I've mainly been following the missions, but occasionally getting distracted by some random brick or car chase - at the moment I've not unlocked enough abilities to seriously hunt every little secret, though.

The variety of missions is pretty good, with comedic touched throughout.  A lot of this comes from the sidekick character, Frank Honey, who is just a bit thick.

Frank pops up at the least appropriate moments and makes a hash of things over and over again.

The writing is utter genius, with many levels of comedy.  I know that Nicholas will laugh heartily at Frank driving a lorry into the police headquarters when he's a bit older; I'm more amused by him shouting that criminals are around so people should be quiet.

The main fault in the game so far is that the fighting is a bit disjointed and easy to win through button mashing.  Fights always end with Chase (the main character) handcuffing the baddies and them disappearing, but it can be tricky at times to see where they've gone when they've been thrown around.  I hoped this would change after my last missions, in which I learnt kung fu, but that doesn't seem to have changed much at all.

I did get to build a dragon, though.

As I've been playing this later in the evening, you can imagine my excitement when I saw an agility orb.  In fact, that's a listening post, and Chase can't jump that high.  Not yet, anyway.

Candy Box: more than it seems

If you've not played Candy Box, then go do so now.  Don't come back until you've got a long way into it.

Animal Crossing New Leaf: time sink extraordinaire

I played Animal Crossing on the GameCube a bit - I bought a US version while over there on holiday, a long time before it came out in Europe, and the need for faffing with Freeloader tempered my enthusiasm somewhat.

I played Animal Crossing Wild World on the DS.  I played it almost daily for eight months, collecting loads of fish, bugs, even a load of paintings.  I grew flowers.  I occasionally visited after my farewell, but had no compulsion to complete anything.

I bought Animal Crossing Let's Go to the City on the Wii.  I've never played it.

I now have the 3DS game, and have so far put in 31 hours.  It's already my most played 3DS game, beating Professor Layton and the Miracle Mask by four hours. The game is a natural evolution of everything that's gone before, moving turnip sales to a shop that never closes for refurbishment, having the museum and various shops on a separate street, allowing the player to have more control over the town.  I am the mayor.

I've paid off two mortgages.  I've seen off Leonardo, a hateful leopard.  I've collected lots of fish and bugs and even some seaweed.  I've been to the island.  I've gained over a million bells.  I have a blue pansy.  I have no time to write about any of it, since I am busy playing it.  I  have posted a few screenshots to Twitter, though.

Super Mario 3D Land: completed!

At least, I've seen the end credits, completing all the levels in Worlds 1-8.  I've rescued Peach, and Bowser has been consumed by lava.  And then the game reveals that it's actually twice the size, with 'Special Worlds' (some of which are very similar to existing levels with time limits reduced or different enemies) and Luigi's been captured.  Completing Special World 1 rescues Luigi, and you can then use him instead of Mario, making some of the jumps easier but landing on small platforms harder.

I've completed up to the end of Special World 3, but I don't have a huge desire to continue.  It's odd; this is actually a really good game and is much more of a 3D conversion of the 2D Mario games than 64, Sunshine or Galaxy.  There are no stars to collect or multiple goals in a level - just a clear run to the defined finish line.  Maybe I've overdosed a bit on Mario lately, with NSMB2, NSMBW and NSMBU; I can always come back to this.

But for now, it's done and my 3DS is all ready for something else all-consuming ...

DLC Quest: completed!

A quirky and charming little puzzle platform game, DLC Quest is intended as a satirical look at the way that console games have been progressing, with ever-more content locked away.  The game sees you collecting coins in order to pay the shopkeeper for items such as the ability to move left, or animation of your character.  As much of the humour is in the writing, I've hidden the rest of this post on its own page.

Super Mario 3D Land: depth perception

I'm up to world 5 now, so over half-way through the standard list of eight (though I suspect, given other Mario titles, that there may be more hidden).  It has got better, but I'm still not finding it amazing to play - it just feels a bit awkward to control at times and I'm finding it tricky to see which plane Mario's actually standing on when it comes to some of the side-scrolling sections.  Even with the 3D effect on maximum, some of the platforms blend too much into the background, especially on the cloud sections.

Still, I've collected lots of star coins, have around 50 lives to spare, and have no intention of dropping this game half-way through.  It helps that I've got a nine-hour flight on Friday ...

Nintendo Land: Donkey Kong (many) Crash(es) Course

The last parts of the Donkey Kong game are pretty evil.  I've now got the first eight areas down pat, although I frequently lose one or two lives in area 7 (in the upper-left of the screen below - you can see the remnants of a crash there) where you have to use the left trigger to raise and lower platforms.

But then I get to area 9, in the bottom-right.

You can see I've lost a couple of lives there already.  Here you have to tap the right trigger to launch your cart up the ramps.  You need to have the gamepad tilted just right to avoid flipping over.  And you need to press the trigger very quickly, and let go very quickly, to avoid catching your character as the platform comes back down.

It took me ages, but finally ...

I then lost all six lives on the last platform before the end of area 10.  I've not beaten that yet.

The Homebrew Channel: ugly GUI

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

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

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

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

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

Super Mario 3D Land: gerrorf me cart!

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

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

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

Bye, random girl.

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

Super Metroid: nearly dead

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

Anyway, I've started this now.

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

But nobody's home.

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

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

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

A bit more exploration ...

This meant I could go through the tunnel at last.

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

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

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

There's quite a way to go ...

Heavy Rain: pedestrian

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mark of the Ninja: sneaking

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

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

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

Sega Rally Online Arcade: second, again

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

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

Rhythm Thief and the Emperor's Treasure: completed!

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

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

And then to Napoleon, with a particularly cringeworthy line.

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

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

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

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

Conceptis Puzzles: freemium done right

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

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

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

New Super Mario Bros Wii: infinite lives

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

Portal 2: completed!

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

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

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

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

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

New Super Mario Bros U: lava waves

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

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

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

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

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

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

New Super Mario Bros U: so pretty

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

This is a really pretty game.

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

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

New Super Mario Bros U: choosing a route

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

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

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

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

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

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

Super Hexagon: ADD

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

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

Gunman Clive: Completed!

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

Gunman Clive: pew pew

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

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

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

Portal 2: in the depths

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

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

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

Bulletstorm: I'm not a git, unfortunately

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

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

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

Forza Horizon: finding my way

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

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

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

And it cost me £15.

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

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

Nintendo Land: no more

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

Nintendo Land: catch me!

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

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

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

Little Things Forever: an owl within an owl

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

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