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.

World Championship Poker DS

Or "Annoying Animations and Random Decisions Poker". Luckily, the animations can be turned off. The poor AI can't. The computer seems to realise that it's playing for pretend money, and as a result doesn't really try too hard. It certainly doesn't learn from my decisions. It often makes no attempt to increase the betting amount when it's got an unbeatable hand, even by a small amount.

It's also really poor graphically - the cards look like they've been imported from a Game Boy Colour version, and the 3D models of the players are as ropey as a tall ship.

Yet it's still fun. There's a wealth of different types of poker game to play, and it can get very tense when you're betting loads on a relatively small hand. It's quite revealing, however, that the best bits about this game are actually the bits to do with real-life poker.

Buying games I'll never play

There have been some good sales on recently - HMV, Virgin, even Game, and as a result I've bought quite a few new games.

And I know I'll not play half of them. Ever. Some were just £2, so it was a "couldn't say no" decision, but what's the point if I'm not going to even open the box? Rogue Ops, Armed and Dangerous, Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines ... why did I buy them?

One day soon, I will try every game that I've bought but never played. Better make that a weekend. Maybe there will be some undiscovered gems. I doubt it.