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.