Rayman Raving Rabbids: completed!

As complete as I'll ever get it, that is. I've worked my way through the main story game, completing every minigame along the way. I've escaped from the cell, and got stuck in a rabbit hole. I've seen the end credits.

Now there appears to be a load more stuff to unlock from playing the minigames over and over again. I'm not sure I can be bothered, actually.

Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time: completed!

The final dungeon - Ganon's castle - wasn't that difficult, really. There were six distinct rooms, and in the second I found the golden gauntlets, which let me pick up massive things. Given this, I thought I'd go and find stuff I'd missed.

I was sure I'd seen massive rocks near the desert colossus and in the Gerudo fortress, but I was wrong. While I was in the desert, though, I did find a great fairy fountain and got given Nairu's Love, a protective spell. And in the Gerudo fortress I found a big block that I hadn't pushed, and more importantly a gap in the ceiling which gave me the last small key and the path to the ice arrows.

There was a massive rock on the outside of Ganon's castle, blocking another great fairy fountain - this one gave me boosted defense, reducing the harm enemies' attacks did me by half - and there were two inside, one in the fire room and one blocking the entrance to the light room.

After completing the six rooms, firing a light arrow into the orb in each one, I climbed the tower, beating lizards and skeletons and big armoured knights on the way up. And then I met Ganondorf.

Good storyline. Ganondorf has the triforce of power, and was sat there playing an organ. I don't know you, but playing an organ just identifies the person as evil. Zelda was floating above the organ. Poor girl. It wasn't even a good song.

Then the organ and Zelda disappeared, and Ganon started throwing balls of energy at me. I pretty quickly caught on the the fact that this was just like the Phantom Ganon battle, and hit then back at him. All this seemed to do was stun him, though. It wasn't until the third time I did it that I realised that the light arrows then shot him out of the sky, and I could go over and beat him up properly.

That took a while - with a break halfway through when I ran out of magic power and had to fall down a big gap to find some bottles in jars - and then he went down. And the castle started to collapse. A timed race out, with enemies on the way that stop progress until you've killed them. Great!

I got out within the three minutes, and Zelda told me it was all over - the big fat liar. A big bang from the ruined castle, and there was Ganon, big and ugly. He took a few swipes at me and the Master Sword went flying outside the ring of fire that had sprung up.

Luckily, Ganon was rather slow, and I quickly realised that I could get behind him and his tail was identified as a target. The hammer hit him, and after a few blows he went down. I ran over and got the Master Sword, and repeated it - though he was faster this time, so I stunned him with the light arrows first, then ran behind and slashed away. After a few hits, he went down again. Zelda held him down using her magical powers, and I delivered the final blow ...

... not quite as good as the final blow in The Wind Waker, but still impressive ...

... and that was it.

Great game.

Football Manager Handheld: Oxford goes down

After rivalling me for the lead of League Two for a long time, Oxford has had a run of bad results, and had slipped to third. Then I played them, and thanks to two goals in the last ten minutes of the game I won. They're down to fourth place now, outside the guaranteed promotion places, and I'm six points clear at the top of the table with four matches to play. I think that if I win another match, I'm guaranteed promotion - I'm nine points above Oxford.

How exciting.

Football Manager Handheld: coincidences

I'm currently second in League Two after a run of poor results in January. But that's not what I want to talk about today.

This morning I was knocked out of both the FA Cup (4th round, against Crystal Palace) and the LDV Vans Cup (Southern semi-final, against MK Dons). Both defeats came about because I had a player sent off, and the opposing team was awarded a penalty. Both sendings off were in the 83rd minute. Both players sent off were plaing in the defensive right position. Both players had the first name "Danny".

Both players are now on the transfer list.

R-TYPE: level 3's big long boss ship

I love level 3. The whole level sees you trying to overtake a big flying fortress, avoiding the guns ont he underside and above, and then having to loop around the front to get access to a cockpit area situated on the top of the ship, avoiding bullets and splurgy things or at least getting them to hit the force first.

I love it, but it's not half hard.

Football Manager Handheld: a late surge

There were a few duff games, but towards the end of the season Exeter did rather well and I've ended up 5th in the league, meaning I get to play in the playoffs for the chance to be promoted. I'm not sure that promotion would be a great idea, though, because I can see Exeter being demoted pretty much immediately. Still, we'll see.

Football Manager Handheld: life in League Two

I've progressed a bit, and seem to have settled half-way up the table, around 11th out of 24. Unfortunately I've been knocked out of the other cups:

• Crystal Palace (Championship) beat me 2-1 in the League Cup 2nd round
• Swindon (League One) beat me 2-1 in the LDV Vans Trophy 2nd round
• West Brom (Premiership) beat me 2-0 in the FA Cup 3rd round

Still, no first-round failures, so I'm happy!

Sonic Mega Collection

I've been playing this all evening. I managed to get to the Labrynth Zone in Sonic 1 without losing a life; I played the first few levels of 2, 3 and Sonic & Knuckles, and I even tried a bit of Sonic 3D Blast, which is as bad as I remember it. I also beat the first couple of characters in Dr Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine before getting fed up the the GameCube d-pad.

I wish I knew what I had to do to unlock the other games. I fancy playing Ristar without having to pay for it again on the Virtual Console ...

A mid-January update

I never did fill in the gap, as it were.

• Firstly, I gave up on Tales of Eternia. While normally I look for playability in a game, this was just too sedate and complex in terms of story without a clear picture of what the overall aim was. Maybe it was a bit too daunting. No doubt one day I'll regret giving up so quickly, but I've far too much to play to waste time of something I'm not enjoying
• I played a fair bit of New Super Mario Bros and Metroid Prime Hunters, after I got the former for Christmas and the latter very cheap in the sales. Metroid's a great game, and I've adjusted to the controls now, but they do start to hurt your hand after a while. Maybe it's because the DS is so heavy, and I'm supporting it on my little finger on my left hand.
• Of course, I've played all my Wii games quite a lot. Tam's rather good at bowling on Wii Sports, and she likes Find Mii on Wii Play. Possibly the most amusing thing was seeing Tam competing against my sister and her husband on Red Light Green Light on Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz. Huge amounts of fun.
• Also on the Wii, I've played Military Madness and R-Type, both TurboGrafx games I bought on the Virtual Console. Military Madness is sort of an early Advance Wars type game, which gets very hard very quickly. R-Type just starts hard.
• I've played a few turns of Naked War too, resurrecting some very old games where I'd forgotten my strategy. I feel I may lose those soon.

And I can't believe that I've not mentioned WarioWare: Smooth Moves yet. Utter genius. A lot of people are complaining that the multiplayer aspect's rather weak, but I'm not sure about that - after all, the WarioWare games have always, with the exception of the GameCube version, been about the single player game. I'm enjoying it, anyway.

Football Manager Handheld: struggling in League Two

Cheltenham equalised in the 95th minute. I'm not impressed.

After 9 games I'm 16th in the league, out of 22 clubs. I've managed to get through to the second round of the League Cup, but I'm up against Crystal Palace. Ouch.

The transfer window's closed and I had £45k unspent. I'll have to hammer the mid-season transfers! The problem is that nobody seems to want my rubbish players, so I've no room in my squad ...

Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time: the Spirit Temple

A huge amount of progress tonight, even if I did have to repeat a bit because my cats jumped onto the plug and turned the Wii's power off for a few seconds ...

I managed to rescue the four carpenters, and the last guard gave me a membership card which meant they'd not try and kill me any more. Hooray! I went to their training ground and cleared quite a few rooms but there were a few bits and pieces I couldn't do ... but I wanted to get on, so I gave up with those. I then went off to the big gate to the desert, and was let out to face the two trials. The first one - the river of sand - was easy ... I just used the hookshot to get to the other side. The second was more tricky, involving following a trail of flags ... but the flags were immensely difficult to see half the time, and it took me a few tried to get through the path. Then a (hidden) poe ghost took me the rest of the way to the desert collossus. I went inside and found both ways blocked; I went outside and Sheik told me to become young and told me a song to warp me back through the desert. So I did.

The Spirit Temple was quite straightforward. It involved doing half of it as a kid (meeting a thief on the way, who charged me with finding some silver gauntlets for her ... which I did, and then saw her be kidnapped before I could give them to her) and then warping back to the Temple of Time and becoming an adult again for the rest of the temple. I was happy to see the mirror shield make an appearance - I loved the way it was used in the Wind Waker, though here it played less of a part - and the final boss was genius. Two sisters, one casting fire, one casting ice - I had to reflect the fire to hit the ice witch and vice versa. They then combined and I had to catch three of the same spells in a row, avoiding the others. It was really tricky, but i managed it first life, and it was much more fun than Bongo Bongo ever was.

The thief I tried to help turned out to be the final sage; I was then told to go back to the Temple of Time. Sheik met me there and, oh, surprise, (s)he turned out to be Zelda. She told me all about the triforce, gave me the light arrows, and then was kidnapped. I've got to go to Ganon's castle to rescue her.

I have a feeling I'm nearing the end of the game now!

Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time: off to the desert

I finally beat Bongo Bongo, after a trip to the Lost Woods to catch a couple of fairies in bottles and to fill up my health meter. First, though, I had to go and sell the poe I'd caught in the castle town.

Anyway, what a surprise, I met the fifth sage, who gave me a medallion, and told me to go and find and protect Zelda. I have no idea where she is. Navi told me to go to the desert, so I did ... except I ran across the Gerudo fortress, and what appears to be a stealth section.

I've noticed you can fire arrows at the guards to knock them out. This should be fun.

Football Manager Handheld: 2nd!

The league ended and I was second! As a result I'm playing in the playoffs to be promoted. It's all very exciting.

Football Manager Handheld: 3rd?

Somehow I've managed to get Exeter to be 3rd in the Conference after 30 matches played. I've been knocked out of every other competition - even the LDV Vans Trophy, which I had no idea existed. But 3rd! I don't even know much about football!

R-TYPE: big snakey boss thing

I'm slowly getting better at this. It helps to not die during the first level, because then when you get to the second level you're not starting with a piddly little ship with no firepower and no force. Due to repeated play, i now know the first level inside-out, so can achieve this most of the time.

This morning I finally beat the second level boss - a big worm that comes out of one of four holes in a big plant-like thing in the middle of the screen. I was having difficulties before because the bit you've got to hit is on top, and I was having to dodge around all over the place to try and get any shots in. Then i worked out that by having the force with a diagonal laser weapon, I could just sit in the top left corner of the screen, where the work never goes, and fire away. Easy.

The third level's rather hard.

Football Manager Handheld: I won a game!

A momentous achievement, indeed. I only started playing this morning, admittedly, and continued at lunchtime. I've now guided Exeter City through nine games, and they won their ninth against Accrington - who were a whole 17 places above them in the league. One of my players even got man of the match. Morale is at an all time high. I'm now eighteenth in the league out of twenty-two. Hooray!

New Super Mario Bros: trying to get to world 4

I'm having trouble getting a mini mushroom and then staying alive through the boss fight in order to get to world 4. I wonder if there's a more reliable way of getting a mini mushroom than chancing one of the flying red blocks that hang around?

Oh, hello there. I know, dreadful isn't it? I've obviously been playing on the Wii too much.

Tales of Eternia: the great craymel

When I set my challenges this week, I forgot that I only had one day of work remaining before Christmas. Oops.

Luckily, though, I managed to reach the great craymel on the train this morning, after long protracted fights through a forest. What a stuck-up bitch she is, as well. After looking down her nose at us, she decides that she'll only talk to us if we fight her.

A very hard fight, in fact, which I lost. I'll have to try again, but fear it may need a slew of levelling-up first.

Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time: Bongo Bongo

Great.

I finally managed to reach the boss at the end of the Shadow Temple, with very little health remaining. He is really annoying - he's a big invisible eye and two disembodied hands, and the whole battle takes place on a drum which means that Link keeps getting thrown up in the air and uncontrollable. I was hoping that using the iron boots would stop this, but it doesn't.

I've worked out that I've got to use the lens of truth to see the eye, and hit the hands with arrows to disable them temporarily. But the thing is that I've only got three hearts, and one hit kills me.

I've died quite a few times and every time there's a long journey to get back to the boss - involving going on a River-Stix-like boat and fighting skeletons. Along the way there are hearts up on ledges but I can't work out how to get them. There are no other things that help me regain health. So every time, one hit inside the boss room and I die.

I hope I can beat him soon or I feel I might just not be bothered.

Midweek Challenges - 20/12/2006

I set myself five challenges last week and completed them all. Very pleasing.

I'm a bit stuck now, though, because my new commuting game is Tales of Eternia, and that doesn't really lend itself to setting challenges, since I have no idea how far anything is off ...

One
Find the great craymel in Tales of Eternia.

Two
Complete the shadow dungeon in Ocarina of Time.

Three
Get another three medals in Wii Sports training mode.

Four
Complete the fourth world in Super Monkey Ball Banana Blitz.