Super Mario Galaxy: three stars in

It's just amazing. To start with, it felt a little odd controlling it with separated hands, and for some reason, although it controls in the same way as Mario 64, I couldn't run in a straight line. But then it clicked, and all was good again.

And then I got to the first planet. I was running around, and accidentally jumped off the edge. Instead of falling to my death, I landed on the underneath of the planet, and ran around upside down. Running on the ceiling, walls, floor, being catapulted through space, jumping on and spin-stunning goombas ... it's all just so much fun.

Halo 2: Completed!

I was nearer the end than I thought. A stupid brute set off the halo, so I ran around as the Arbiter and killed him, eventually. Captain Keyes grabbed the index, but it was too late - the halo set all the others to be on standby, ready for remote activation. They can be activated from Earth, where the last remaining prophet is.

Cut to Master Chief descending towards Earth, and as I get ready to take control of him, the credits roll. A rather sudden ending to the game ...

Crackdown: pulsing noise

I hear the hum of agility orbs everywhere I go. My mind is playing tricks on me.

485 of 500 agility orbs collected, and 185 of 300 hidden orbs. Every skill's maxed out other than driving, which is on 31/100 on the last level.

I love this game.

Halo 2: Petey Piranha's really let himself go

I've got hold of another copy of this - my fourth in total - and carried on from where I left off, even seeing the cutscene.

Back to controlling the Arbiter, I was instructed to go and retrieve the 'index', which is basically the ignition key for the halo system. This was, of course, hidden within the halo, protected by loads of automatic sentries and big enforcer things. These were both a blessing and a curse, since they destroyed the flood (or the flood destroyed them), and if I waited around I'd only have one set of enemies to contest with. But the enforcers were a pain, covered by a massive shield in front and lots of firepower. In the end I generally destroyed them by activating invisibility, running behind them and throwing sticky grenades at them - though in a couple of cases there were handy rocket launchers laying around.

I was a bit worried with the constant references to "the library" in the in-game dialogue, but luckily there were no long repetitive corridors to fight along ... there were lots of big open areas, with the flood controlling vehicles, and some big firefights with allies. Great fun. At one point I got on a big lift thing, and had to run around killing the flood who jumped onto it - mainly by making myself invisible, running up to the group and throwing a grenade into their midst.

In the end, I got to the sacred icon - the index - only to find that Captain Keyes was there first. A cutscene showed her and Sergeant Johnson being captured along with the index, and then a brute came and took them off the Arbiter. It seems that the elites have been demoted - and have been ordered killed. The arbiter falls to his death ...

... or not. Previously, I'd seen Master Chief falling through the water after Regret's temple was destroyed. he was grabbed by a big tentacle thing. The same catches the Arbiter, and reveals how halo will destroy everything in the galaxy - he's the parasite, the father of the flood. He looks like a big toxic version of Petey Piranha. We need to get hold of the index.

Master Chief is warped into the middle of the prophets' meeting. Oops. Somehow almost everyone disappears and I ended up having to fight just a few brutes and jackals. The elites are now a third party ... as I found out when I got outside and found them in combat with the brutes. Whichever party is left then tries to kill me. Charming.

I went and rescued some captured marines, and then worked through fights between elites and brutes, and even fought two hunters with very little ammo. I'm now on a floating platform with hovering elites killing me constantly. I think I need a break ...

Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney: Justice for All: completed!

I played this a bit in Egypt, but finished off the last case over the weekend. The third case was a bit tricky in places, but the last case was just a bit pants. It went from being very linear and obvious to the infuriating problem of having a clear solution but having a stupid circuitous route to get there. I want to present the spy camera now, not after going to the police station to have it explained what it is.

Anyway, finished now, and I even waded through the very long endstory. How was I supposed to know that I should have given Edgeworth the whip? I gave him the figurine. It seemed more apt.

Halo 3: you lucky bugger

I won an online game! Really convincingly!

Halo 3 has a section in its matchmaking aimed specifically at beginners, to help you learn the maps and the rules and the changes to controls. I'm still adjusting to look-on-right, and particularly weapon collect being on a shoulder button, so I feel justified in playing there. For the first couple of games, I came second or third - and then came the rampage.

I got nine kills in a row. I threw a grenade around a corner as both opponents approached it (prompting the exclamation in the title). I killed with the battle rifle, needler (so much more powerful than in Halo 2), grenades, pistol and spiker. And my fists. I won the game 25-14-11 - yes, I got as many kills as my opponents put together. Monumental. It won't happen again.

One of the funniest bits was when I turned a corner to find a firefight between Mucky Bandit and Spitmonkey. Mucky Bandit had just dropped a bubble shield, so he was protected. He evidently wasn't watching his radar very well, since I could just walk up and ...

Straight after that, Spitmonkey jumped through the shield and I punched him - and he fell over the side of the level to his death.

I almost wanted to never play it again, to bask in glory. But that would be daft, so I played a few proper matchmaking games and was back to my rubbish self.

Halo 2: possible salvation

Rather than continuing from my last save, I looked at the chapter list - and the chapter following "Regret" is listed ... meaning I can carry on from that point (although I'll probably miss the cutscene). Well, theoretically I can - my disc won't load it. How frustrating!

Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney: Justice for All: clowning around

While the game is mostly great, the some of the characters are starting to ... well, grate. Moe the Clown, for example, with his constant laughing at himself and failure to get to the point. Von Karma with her constant whipping - it's just too far-fetched.

I'm around halfway through the third case, and I think I can see where it's going - Max had a life-size bust, Moe saw the silhouette of his face, someone else could wear his cloak - but I'm enjoying getting there.

Halo 2: a wasted hour

Last night, I continued the single-player game. I fought my way to a lake, and across to a temple, where the prophet sat. After a number of attempts I finally managed to kill him, and saw the cutscene. And then my Xbox 360 told me that the disc was dirty or damaged, and put me back to the dashboard.

I was sure that I'd gone past a number of big checkpoints, but on restarting and electing to play from my last save, it put me back to the sniper valley. Over an hour down the drain.

Good job it's fun to play.

Halo 2: Kieron is the juggernaut

Both Kieron and John were free this afternoon, so we arranged to play online. Whereas normally we'd have formed a party and gone onto matchmaking, the release of Halo 3 has meant that the number of players has dropped off quite a lot - and John said that he'd had to wait five minutes for a rumble pit game. Team skirmishes weren't going to happen.

So we played custom games between ourselves all afternoon; something we've never really done before. We played three-way capture the flag with rockets. We played oddball with swords. We played 2-on-1 juggernaut, which was great - although Kieron did spend a couple of minutes as the juggernaut just hiding, which lead John and I to wonder if he realised that the point of the game was to kill the others ...

Before John turned up, Kieron and I had a couple of games of Halo 3 as well. They've changed the reloading controls, and how you pick up guns. I kept on missing out on stuff because of this. Well, that's my excuse.

Halo 2: landing on the second halo

Lots of progress today - I destroyed the scarab, and the covenant fleet flew, warping away from Earth (causing much destruction as it went). I was on a ship that got carried along with them.

And then the game switched to follow the fortunes of the army commander who the covenant held responsible for the destruction of the first halo. At the start of the game you see him being shamed and humiliated, but he was then offered a way out of eternal damnation - become the suicidal arbiter and be sent to kill heretics. And then you get given control of him.

It plays pretty much the same as when playing the Master Chief, though your allies are more numerous to start with and are normal covenant forces. And you have the energy sword (which, unlike in multiplayer, has a limited number of uses). And you have an invisibility cloak. This last piece really changes the game - you can be much more exploratory, making sure you know how a room's structured before revealing yourself. The cloak only lasts for a short time, and disappears if you shoot or attack, but it does mean you can be much more strategic.

After fighting my way through the facility - I'm not entirely sure what it was meant to be - flying around the top in a banshee and destroying many guns, and coming across the flood (oh, great), the leader of the heretics locked himself in a room. I was instructed to go and cut the cables - and the facility started to fall. To start with, there was much shaking and I felt that I could jump higher than normal ... but then it all seemed to settle down and it was if the facility wasn't moving at all. Very odd. I went and found the leader, chased him outside, and jumped on a banshee to follow him. He flew off somewhere else, and I started to follow him, but then there was a checkpoint so I went there instead - and somehow I'd caught up with him. He then created two holographic clones of himself and they started to fire at me - but I kept an eye on the real him, grabbed a sword and killed him.

Back to Master Chief, and the covenant ship appears next to another halo. So far I've landed on it, had some great firefights, and have just crawled through a cave to find a very leafy valley filled with snipers. Luckily, there was one sniper in the cave itself, and I've stolen his beam rifle. This should be fun.

Halo 2: big beetle thing

Last night, on the day before Halo 3 was released, I remembered that I've never completed Halo 2's singleplayer mode. In fact, as it turns out, I've hardly started it. Having to start afresh on my Xbox 360, it was pretty engaging and I played for an hour and a half, passing where I'd previously reached - landing on Earth, and working my way around the coast to a bridge. I think I'd reached the bridge before, but had never crossed it in the tank, nor chased the scarab down. I keep on finding myself running out of ammunition, which is a pain, but just before I saved and quit I found a massive bunch of guns. I'm expecting a bit of a rampage now ...

Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney: Justice for All: an easy opening

Well, it would have been if I weren't being thick. I managed to completely overlook the second page of the court record.

Well into the second case now, and Mia's back. Hello.

Project Gotham Racing 3: powersliding by St Stephen's Tower

It's fast cars only, which is a disappointment after the superb levelling structure of PGR2. It also starts quite a lot harder, with the cars being a bit twitchy and prone to spin.

But I've got the hang of it now, and am working my way through the levels, getting silver medals. Despite the fact that it looks amazing, and it's got London in it, it's all a bit muted. Maybe I've been spoilt by Burnout Revenge, and Forza 2, and Outrun 2. But I played PGR2 the other night, and that's still great fun, even though I had to start again what with there being no way to transfer saves from my old Xbox.

I've only raced around Westminster so far; I hope there are St James's Park stages as well. They were my favourite from Metropolis Street Racer.

Wii Sports: I'm a pro at baseball!

After a thrilling 2-1 victory, I'm now a pro.

And my arm doesn't half hurt.

Pokémon Pearl: where's the department store?

I've just got my sixth badge, after quite a tricky trainer battle. Gyrados is now up to level 29, and the gym leader had three pokémon, the last of which was at level 39. Gyrados's moves were still the most effective I had though - surf and dragon rage hit him hard.

After the battle I met Rowan and there was a big explosion - I was sent off to Lake Valor where I found Team Galactic having drained the lake and magikarp flopping around everywhere. After a few battles against the team members, I decided to go and buy some healing things because I used a few in the gym battle. The best healing things are, of course, the lemonade cans from the department store roof, in terms of healing power per cost.

I couldn't remember where the department store was.

I flew to every city on the map, other than Veilstone because that was really distinctive in the way it was built on levels out of the rock, and I was sure the department store wasn't there. I searched everywhere.

And eventually tried Veilstone out of desperation, and found the department store.

Sigh.

Crackdown: the Kaiser Chiefs are correct

I'm still playing this, having now completed it twice. The cooperative mode is amazing, and I've spent ages with Kieron providing cover for him killing the deputies and collecting orbs. It's very funny being able to jump four times higher than him, and having to work out elaborate routes for him to scale buildings while I can just jump up them.

I've recently found out about the way that you can just plug in an iPod via USB, and then stream music from that as background music in games. It's great. I had just killed Garcia, and all the remaining Los Muertos members were congregating by the funfair ... and I Predict a Riot started to play.

Amazing.

RLLMUK's top 100: 10 - 1

10	Shadow of the Colossus (PlayStation 2)
9	Ico (PlayStation 2)
8	Super Mario Kart (SNES)
7	The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past (SNES)
6	Super Mario World (SNES)
5	Goldeneye (Nintendo 64)
4	The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (Nintendo 64)
3	Super Mario 64 (Nintendo 64)
2	Halo (Xbox)
1	Resident Evil 4 (GameCube)

Comments on the games I've played:

Ico (PlayStation 2)

No, I've not played Shadow of the Colossus, despite owning it for ages.  What's more, I've never progressed very far in Ico.  I don't know why, I enjoyed the half hour or so that I did play, but I never went back.  That will have to be rectified.

Super Mario Kart (SNES)

It's just not as good as later games in the series.

Super Mario World (SNES)

Another game that I've played but never completed.  I bought it on the Wii Virtual Console earlier this year and played through quite a few stages, but I can't remember how far I got and why I stopped.  I'll resume some day, I'm sure - save states are very handy.

Goldeneye (Nintendo 64)

I played this lots, even though I came to it very late when I bought an N64 with Super Mario 64 and Goldeneye at a car boot fair.  The game is certainly more clunky than those that followed it, and even Quake III Arena on the Dreamcast shows it up to have aged.  But the story and variety in the levels is astounding, it's still fun to play, and while the graphics are a bit rough it moves at a fair old pace.

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (Nintendo 64)

I completed this earlier this year, and cannot deny that it is an amazing game.  It suffers a bit from the early-3D-world syndrome, where low polygon counts make games age very quickly, but it's certainly aged better than most other games.  It also started off quite slowly, to the extent that it took me two years to play through it.  I'm glad I did though.

Super Mario 64 (Nintendo 64)

I played this to the credits and beyond, although I didn't collect every star.  I collected some stars multiple times, just because they were so fun to get.  An absolute masterpiece in game design.

Halo (Xbox)

The really sad thing is that of the original Halo, the part I remember most is the Library - which is the poor bit.  I remember trudging through countless corridors killing the same enemies again and again.  Sure, the rest of the game has you killing the same enemies, but their reactions and positioning and personalities are new each time.  Not the flood.  The thing is, I remember loving the game as I played through it, and it's a shame that the Library has ruined the good memories I could have had.

RLLMUK's top 100: 20 - 11

20	Shenmue (Dreamcast)
19	Advance Wars (Game Boy Advance)
18	Street Fighter 2 (All Variants) (Arcade)
17	Tetris (Game Boy)
16	Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (PlayStation 2)
15	Metal Gear Solid (PlayStation)
14	Half-Life 2 (PC/PlayStation 2/Xbox 360)
13	Rez (Dreamcast)
12	Final Fantasy VII (PlayStation)
11	Deus Ex (PC)

Comments on the games I've played:

Shenmue (Dreamcast)

Generally, when games don't have a sense of urgency, I find it difficult to motivate myself to play them.  The Grand Theft Auto games are a good example of this - there is no time limit, no overarching need to get to the end quickly.  While Shenmue doesn't have a strict time limit, there is so much to do and so much to see that I never found myself unwilling to load it up from the time I first saw the black car and that incident, to the time I got on the boat and sailed away.  An amazing experience, which I suspect has aged terribly - but I don't think I'll ever go and check.

Advance Wars (Game Boy Advance)

I think I prefer the first DS game, but only just.  Advance Wars is an amazing achievement of simplicity and depth rolled together.  The strengths and weaknesses of every unit are clearly designed to mean there's no one unbeatable strategy, although it sometimes feels that there is when playing against Kieron.  The only downside to the game is the effectiveness of a mech flood - creating hundreds of mech units and marching slowly across the map.

Street Fighter 2: Special Championship Edition (Mega Drive)

I've played a number of versions of SF2, but this was the one I played the most, along with the 6-button controller.  It remains my favourite, partially because of the controller (I've never been able to pull off dragon punches as effectively with anything else) and partially because of the purity of the game.  No super meters, no charging specials, no EX-TJ-PO balancing with finishing moves.  I loved this game - even though I wasn't that good when playing against real life opponents.

Tetris DX (Game Boy Color)

I got this on launch day, ahead of a coach journey from Bristol to London - I turned up to WH Smith as they opened and had them dig it out of the store room for me.  The journey seemed to take about five minutes.

Metal Gear Solid (PlayStation)

I've never got very far in this, despite trying a few times.  I have a copy of the GameCube remake; maybe I'll try that some time.

Half-Life 2 (PC)

I played a bit of this, but not much because Portal was a much more interesting game in the Orange Box.  I do fancy playing some more, but it may need to wait until I replay Half-Life.

Rez (Dreamcast)

I think this would work really well with Wii controllers - it's a game where I felt the controls were the only thing that frustrated me in the whole experience.  A lovely game though, even with the complete change of direction in the fifth level.

RLLMUK's top 100: 30 - 21

30	Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island (SNES)
29	World of Warcraft (PC)
28	The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker (GameCube)
27	Metroid Prime (GameCube)
26	The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask (Nintendo 64)
25	Super Mario Bros. 3 (NES)
24	Shenmue 2 (Dreamcast/Xbox)
23	Halo 2 (Xbox)
22	The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening (Game Boy)
21	Half-Life (PC)

Comments on the games I've played:

Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island (Game Boy Advance)

I enjoyed this, though not as much as Yoshi's Story on the N64.  I felt that the inclusion of Baby Mario was a little unneeded at times, only in place to let the player make a mistake without dying, but the levels were made harder to make up for this.  The game as a result felt a bit disjointed and overly frustrating at times.

The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker (GameCube)

Possibly my favourite Zelda game, but that might be because it's the first I completed.  It's a stunning-looking game, with a clever story and great characters.  I loved sailing across the world, exploring the sea, and just getting lost for hours on end on an outlying island.  People criticise many things about the game - the triforce fetching quest, the lack of voice acting, the fact that it's not gritty and realistic - but I think that it will be a timeless game for years to come.  I'm not sure if I'll ever replay it, but that's not a comment on it's quality; it's a comment on how final the finishing blow felt.

Metroid Prime (GameCube)

Stunning to look at, a good difficulty curve and amazing update of a series from 2D to 3D.  I never got that far through it, because it was set inside cramped caves and I felt horribly constrained.  Maybe I'll get back to it one day.

Super Mario Bros 3 (NES)

I've never played this beyond the first few levels.  Maybe one for Virtual Console in the future.

Shenmue 2 (Dreamcast)

I loved the first game, completing it over a good few months, taking in the entire experience with collections from the vending machines and a very happy cat.  I felt sad when I got on the boat, leaving my old life behind.  On starting the second game, I was horrified when my savings were stolen as I arrived in Hong Kong, and I never quite got the enthusiasm to continue playing beyond an hour or so.  My VMU still has the game save on it - and maybe I'll go back to it, if they announce that they'll be completing the story.

Halo 2 (Xbox)

The single player game was good, if a bit similar to the first game, and I enjoyed controlling a different character which meant a different style of play.  It's in multiplayer that this game really shines though, and it is probably one of my favourite online games ever - only Phantasy Star Online holds better memories for me.

The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening DX (Game Boy Color)

Actually, this might be the first Zelda I completed, but it's relatively far from a traditional Zelda template so might not count.  Zelda's not in it, for a start.  It's a masterpiece on how to design a game for a different platform; recognising that people play handheld games in a different way to console games, Nintendo designed a shorter adventure which did not feel limited by the hardware in any way.

Half-Life (PC)

I've never completed this.  I loved the way the story was delivered, and the clever way that the marines were introduced firstly as friends and then as enemies.  It wasn't wholly revolutionary - the building up of weapons, and the use of health and armour were well established in games already - and I got to a point where it was just a bit too difficult (I believe, from looking at a walkthrough, that it was in the chapter 'Questionable Ethics').  Of course, my save from then is lost in the mists of time.  Maybe one day I'll turn god mode on.