1000 Heroz: losing patience

I've not been playing this every day recently.  I've not decided it's rubbish - far from it - but the game itself is conspiring to make sure I can't play it.  When I open the app, it spends an absolute age trying to connect to the server, then half the time it just gives up and says that no connection is available - even when I'm connected to a WiFi network.  If it does manage to connect, then sometimes the score I get on a level isn't uploaded to the leaderboards.  It's just not fun.

I'm not the only one with this issue.  This is a game that people paid for, which is seemingly being left to die by its developers.  The dark side of online gaming.

New Super Mario Bros Wii: excessive lives

I am very pleased with myself.

I'm still finding the game relatively tricky, but I've progressed a bit more.  The main issue, as with all console games, is just finding time to play it.  I've been continuing with around 10 lives, losing some, gaining some, sometimes dropping to just a few left before completing a stage.  It's made some bits pretty stressful.

And then last night I found a way to get infinite lives.  If you can kill a number of enemies in a row through a continuous action, then you get a lot of points - 200 for the first enemy, 400 for the second, and so on - and eventually you start to get an extra life for each enemy.  This action could be jumping from enemy to enemy without touching the ground, sliding down a slope, or hitting enemies with a thrown shell.

On world 2-5, I found an area in which Lakitu is dropping spiky enemies over and over. I was able to jump on a yoshi just before this section.  Yoshi ate one of the spiky enemies, spat it out, and it bounced between two blocks on the ground.  As long as I avoided Lakitu's thrown enemies, they would land on the ground and be killed by the bouncing shell.  After a while, each one that landed and was killed gave me an extra life.

Avoiding the shells thrown by Lakitu wasn't always easy, but I died the first time after getting 10 more lives; the second time after 20 more, and then the third time the counter went up to 99, which seems to be the maximum.  I recorded this on my video capture box, so may well upload the video at some point.

Of course, on searching I found a number of videos of people who had already done this.   But I found it myself, which is why I'm feeling so smug.

New Super Mario Bros 2: lots of coins and lives

I have now collected over 10,000 coins - still some way to go to make a million - and have 92 lives.  The last couple of stages (I think 5-2 and 5-3) have been very easy indeed, and I've been able to collect a large number of lives just playing through them normally.  There was one section with numerous bullet bills where I was able to collect six or seven lives just bouncing on enemies in sequence.

That's not to say this is a bad thing.  Because it's easier, I'm being more reckless than I was in the Wii game, and a few deaths have come from trying to be too flashy or quick.  I've not felt that any deaths were unfair or out of my control - indeed, they've almost all been because I've been trying to be too clever.  That makes the game fun.

I've not found too many secret exits as yet, and have obviously missed the entrances to the other worlds at the bottom of the map.  I've got quite a few of the star coins though - normally two or three per level of the three available - and I can see that I'll be trying to get all those at some point in the future.

New Super Mario Bros Wii: excessive difficulty

I've had this on the shelf for over a year and never played it. The brilliance of New Super Mario Bros 2 has encouraged me to play it.

I may have lost a few lives in the 3DS game, but that is much easier than this. I was struggling for ages to get past the end of the first world, in fact, but after a while I realised that my video capture box was on the post-processing setting which adds a slight lag to controls, and so I wasn't able to react quickly enough.

Even with that corrected, I'm still not breezing through the game. The sand world with its collapsing platforms and annoying wind has caused a fair few deaths already, and I'm only up to 2-6. I've not quite got the hang of the propeller hat, and the shake-to-activate is frustratingly imprecise.

Despite these criticisms, it's still a great game; it's well designed and looks lovely. There are some great touches, such as the way the enemies dance to the music. The encouragement to play levels again through hidden giant coins and captured toads is hardly needed - this isn't a game I'm rushing through.

Who doesn't like me?

According to my Xbox 360's blog, my reputation fell last week.  This means that someone who I was playing against marked me as someone he'd prefer not to play against in the future.

The only game I'd played multiplayer during that time was Peggle.  I won a couple of games of that, once with a very skillful (read: flukey) shot that got me 80,000 points in one go.  I feel there must be a sore loser around.

Sob.

New Super Mario Bros 2: ker-ching

I completed New Super Mario Bros almost six years ago.  At the time, I knew there were bits of the game I hadn't found, but I had at least unlocked all the worlds and played through all the levels.  I hadn't found all the large coins.  I thought I might go back and complete more at a later date.

I didn't.  I have a feeling the same will apply to the sequel, which seems to be more of the same although more inventive with different types of level, puzzles to get to different routes, and a clever overall mechanic of collecting lots of coins.  There's a meta-task of collecting a million coins, which the game tries to assist with through the provision of coin fountains, golden leaves meaning that enemies create coin trails, golden fireballs turning blocks to coins, and so on.  And yet collecting 100 coins still gives you an extra life.

As a result I've over 60 lives now and I'm just starting world 3.  I would have more, but my skills at Mario games seem to have disappeared to some extent since 2007.  Maybe it's because I'm using the analogue stick.

Professor Layton and the Miracle Mask: Completed!

Completed in which way?

Story: completed.
All story puzzles: completed.
Layton's challenges: completed.
Shop minigame: completed.
Rabbit minigame: completed.
Robot minigame: completed.
Robot extra game: not completed because it's dull and I can't be bothered.

The end game was a bit more exciting than I was expecting, and the controls and story became less of an issue as I continued to play.  In fact, the story was, in the end, probably the best written of any of the Laytons, and although I guessed the identity of the villain early on, there were enough tricks to lead me to doubt myself a few times.  Not least Henry's evasiveness.

I must pull together all the Layton games at some point to open up the hidden doors in them all - and make sure that all the minigames in earlier games are complete, since I can't remember that far back (and my posts on this blog don't really help).

The Walking Dead: get off her!

I don't like zombies.  I'm not a huge fan of horror films in general, but zombies are just disgusting and scary.  The idea of waking up in a world where everyone is walking around eating each other and turning others into zombies is very disturbing indeed.

So why am I playing a game where I'm experiencing just that?  Even more so when you consider this isn't a House of the Dead style blaster, or even a Resident Evil style action game; this is a scripted adventure about survival in a world of zombies with virtually no way of fighting them.  It is at times scary and lonely; at other times it is sad and emotional.

I've now finished the first episode, and while the lack of inversion on the look control is a hindrance there's nothing that's sufficiently action-based to ruin the game.  The storytelling is great, and it's clear that a lot of attention's been paid to the game writing.  There is a sense that actions do matter, with the smokescreen dropping only occasionally.  There was a big decision at the end of the first episode, which I presume affects the story considerably going forward - I saved Carly over Doug, since he seemed a bit hopeless and she's good with a gun.

I got the rest of the episodes for cheap in the Xbox sales, and I'm going to start episode 2 soon.  Maybe when it's daytime though.

Journey: completed!

Journey is the other half of the artistic game bundle I bought on PSN at the end of last year.  With The Unfinished Swan completed, I've spent a bit of time on this during the past week.

It's amazing.  You enter the game controlling an armless figure who can sing, and soon you learn to jump.  The game guides you across the sand dunes, with no instructions other than a clear visual symbol of the mountain in the distance.  You reach stones, you find a door, you learn how to jump further.

You stop reading now if you want to play it yourself.

Professor Layton and the Miracle Mask: repetition

The fifth game in the Layton series, and it feels like it.  It's a little over-familiar, except the side puzzles aren't as good (the robot and rabbit are annoying, though the shop is a neat puzzle), the controls are more annoying (since you no longer directly touch the background, you instead have to guide a magnifying glass on the 3D screen while touching on the lower screen), and the story is all over the place.  Randall died many years ago, and Layton may or may not have had something to do with it.  Angela was Randall's girlfriend but is now married to Henry who's a bit of an oddball.  Dalston is a bit of an outsider.  A masked man is pulling off "miracles" which are blatantly faked. You jump back and forward in time to see Layton when he was young, and see what happened when they found the mask of chaos.  I don't really care much.

I think some of my ennui is caused by the appalling battery life of the 3DS when this is running.  Normally the system would last a few days in sleep mode, but with this I need to charge it every other day or it runs out of power and loses all my progress.  I've had to redo quite a few puzzles now - including the dull rabbit stuff - just because I forgot to plug the console in.

Still, I think I'm over half way through the game, and most puzzles have fallen at the first attempt (in fact, I think all but two), so I should be able to complete this before getting completely bored of it.

The Unfinished Swan: completed!

Indeed, I've completed the game - and found the balloons and stories and everything.

The Unfinished Swan: balloons

Most balloons have colour to them, but some are white and so are easy to miss.  I've not missed any yet.

I've now completed the second chapter.  Again, read no further if you want to experience it yourself.

Flower: completed!

The tower was indeed the key to the sixth level, and indeed the whole game.  Winding up through the city, lightening the buildings and swings, I entered the mass of girders and destroyed as many as I could as I was blown ever upwards.  There were few flowers inside the structure, but as I reached the top I had a huge number of petals following me.  The tower fell, and a tree grew.  End of game.

I've found three hidden flowers on the first level, and one one every other level.  I'll be back to play this again.

Flower: purple and pink

By level five, it's getting a bit fraught.  The flowers and the wind do have an enemy, it seems, in the shape of electricity pylons.  Getting too close to these sets fire to accompanying petals, and smoke trails follow the wind for a while.  The pylons seem to be broken and falling, but at the same time they're a menace to the world.  Chiming with blue flowers at the base of pylons turns them from black and rusting to silver, but they remain no less broken.

By the end of the fifth level, this had turned from being a happy and cheery game, to being dark and depressing.  The flower given for finishing the level is wilted and dying.  I almost didn't carry on to the sixth level, but I'm glad I did.  The petal and wind are stronger here, and can break through the pylons - something I found by chance after trying to avoid them for ages.  Destroying pylons brings colour back to the world, and I find myself in an overgrown city with repairing buildings and roads.  The centre of the city seems to be a huge tower of pylons, and maybe that holds the key to getting past this level.

But I've been stuck on the road system for six minutes, trying to make sure I'm colouring the whole city, and I've not got there yet.

Limbo: into the haze

I now own Limbo on three formats: Mac, Xbox 360, and PS3.  I've only even played it to the first encounter with a big spider, which I found to be intensely annoying since I died jumping over the bear traps over and over again.

On the 360, I seem to have a little more control.  Certainly I was able to get past the spider not just once but a number of times (including being caught in its web, urgh), and have found some people who seem to want me dead.  I've been killed many times but have progressed a lot further than I ever did before.  Recent progress has been down into caves where it's even darker than normal, and everything is hazy.  I'm a bit claustrophobic.

The Unfinished Swan: feet

The Unfinished Swan is an experimental game, in a number of ways.  It's an experiment on the part of the developer, who have included a number of different gameplay mechanics from the first level onwards.  It's an experiment in terms of playing it - it requires the player to try and work out controls and where they are, with no instructions other than a brief story.  It's an experiment on the part of Sony, who are increasing the exposure of more artistic games such as this and Journey.

Warning: if you want to play this game yourself (and I recommend you do) I recommend reading no further.

Super Mario Galaxy: lost

Arriving at the hub world, I was given five lives by a toadstool who shuffled over, breaking the cobwebs that had bound him. Peach had sent me a letter, despite being in captivity. I'm sure she's thinking that she'll never escape.

Rosalina asked me if I wanted to go to the special place. There was a sense of longing in her voice, as she pointed out I now had enough stars to go and rescue the princess. Longing and perhaps disbelief, that the hero had returned after all these years to complete the job that he had left unfinished.

But no. I spent a few minutes reacquainting myself with the space station, and found a chubby star thing (what are they called? Lumia? Or is that a Nokia phone?) who showed me a map. Where can I go to get new stars? It's not entirely clear. But there's a new galaxy in the engine room.

It took a while to find the engine room. Despite years of neglect, the robot inside was still whirring away, carving his trails into the mountains of dust. I jumped to the central star, and found that as well as the new galaxy, I had only collected one star from the toy-themed one. I elected to go there.

Mario meets Mario. The last part of the stage was a Mario-shaped floor with disappearing tiles. In order to get there, I had to navigate a complicated shape collecting jump star pieces, which took a while given the fact I couldn't remember how to ground pound. I was expecting the screw mechanism encountered half-way through to have rusted up, but someone's been keeping it oiled.

Onto the Mario floor, and I died several times as the yellow tiles flipped over and left me with nothing to jump from. Luckily there was a 1-up near the start. I had to collect five silver stars, which then became a gold star and was positioned at the start of the Mario floor. Unfortunately, I'd stepped on the tiles around that and they'd disappeared. Fortunately Mario has a long jump.

So I collected one more star. After I saved, as I turned the console off, I'm sure I heard a whisper. No, I won't forget, I'll be back.

Batman Arkham Asylum: completed!

It was indeed the finale. I fought the henchmen in the hallway, I fought the two titans in the main room, and then I was worried that Joker was going to be a boring boss battle of just another titan charging around the room. Oh no. The last parts on the rooftop were tricky, and I had to restart twice before I finally defeated him, with a sliver of health left.

Overall, this has been a great game. I'm not really interested in the whole superhero universe, but this game took the established characters and made them into something really interesting. The setting is pretty creepy at times, and it felt a very solid world (even if the rationale for the batcave was a bit flimsy). It wasn't too long, but if I wanted to get more out of it there's a number of extra modes which I've not touched, plus the main game on a hard difficulty level. For now, though, I'm done.

Batman Arkham Asylum: riddle me this

Up to what I presume is the finale now, where I've been invited to the Joker's party. Before I went in, I was clearing up the Riddler's puzzles; this exercise was made easier by the fact that I'd already found each of the maps which indicate the general location of each puzzle - with the exception of the Joker's teeth, which were annoying to find in a couple of the buildings.

After much exploration, all the puzzles had been collected - I had to cheat and go online to find out the location of the last Chronicle of Arkham, since that didn't show on any map, and though I guessed who it was that was being referred to I saw no real link to the location - and I've gone in to see the Joker.

He killed me, and it was late, so I'll come back to that.

Mario Kart 7: time trialling

I've managed to get at least one star on every grand prix now, so my name is displayed with a star on online races.  Interestingly, I got a star for the Lightning Cup on mirror mode when coming second overall, while I'd previously won the series and hadn't been awarded a star at all.  I'll still play the grand prix from time to time, but for now I've been concentrating on time trials.

Mario Kart 7 has a great implementation of time trials, where you get shown the worldwide distribution of times plus are presented with a number of ghosts across the spectrum.  You can then choose to race against seven ghosts randomly chosen from the ones surrounding you, or any specific ghost at all.  These are updated any time you connect to the Internet via SpotPass.  In addition, you get sent time trials via StreetPass of people you meet in real life.  The only thing I've not seen is whether your friends are included in the ghosts anywhere - since I have no MK7 friends.

Sad face.

Anyway, I've been playing the time trials trying to beat the median time for each course.  Some have been easier than others, but there are a few which have oddly-shaped distribution curves with two peaks where there's a trick to the track, such as boosting over a certain corner and ramp.  To compete on these I've been trying to find the shortcuts myself but also following some of the faster ghosts to work out the strategy.

The track I most hate is Kalamari Desert.  You have to avoid the train going around the track through use of two different ramps (to get to which you have to use a boost over rough ground first.  But you have to line yourself up to the first ramp and commit to it before you can even see if the train is going to be in the way.  It took a lot of experimentation to find that you have to use the second ramp for the first two laps and the first ramp on the last lap, but if and only if you've been closely tracking the best times.

I'm ahead of the median on all but two tracks now.