Surgeon Simulator 2013: it's completely impossible!

I believe it's supposed to be impossible to control, but I was surprised just how difficult it is.  It's not helped with my fingers constantly getting caught under ribs and in the bars of the table.

I have completely failed to get anywhere in this.  I just about managed to break open the rib cage in order to get to the heart, and managed to pull out a lung, but that quickly fell on the floor alongside the hammer and scalpels, and I managed to stab myself with one of the syringes meaning that my vision went all woozy.

The second time I played it I did a little better, until I accidentally cut the patient's windpipe.

I can't see me ever getting off the first stage of this.  However, I did somehow manage to get the video into the VCR on the receptionist's desk, and so was able to attempt an extreme heart transplant on the heavy from Team Fortress 2.  No windpipe made this a bit easier.

Not much easier, though, and then my hand got stuck in the table and I couldn't wiggle it out.

I don't think I'm cut out to be a surgeon.

A World of Keflings: do it yourself

I got this free from Microsoft last year and hadn't heard too much about it, so didn't bother trying it.  If I'd known that it was a real-time strategy game which was broadly similar to Populous: the Beginning, I may have paid more attention.  Yes, there are many differences - directly controlling the main character, having to craft parts to build new buildings, no enemy tribes - but I got the same vibe.

And, like Populous, the game makes hours disappear.  I quickly completed the first chapter, set in the frozen lands, and met the king without a castle.  I built many new buildings and set many keflings on tasks to collect raw materials and transport them between workshops.  I travelled back to the ice kingdom, and built a palace.

I travelled back to the main kingdom, and decided that I ought to call it a night.  I have a feeling that the game won't last me too long, unfortunately ...

Picross e2: ah, that's what it is

There's far too much I want to write about, but I have very little time in which to do so.

I want to post about From Dust, which I played the demo of years ago and loved, and then a couple of nights ago I played the full game after buying it in a sale and found it rather pedestrian (though I didn't play it for long enough, I suspect).

I want to post about Super Mario Bros Deluxe, which I got free for registering a NNID on the 3DS.  I can't believe I fully completed this on the GBC; the viewing distance is awful and requires many leaps of faith.

I want to post about Frobisher Says, which is an amazing Wario Ware type game on the PSV Vita.  I will post about that one day.

I want to post about Everybody's Golf, which has been consuming my commutes.

I want to post about Ecolibrium, which is similar to Little Deviants in that it doesn't allow you to play a portable system while travelling.  About ten minutes into the game, it requires you to turn the console around 180° to look behind you.  When sitting on the train, that's not happening.  I've not turned it on since.

I could take some time on my commute to post about these, of course, but unfortunately I realised I've not completed Picross e2 yet, and so am working on that.  Some of the resulting pictures are pretty tenuous, to say the least.  I manage to complete around five puzzles a day, so it probably won't last me that long ... but then there's Picross e3 ...

To the Moon: completed!

The end of the game was a bit weak, I feel.  The section showing John meeting River for the first time, away from school, was touching, with it explaining many of the links throughout the games.

To the Moon: confusing

A real roller coaster of emotions, answering more questions and causing more confusion.  This is starting to get into the region of proper spoilers now, so I'm going to hide the rest of this post.  If you want to experience this for yourself, don't read on.

Wii Fit U: unexpectedly good news

Installing Wii Fit U, the game found my old Wii Fit save historic and imported my historic data.  It only imported one score (the top one) for each of the minigames, but that's better than nothing.

On my first try, back in November, it told me that I had a Wii Fit age of 29.  Since then I've played the game from time to time, and it's hovered around 25.  This is very good news, given that I'm 36.  Even better news is that according to the historic data, I'm now at my lowest weight since 2008.

This surprises me, particularly since I ran the London Marathon in 2008.  I would be the first to admit that I've let myself go a little since then.  Still, as long as I ignore the idea that it might be caused by the balance board being used on carpet now, when it was previously on a wooden floor, it means I can eat more chocolate.  Hoorah.

The introduction of the Wii Fit Meter changes things considerably.  I wore the pedometer for Walk With Me for months, eventually stopping simply because it was too much hassle having to constantly find the game cart and put it in my DS.  With this, the game is always on the Wii U and it takes about five minutes to download the data from the device, as well as do the fitness test.

So I get to see how many calories I've burnt off from simply walking.  It's not that many.

In fairness, this wasn't taking into account the fact that I took Nicholas swimming for thirty minutes (the WFM's not waterproof), but going by this I should be ballooning.

Time to burn some calories doing games, then.  The ski jump is as good as it's always been, though I'm nowhere near my old best scores.  I need to be going at least 60mph by the bottom of the ramp.

The second screen's used really well in many of these games - but I do need to find my stand, since it's not ideal with it being balanced in front of the TV.

To the Moon: upsetting

Man, this is really quite a difficult game.  Not because of the gameplay, but because of the story.  As you go further back, it's clear why River experienced problems in later life, why John has been left with so much trouble in his mind.  The meaning of the paper rabbits has just been revealed; I've just seen John and River get married, with River saying that nothing felt different and John saying the difference was responsibility.  Did he know of River's condition at that point?

It's a beautiful game.  I was welling up as they danced at the top of the lighthouse, after (or, rather, before) naming it.  The cynicism of the researchers seemed ill-placed that point.

And my first bug ... pretty sure they shouldn't be standing in mid-air ...

To the Moon: affecting

It's hardly the most stunning of games from a technical point of view.  I've encountered no bugs, but the slow text and stuttery animation are initially difficult to get past.  The graphics, while basic, are atmospheric, and at times feel rather foreboding.  And the story ...

You start the game arriving at a house where two kids are playing the piano.  It's a really lovely tune, and variants of it continue throughout the game.  You learn why it is you're there - to go back in time (or, at least, back in time in the memories of the client) and change things to ensure that your client gets to visit the moon (again, in his memories).

The script is well written and funny at times, and while at the start there are lots of little details that are easily overlooked, these tend to be expanded on later.

I've taken quite a few steps back in time now, but according to the timeline I'm still only a fifth of the way through the game.  The story is already getting to affect me though, as I know how things turn out when I learn about promises made, news being shared, and  feelings exposed.

You see, ordinarily that last screen would be a massive spoiler, but you know she dies from the very start of the game - in fact, at the start she's already dead, but you go back in time to find her.  That's where the spoilers lie.

I'll continue this sometime soon.

Stacking: completed!

Woah, where did that come from?  Nothing about the game at all, then suddenly completed?

Stacking is sort of an evolution of the point-and-click adventure game, except rather than using objects you find in the world, you use the individual abilities of the characters you meet instead.  You do this by stacking inside them - you play as Charlie, the smallest Russian doll in the world, and the other Russian dolls are of varying sizes.  To control a doll of size 3, you need to first stack into a doll of size 2.  You directly control Charlie (or the doll which Charlie is inside), and at times this was a little imprecise, with at least one instance of the doll getting stuck on scenery.

That was a minor annoyance though, and the game has plenty of charm to overcome it.  Presentationally, it's well thought out, set in the 1930s with a silent movie art deco feel to it.  It's very clever, as well, as most of the puzzles have multiple solutions, and you only require one to continue through the story.  On the first level I did just this, but by the time I was running around a Zeppelin, I was intrigued as to how to solve each puzzle in as many ways possible.

Not only that, but there are additional challenges and special characters to collect and amusing things to do.  I'm not one for repeating things over and over again, but this game was amusing, charming and (maybe most importantly) short, and I found myself at the end of a few hours seeing the ending with the majority of collectibles from levels three and four in the bag.

I still went back to those levels though.  There are some really funny bits of dialogue throughout the game, and some of the animations on dolls is ingenious.  The Widow Chastity manages to sway her hips, even though she doesn't have any hips.

Other dolls have their own personality.

So enamoured was I with the game, that I immediately went back to the first levels and found all the collectibles there as well.  I completed the game by wrapping five dolls in bandages aboard the ocean liner, which seems a fitting end.

There's some additional content available for about £3.50 (causing the locked achievements above); I may well buy that one day when I'm tired of playing a gritty brown adventure game.

Gauntlet: generally boring

Some games don't age well, unfortunately. Moreover, some games just don't suit certain settings in the first place, and age makes it ever more evident.  Playing Gauntlet last night, I felt that it should have stayed in the arcade, as the constant draining of health and difficulty in dispatching enemies feels odd when there's nobody waiting to have the next go on the machine.

In the end I just decided to clear an achievement for getting the highest score on the leaderboard.  This meant getting above 8000 on a single life.  By warping to level four, I found I could stand in a corridor and kill all the enemies spawning around a corner; after a while the walls changed to exits and I could kill even more in the level.  Not the most fun thing ever, though.

The Typing of the Dead Overkill: trying to touch type

I played the original Tying of the Dead quite a lot, both on the Dreamcast and the PC.  The Dreamcast version was a bit of a faff, since it was a US import which therefore required a boot disc and crossed fingers, and you could never be sure it wasn't going to corrupt your VMU.  The PC game was more accessible, except I never really had a gaming PC that could do it justice.  I still have the disc, somewhere.

When I heard that The House of the Dead Overkill was to get the same treatment, I was a little excited.  When I learnt that it had just been released on Steam around five minutes later, I was more excited and went to download it.  It's not like me to buy something without seeing any reviews or impressions from trusted sources, but, well, it's The Typing of the Dead.  I was glad that I bought it even before I started to play, after I learnt of the game's troubled development and eventual rescue.

Firstly, the bad news.  Unlike the first TotD game, which was based on The House of the Dead 2, the characters aren't wearing Dreamcasts on their backs with a bizarre keyboard lap tray.  Instead, the graphics are completely unchanged, which means that they must be using incredibly bizarre guns.

The core gameplay remains the same, though.  Zombies appear and shamble towards you; you must type the word that appears next to them.  As soon as you do so, they are killed.  Kill them before they kill you, and all is rosy.

This would all be fine if I was a decent touch typist.  I'm not - despite me being able to type entire sentences of reports without looking at the keyboard, it appears that as soon as it's no longer about economics, I need to see which letters I'm hitting.  And this then causes issues, because I can't see when new zombies appear, I can't see which ones are running towards me rather than ambling, I can't see when something is thrown and I need to press a single key quickly.

There is a mechanic in the game where if an enemy starts to approach you faster, you can cancel your current word by pressing backspace, and start the new word.  Guess what I need to do in order to hit backspace?  Look at the keyboard.

I made a conscious effort to look at the screen.  My accuracy dropped right down, but all the time I was typing normal words my keyboard mashing was working OK.  But then this happened:

And it wasn't just phalanges.  As soon as I was having to type single letters in order to spell the word, my typing rhythm disappeared and I started to panic.

Having said that, I got through the first chapter fine, before leaving it for now.  I will be back, though - just maybe after getting a better keyboard.  Or a Mac version.

Tomb Raider: completed!

I cleared the last enemies from outside the temple on my first attempt, although it was a pretty close thing, relying on me running away and picking them off one by one.  I approached the bridge, and was confronted by a huge monster.  I readied myself for battle ... and then he was blown off the bridge.  Genuinely funny.

Climbing around the temple was quite stunning, with a real solid feeling of ruin and adversity.  Climbing the cliffside as the building falls was really exhilarating, even if it's a false excitement since none of the debris would ever actually hit Lara.

It's a good job that it takes a long time to transfer a Sun Queen spirit from one body to another, because Lara took quite a while to work around the outside of the temple, killing soldiers and guardsmen alike.  Lots of killing.  There was then a boss fight, facing the large monster from the bridge, which was a classic videogame encounter: wait for him to attack, dodge around the back, shoot lots; wait until weakspot is exposed (the head) and attack; repeat two more times with additional enemies appearing throughout.

  More cutscenes, followed by an anti-climatic quick-time event sequence to kill the final enemy.  At the time, this felt like a suitable exciting and clever ending to the game, with Lara finally getting her hands on her signature twin pistols and using them to finish the enemy off.  Looking back, however, it's a shame that it wasn't more of a fight, since simply aiming and hammering the trigger buttons in turn meant that it was over all too quickly.

And killing him meant everything was OK again - so why didn't Lara do it before, at any of the many times she was hiding and he walked past?  Why wait until Sam was actually undergoing soul transplant surgery?

Anyway, the final cutscene finishes with Lara saying that she's not going home, in an obvious way of allowing the player to run around the island collecting all the bits they may have missed.  How, exactly, she plans to not go home given she's on a boat sailing to England isn't clear.  I'm guessing she got to a port and went straight to an airport to get back on the island, given that she's not showered or changed clothes when restarting.  The other odd thing is that in some areas there are still soldiers running around trying to kill Lara and talking about Mathius as if he's still alive.  News travels slowly.

There were relatively few things I'd missed on my playthrough - one additional tomb (no idea how I missed it), a few relics and documents which were now on the treasure maps, and a few challenges.  For the last of these I must admit I looked at a guide on the Internet when I couldn't find things immediately.  One of the old flags, for example, was up near the top of a radio tower which you couldn't climb.  One of the GPS beacons was on a platform which I had to line up two bouys to get to.

So, not just complete but all areas are 100% complete, Lara's at the maximum skill level and all weapons are fully upgraded.  Looking at the achievement list, the only things I'm missing are to do with multiplayer or killing soldiers in a certain way, which I can't be bothered with.  In order to get enough salvage to fully upgrade my weapons I killed quite a few deer in the first level - doing the same but with people who fire back doesn't sound appealing.

Sonic the Hedgehog: collecting emeralds

The original Mega Drive game was available on the PS3 for around a pound, so I bought it.  Of course.  I now own that game on the Mega Drive, Saturn (in Sonic Jam), Gamecube and Xbox (in Sonic Mega Collection), DS (in Sonic Classic Collection), Xbox 360 and PS3.  And I've completed it on every platform other than the PS3.

This pales into insignificance when you compare it to Andy's collection, but I've no doubt I'll buy the 3DS version at some point ...

After getting annoyed with the battle in Tomb Raider, I decided to play through this.  Rather than a straight run-through, I decided to try to get as many trophies as possible.  This means not dying, completing the first act of Green Hill and Marble in relatively quick times, collecting all the chaos emeralds, and completing the game in less than 40 minutes.  I was saving after every stage and had to restart the special stages a couple of times, but I've now got a save game with five chaos emeralds, at the start of Spring Yard 3.  I think that the overall time might be more than 40 minutes by the time I get to the end though, so I might need to play through another time without trying for the special stages.

Tomb Raider: fights

I must be getting to the end now, since the enemies I face are no longer normal soldiers, but undead Japanese soldiers with lots of armour on.  Blasting them with a fully-upgraded shotgun from close range doesn't kill them.

I entered the monastery being very careful not to make a scene.  I crept past two guards and through a huge hall of soldiers.  Then as I climbed out the window, I was spotted, and had to run away from an inferno.  Since then I've been making my way through a pretty linear level with hundreds of enemies, who keep killing me.  I've gone past five checkpoints so far, but last night I got stuck just outside the main temple and turned the console off.  I really hope those checkpoints saved.

Edge: clunky rolling

Edge is a game that really benefits from physical controls.  I tried it on a friend's iPhone and found that it was tricky to control, and I felt I was always fighting against the game to get the block where I wanted it to go.  On top of the control issues, it felt clunky and unresponsive.  It wasn't fun.

With a proper control stick, though, it's a joy.  It still feels clunky, but with the veil of control issues stripped away it's clear that this is a design decision, with the cube having its own momentum issues as it rolls from one side to another.  It takes time to move the cube, and you have to consider this when playing.

I bought this initially for the Wii U, but because it was cheap at the time I have bought it again for the 3DS, since it's not the most taxing of games (although I have noticed a few framerate problems on the handheld).  I'm far more likely to make progress on the 3DS; each of the levels may only take a few minutes to complete, but it looks as if there are over a hundred of them, and I think later levels may get much larger.

The game relies more on spatial puzzle solving than reflexes and speed, which suits me well.  However, there are occasions where you need to be quick and accurate - one section in particular in an early level sees you traversing a section full of collapsing tiles, and you need to follow the exact path in order to not paint yourself into a corner.  That relies on precise movements and timing - and took me several attempts even using proper controls.  The below level had a conveyor belt section in it, with tiles disappearing from the back and moving to the front - again requiring precision.

I suspect some of the later levels might get tricky - some of the last levels I played (around level 25) were getting difficult, with a need to balance the cube on the edge of a moving block - but it's a solid game which was a bargain at under £2 for each format.

If the game had been £5 for both in the first place, I'd have paid that immediately.  It makes no sense to have to buy things twice, once on the Wii U and once on the 3DS.  A conversion fee, maybe - charge an extra £1 to have it on one format if you have it on the other.  It's one of my main complaints about the Virtual Console service; I'd have spent a huge amount in there if I could have the games both on the Wii U and the 3DS.

Wipeout 2048: hitting the sides

This is a stunning game, with possibly too much going on at a time for me to cope with.  I've only completed a few events so far, with slow ships and easy opponents, but I'm finding it tricky to keep on the track without hitting the sides.  It doesn't help that I can't remember which button the airbrake is on; I keep expecting there to be two different triggers, and then my finger waves in mid-air while my ship hits the wall.

I still feel that it's not as good as Wipeout 3 Special Edition, but that's likely nostalgia talking.

Saints Row the Third: losing Matt

Last night I arranged to meet Matt on PSN, a meeting that was interrupted by Nicholas being restless, Justine needing chocolate deliveries, and Gaby returning home.  But eventually we were able to get the same game running, following interminable updates, and that game was Saints Row the Third.  Having never played the previous games in the series, Matt filled me in on the detail a bit as we drove around town creating havoc.

It's not a bad game, by any stretch.  It's massively over-the-top, with items such as a car with a people cannon attached, and missions involving flying a helicopter through the streets, exploding cars with rockets, and skydiving through a debris field.  In some missions you're effectively alone, and the cutscenes always show your character, which was confusing at first; especially once I'd changed my character's costume to be just a pair of pants and Matt couldn't tell what I was laughing about.

Talking of being alone, Kieron may have some competition in the 'wandering off' competition.  Frequently I had to stop whatever I was doing in order to find Matt and either get him out of a fight or guide him to the next objective.  Still, he was having fun.

FIFA 13: loss after loss

I'm rubbish at this.  I'm rubbish at most football games (with the possible exception of International Sensible Soccer on the Mega Drive), but this is harder than most.  As well as the standard controls to battle with - in particular, I can never remember which is shoot and which is a high pass - EA have included a number of touch-screen controls on this.  You can tap a player to pass to him, except by the time you've tapped there he's probably moved and you'd be better off passing with the B button.  You can tap on an area of the screen to shoot in the goal (tap top-left to shoot top-left), but by the time you've looked down at the pad to accurately aim, you've missed your chance.

I do like playing football games, but that enjoyment mostly comes in the five seconds of the match when I manage to score a goal.  That happened only once.

The thing is, as hopeless as I am at this, and as much as I find real-life football boring, there's an attraction about videogame football that I can't ignore.  This is one of the better versions I've played, and I'm sure I'll get used to the touch controls at some point.

Tearaway: lots of bugs

On the way home last night, the majority of people got off the train two stops before me.  I saw my chance to progress in Tearaway, so got the Vita out and turned it on; it's great that I can be back in the game within a couple of seconds, something we've taken for granted since the DS and PSP.

I pressed Y to record a sound, called "hello" into the microphone, and nothing happened.  Surely it can't actually recognise a roar?  I pressed Y again and growled into the mic.  Again, nothing.  No matter what i did, the game didn't recognise that I'd made a sound.

I wondered if there was too much background noise.  I waited until I got into the car, and tried again.  No luck.  Nothing I did let me either cancel the request for a sound or record anything.  Searching the Internet today, it seems that there's a bug in the game, which should theoretically be solved by completely turning off the system and then restarting.  I'll try that tonight.

Tomb Raider: sighteeing

I've been through quite a few spectacular sections in this now - running through burning buildings with things collapsing as I go, jumping across a bridge as it was being demolished, ziplining from the top of a mountain down to the beach.

In some ways it's similar to a Metroid structure of game, where as you progress you're given new upgrades which allow you to access parts of the world which were previously hidden away.  The main difference here is that there is very little back-tracking, and I can only think of a couple of places where I went past a room or entrance without getting the ability to enter it very soon afterwards.

Having said that, there may well have been a number of hidden areas that I didn't notice.  A few hours into the game you're given the ability to upgrade your pick, which allows you to climb walls like the above.  The indicators of where you can use upgrades are generally well hidden until you know what to look for - bundles of white cloth, ropes wound around timbers, chalky walls.
 

 After escaping the burning monastery, Lara has to avoid several machine gun emplacements and make her way down the mountain.  After the first descent, you find a stunning area with a ship suspended by ropes.  This ship is huge - and you have to zipline down onto its surface.  By the end of the sequence, the ship's hanging by a single rope and Lara's no longer on board ...

Then down to the sea, and meeting up with the survivors.  They want to repair a boat to escape the island, but we know that's not going to happen - Lara wants to take the boat inland.  Before that can happen, Lara's off to explore shipwrecks to pick up a pulley system and play around on the masts.

Stunning game, and fun with it.  I hope it throws in some new ideas soon, though, or even finishes - it's starting to get a little samey in terms of gameplay, even if the location changes.