Mario Kart DS

It seems I'm still rubbish.

I did one online match against four opponents (after a huge wait to find anybody, oddly) and managed a lucky second finish after some finishing line squabbling on the final track, but I also managed to fall off the track three times on Delfino Square. (I came last on that one.)

Single player is where I'm really struggling. I can't win that third 150cc cup. At all. Not even close. It's distressing.

I just did some missions and they were easy enough... until I got to one on level two that I failed on, which led to me turning my DS off in distress.

Doom RPG

Completed!

Took me five hours and twenty-three minutes, according to the end of game stats. That's pretty huge for a mobile game.

I didn't find all the secrets or anything, either.

Really, if you have a mobile phone that can play the game, this is so worth getting. I can confidently pronounce it the best mobile phone game I've ever played. I'm really quite upset that it's over.

Mario Kart DS

What's happened?

My skills have deserted me!

I've just played a couple of Worldwide matches and come last in them both. I just can't seem to steer or use items properly or stay on the track.

And I need to unlock that bike Kong was riding in my last match. It seems a bit fast. But I found a new shortcut on Delfine Square by being behind it, so that's good.

Mario Kart DS

Gah! I can't do the second retro cup on 150cc! I just can't do well in all the races. It's weird. I didn't have a problem until now and suddenly I'm rubbish. Weird.

And I just went online and played !niggle! (yes, that's the correct name) and he beat me. Horribly. Might have had a chance if bloody Baby Park hadn't been one of the tracks. Not that I won SNES Mario Circuit or Rainbow Road either, mind. I did at least come first on Luigi's Mansion, which saved a small shred of my tattered pride.

Dr Mario & Puzzle League

A new GBA game that does what it says on the tin. Nintendo seem to have snuck this one out. It doesn't seem to be widely available and I wouldn't have known it existed if it hadn't been for a "Happy Birthday Mario" promo card that fell out of MCV the other week.

But it's a version of Puzzle League that I can play on my Micro, so how I could refuse?

(For anyone in the dark, Puzzle League - also known as Tetris Attack and Panel de Pon, or something - is a Tetris-a-like that involves swapping blocks to form lines of three or more as they rise towards the ceiling. It's probably my favourite of these types of puzzle game.)

It must be said, it reeks of a "will this do?" mentality. The interface is just a dodgy black font on a white background and while it does save high scores it only saves one for each game mode and not the variations in those modes. So Marathon has one high score, no matter which level and speed you started on. Which is fair enough, I guess, but not great. It does pack in a sleep mode, mind, which is nice.

The real "what the hell?" moment comes at the end of Marathon games. It plays the credits at the end. In full. And they're unskippable. I think it's only if you've got a new high score, but still, what were they thinking?

So, yes, if you want Puzzle League (or Dr Mario, I suppose, but I've not tried that yet) to play on your Micro, then this is what you need. But, really, compared to lavish attention that was paid to the old GBC Pokemon Puzzle League title this is just very lazy.

Doom RPG

Sector seven is long.

(Especially when you die.)

I'm really annoyed that I seem to be getting towards the end now. It's very long for a mobile game, but it's still not long enough, damn it.

My DS batteries have run down again. It was fully charged until about half two today and now it's dead again. I've not been playing it the whole time since then, either. A lot, but not the whole seven hours. Bah. Nintendo need to release an extra powerful battery.

Still, my Mario Kart online Win-Lose record now stands at 25-14, so I guess I've finally found a game I'm not completely awful at. Hooray!

The last win came from ugv*'s very own Fry. I'm actually worried about the long term viability of Mario Kart online. It seems to be quite difficult to find a game now, sometimes, so what's it going to be like in six month's time?

Mario Kart DS

Just failed to win my first cup.

The second retro cup on 150cc. Stupid Bowser track killed me; I came in seventh.

So I quit out. There was no chance of me winning from there.

Mario Kart DS

Three game series against Sue online.

We drew the first series 2-2, then I won 4-0 and then lost the third one 3-2, I think. Approximate numbers, anyway.

It's just such good fun. How is that Edge only gave it eight out of ten and only mentioned the online part in passing, when it's pretty much the heart of the thing?

Mario Kart DS

Done all the 100cc new cups now. Got a D on the last one. Probably because I kept falling and/or being pushed off the track.

It's actually quite good in single player mode. I keep forgetting that.

Halo 2

So tonight was the big uk.games.video.xbox farewell to the Xbox, what with the 360 coming along on Friday.

It was great fun.

It just wasn't really very organised.

In fact, it consisted of just myself and asktoby killing each other in very nasty ways.

But it was still great fun.

Even though I lost. Heavily. 25-3 when we played shotguns, though I wasn't so bad with sniper rifles or rocket launchers.

So, just the two of us, but it was actually really good fun.

Highlight of the evening: being thrown across the map by a rocket hit and hitting my chin on a wall. Doesn't sound like much, but it looked very, very painful.

Mario Kart DS

Blimey.

That wireless seems to destroy the DS's battery life. It's on read already and I can't have played it for more than four hours today, I don't think. Well, maybe five.

Mario Kart DS

I don't believe in the death penalty.

Except in the following two cases -

a) People who park outisde the chip shop on Upper Stone Street during rush hour.
b) People who quit out of online games when they're losing.

Mario Kart DS

Phew, just had my first online tie. Someone called Peter and I were racing each other and he won the first two races and then I won the next two. Intense stuff.

I've also done all the 50cc cups (all one-star rankings except one two-star and, ack, an A) which has unlocked a couple of characters. Some of the people online seem to have very special characters though, damn them. It doesn't seem to unbalance the game, but it makes them seem all cool. Or something.

Mario Kart DS

And now, after some heavy losses to some random person called Spud, the DS's battery light is glowing a dangerous red.

Bed time, then.

I need work out the netiquette for these games. Half-way through one round, the little 'friend looking for game' icon popped up, but I thought it would be very rude to quit out of my current game and go find my friend. Thoughts?

Mario Kart DS

My Mario Kart cartridge deleted my single player progress.

::frowns::

Why did it do that, eh?

Actually, the DS didn't recognise the cartridge at all when I first put it in, so maybe I've got a dodgy copy. I hope not. If I had to send it back, all my friends would have to enter a new friend code for me and I'd lose all my stats.

Mind you, as those stats include being beaten handily by deKay this evening, maybe that wouldn't be such a bad thing.

I did then go on to win two rounds against a random person called Braveman. It's odd, I have no idea where he is in the world. Could be three streets away, could be in Australia. Brave new world and such.

Mario Kart DS

First friends match!

Played two rounds against Chibi.

He won the first set of matches, then I won the second.

And then quit.

That was great fun. Great, great fun. Really could do with some form of communication, though. I mean, beyond slamming shells up each other's arses.

Mario Kart DS

Well, my second attempt at playing online was less successful. I tried a Worldwide match and got three opponents, but after the first race only one was left and then he lagged out a couple of races later. I was hoping that it would count it as a win for me in my stats, but no, it didn't change anything. Ah well.

By the way, my friends code can be found here.

Mario Kart DS

Brilliant.

Started off with some housekeeping. Designed a rubbish emblem, entered loads of friends codes, all that.

Then I did the first 50cc cup without any difficulty.

Then I decided to test it out online. None of my friends seemed to be on, so I went for a continental match. After a long search, it found a couple of people for me to play against. One person quit out after the first race, leaving just myself and someone called Jenko racing each other. He was, quite frankly, better than me. He could get fast starts, for one thing. I've got a couple, but haven't got the timing down yet. But he wasn't better than me by too much. I won a couple of races and we went through two complete race series before I decided to quit out.

Oddly, my WFC stats now say I've won one and lost two, so I don't really know how they're worked out.

But, anyway, that was fantastic fun. Racing one other person is greater than racing seven computer characters, no contest.

Doom RPG

Played five minutes of Final Fantasy on the loo today, but spent both bus journeys engrossed with Doom RPG. So engrossed that I wasn't far off missing my stop on the way home.

It's fantasically enjoyable and addictive, but it's impossible to explain why. I'm wracking my brains here, but I'm stumped. It doesn't look too great, it's not very deep, but it's just... smooth, I suppose. It just flows, with barely a dull moment. Somehow, the balance of exploration, combat and reading text seems to have been perfectly judged.

I really think everyone with a compatible phone should play it, but I'd have a better chance of convincing people to try it if I could explain why it's so great.

Tony Hawk's American Sk8land

Hooray!

A combo of 56,540!

I'm great!

Well, no, I'm rubbish, but I'm great by my own low standards.

This is one of those rare games that makes me want to write a thank you letter to the developers, because they've really done so much more than they needed to. It's such a nice package.

Tony Hawk's American Sk8land

Hmm, I'm getting better, but I can't seem to download a custom board. I'm sure I'd selected one on the web site, but when I go to the download art menu it says it has, but I can't find it anywhere. I'll have to check the web site. (EDIT: Yes, as soon as I checked I worked it out, no worries.)

Anyway, custom boards aren't very important. What is important is that classic mode is excellent and knowing that every run will add to the stats on the web site make even rubbish runs seem like they have a point. Even though goals got in classic mode don't seem to count as far as the web site's concerned.

I've done a 12 trick combo now. And a combo that got me over 30,000 points.

I know, I know, lots of people can do combos in the millions, but 30,000 is good for me, okay?

Tony Hawk's American Sk8land

I know, I know, worst title in the history of gaming.

But it's the first online DS game out in the UK, so how was I meant to resist?

Setting it up to go online was incredibly easy. I typed in my SSID and WEP password and it got on the network without a single problem. In the world of wireless networking that's incredible. I even had a chicken here ready to sacrifice. I guess I'll have to keep him as a pet. I'll call him Alamo.

Didn't do much apart from test it out, mind. I did a couple of classic runs in the wireless section and was awful. I guess I need to play offline to work things out and upgrade stats and stuff. Seems to be a decent Tony Hawk game at first glance. I've had a few years away from them after getting incredibly tired of the whole thing around the time of the fourth game, so it should feel at least vaguely fresh.

Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories

I failed a mission! I was runing from the cops and my car blew up. I got out, but my passenger didn't. Ah well. I went exploring instead. Found a sniper rifle, so had a nice MWA HA HA HA HA moment and then went home for my tea.

As you do.

Doom RPG

It's excellent.

Yes, I've decided.

It's just fun and is very good for wasting on the bus. It's not too deep, but when has Doom been deep? This has lots of monsters to kill and secrets to find and barrells to blow up and passcodes to type in and... and... well, that's more or less it, but it's all very playable. For about a fiver, you really can't complain.

Recommended.

Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories

This is odd. I'm normally rubbish at missions in GTA games, but I've done loads now and I've had to redo one of them, as far as I can remember. I'm sure the difficultly level will ramp up soon, but it's been fun so far.

Just protected a casino from a rival game, which I just managed to scrape through. Okay, so it's been designed so you can only just manage to scrape through it, but still. I've quite enjoyed the missions so far, actualy, rather than finding them necessary evils.

Most of them have been in-car missions, mind. On foot, things just get random.

Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories

Wow. Actually did some missions.

I 'whacked' some people ina construction site, then helped someone collect money from his ladies of the evening (which involved beating a couple of pimps to death with a baseball bat) and then rescued some of the family from a gas station hold up that had gone horribly wrong.

And people say these games are violent!

Only playing because the batteries in my DS decided to die and because I'm feeling to lazy to play Shadow of the Colossus. It's a good filler game.

Sonic Rush

Zone four finished.

I still have no idea if the game's any bloody good or not.

I just can't tell.

Sonic Rush

Not only do I die because I miss jumps, but it's so colourful and it moves so fast that I can't even tell what I actually failed to jump on. I'm just running and the game keeps making me go faster and faster and faster and faster and I can't see what's happpening and then I'm falling off the bottom of the level. Again.

I'm getting to old for this shit.

Yes, okay, so you can make a very, very fast Sonic game. Well done. Now how about one that's actually playable for those of us who haven't got the reflexes of a bluebottle on speed?

Shadow Of The Colossus

Well, phew.

Colossi seven and eight disposed of.

Number seven didn't take very long.

Number eight... did. Over an hour, in fact. Firstly because it took me ages to work out what I should be doing. (I wasn't missing the obvious, I don't think, but the solution did make sense once I figured it out.) Then it took ages to actually kill the bugger once I knew how. Not helped by the fact that I got careless when I'd got him down to a sliver of health and then had to start all over again. I think that was my least favourite out of all the ones so far, but it was still good fun. It just wasn't as awesome as the others. A bit too small, I think, a bit too standard.

The music in this game is something special too. It wouldn't be nearly as atmospheric and intense without it.

Anyway, phew. Bed time soon, I think. Certainly no more gaming.

Sonic Rush

::whimpers::

It does what it says on the tin.

It zooms by at an incredible speed - except when it locks you in a room and tells you to kill a certain number of enemies or when it inexplicably turns into Streets of Rage - and it's on two screens and sometimes you stay on the same screen and some time you don't and Sonic dances to the funky new music and does 'rad' tricks in mid-air and there are THREE buttons to worry about instead of one and and and and...

This is not your father's Sonic.

Except, in other ways, it's absolutely identical to every 2D Sonic game ever. Run left to right and straight into enemies and lose your rings and then kill the enemies and then miss the one annoying jump per level that makes you fall off the bottom and die and the voice of Tails is still extremely irritating and and and...

Well, it's Sonic to the EXTREME and also to the MAX. Dudes.

I expect a new character called Poochie in the sequel.

Shadow Of The Colossus

Wow.

Four, five and six down.

Four and five were superb. Not too hard, but great fun and, yes, very intense.

(The only time I've died so far is on the first colossus when I didn't know what I was doing.)

Number six, however, has just taken me about an hour. Why? Because I am an idiot. I was thinking the camera was unhelpful and the difficulty had spiked alarmingly and the control system wasn't up to the job... but I was also thinking that I might have missed something obvious. And I had. I'd missed something completely, utterly, blindingly obvious. Something so obvious that I'd actually noticed it at the beginning of the fight and then, er, forgotten about it when it mattered. As soon I'd worked that out, he went down easily.

Great, great game. If you can play North American Playstation 2 games you have to play this.

Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney

Hooray!

Episode three has finally been finished.

I got a bit stuck for a while, having missed an obvious contradiction in the witness testimony, but I got there in the end.

Now, do I move on to episode four or give Sonic Rush a go...?

Shadow Of The Colossus

My God.

This is brilliant.

I've just beaten the first three colossi and I've only turned off because I'm exhausated.

I'll just get the annoyances out of the way first.

ANNOYANCE ONE - Right, I got very pissed off with it earlier when I couldn't make a jump. There was a jump I knew I had to make because it was the only way to go. I just couldn't do it, though, and every time I failed it took a couple of minutes to get back to try again. (The character you play is a very slow swimmer.) Turned out in the end that I'd been pushing the joystick in slightly the wrong direction and that there's actually a nice visual clue to show you when you're pointing in the right direction. So that was my fault, really.

ANNOYANCE TWO - Um, I suppose the horse controls can be a bit clumsy at times.

ANNOYANCE THREE - Er, nope, I'm stuck now. I've not even noticed any of the framerate issues people have been going on about.

So that's what's wrong with it. What's right with it?

GOOD THING ONE - It looks gorgeous. You can see the compromises made to fit it into the PS2 hardware - which is poncy videogame twat talk for 'it looks like a Playstation 2 game because it is' - but the design and the lighting and everything are astounding. The colossi themselves look wonderful. The hair looks great, they're huge and they've got real personality. (The personality is basically: "Huh? What's going on? I've just woken up and some little bastard's firing arrows at me. Bugger off, kid! Get away with you!")

GOOD THING TWO - The controls work properly and you can invert them both horizontally and veritically as you see fit.

GOOD THING THREE - The battles are going to make every boss battle in every other game ever seem lame. I've never played anything like it. They're puzzles, as much as anything, where you have to work out how to get to the colossis' weak spots. Each one takes ages. There's the initial part when you're feeling it out and running away to recover health, which has a rhythm all of its own. And then there's the part where you jump on to the colossus and things get...

GOOD THING FOUR - Intense. That's the word that most leaps out while playing. (Shortly followed by 'fun' and 'awesome'.) Clambering over these huge beings is breath-taking. And when one shakes you loose and you slam your finger on to L1 and just manage to grab a a piece of rock sticking out of the beast's head and get shaken around a hundred feet above the ground, well, there just aren't any words for it. It's something new entirely.

There's always a chance the difficulty curve will be all out of whack and I'll have to give up on this before the end, but first impressions are that this is another absolute classic. A real one. A touchstone game that we'll look back on and which will seem to define this generation.

The Playstation is as much about ICO and Shadow of the Colossus as it is FIFA and Need For Speed. Let's not forget that.

Doom RPG

Played this on the bus on the way home because I had my phone in my hand after finishing this month's Fortean Times and thought I might as well give it another go. Doom RPG, that is. Not the Fortean Times. Or the phone itself. Or the bus. Or anything.

I'm babbling.

Anyway, I think it might actually be rather good. I'm not standing outside the exit of the first level. I thought I was going to get to level two, but looked up and realised I'd nearly missed my stop. It shouldn't work, but there's something about the game and the way it's so finely tuned to mobile phone play that just makes it an excellent time killer.

And you do get to kill zombies, after all.

Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories

Shoot. Kill. Drive. Jump. Die.

Etc.

Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney

Another day of twisty, turny investigation.

It's really impossible to talk about, because just about anything I say would ruin it, but it is damn good stuff.

It's a great time to be a gamer.

Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney

I'm back!

Even though it's been a few weeks since I last played I could remember where I was, more or less.

It's just so good. It's laugh-out-loud funny and just generally one of the best things to ever be shoved into a cartridge.

I'm up to the end of the first day of the third episode now. It's not a small game.

Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories

Yes, it's easy to be a bit sniffy and point out the flaws.

But there's also no denying that starting vigilante missions when you've got a three star wanted rating results in some of the best fun it's possible to have with a video game.

Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories

It's great!

But the blurring and the second-long pauses when it searches for sound effects!

Oh!

I mean, it is great fun, but it has problems. The blurring's probably the worst thing, I reckon. Sometimes it can be really difficult to actually see what's going on.

The Movies

Just a quick session. (By which I mean about an hour and a half.)

It's become less interesting now that I know what's going on, but it's still compulsive. I just had what could have been my first three star movie get let down by a bad script and an overused set. Grrr.

And I still haven't got any of my stars have any sort of friendships yet. Some of them have know each thirty years, for pity's sake!

I've just written my own sci-fi epic, but the people I want in it are either working on a cheapo action flick I'm making to introduce a new star or so stressed out after the last movie that I daren't put them to work. Time for some relaxation time for my stars. I wish they'd stop complaining about their bloody trailers. I'm doing what I can, damn it!

Apart from the odd script design, I'm definitely concentrating on the management game, rather than the movie-making tools right now, which is slightly unexpected.

The Movies

May I present to you my sweeping epic love story... Tenderspirit.

So beautiful. I believe it may forever remain my masterpiece.

The Movies

I didn't mean to buy this today...

I think I'm glad I did. It just made three and a half hours disappear like nothing, though. When a game does that I'm really not sure if it's very, very good or very, very bad.

I've basically been doing things at random, feeling my way through the game. The management aspects I've got down, more or less, but the movie-making aspects I'm still learning. I only just unlocked the post-production tools and haven't tested them out yet. But I've also unlocked some sort of colour film, which is cool.

I'm currently taking a break in the middle of trying to change my studio from one which churns out tons and tons of crap to one which actually makes half-decent movies. Not sure if that's possible yet, but I'm going to give my actors and directors time to calm down between films and relax a bit. They've been throwing tantrums a lot lately, but new trailers and some pay raises seem to have helped. I've got a script that I worked on myself - it's a sci-fi epic! - ready to go when everyone's recovered a bit from the frenzied bought of low-budget film-making I've put them through.

So, anyway, the latest movie to be released by my studio, Romero Pictures, is The Quiet Gun - and if you click on the name you should be able to watch it. It even works on my Mac!

Gunstar Super Heroes

Moon 2.

There's a vertically scrolling shooter section.

Normally, that's my favourite style of game IN THE WORLD EVER.

But I just can't get past this bit. Grr.

Halo 2

I was updating my card details on my Xbox Live account (the card I used ran out in September and I want everything set up properly for the 360 transfer next month) and while the Xbox was on for the first time in weeks I thought I might as well play some Halo 2.

Oh Lord, I'd forgotten how much fun it is. I mean, I'm not good. I normally come one place from the bottom in any match I play, seemingly. I'm a bit rubbish. But it's still so much fun. SO. MUCH. FUN. IN CAPS AND EVERYTHING.

I even did a round on my least favourite map (the one with the train) with my least favourite weapons (sniper rifles) and I still had massive amounts of fun. It's nothing complicated. I just do Quick Match Rumble Pit games which are generally just about running around shooting everyone else. I don't do team games or anything with people I don't know. I just run around the same old places doing the same old thing. Over and over again.

And it's great.

Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories

Another half hour or so of pissing about.

Fun, but very familiar fun. So much so that I found myself driving to the old GTA3 save point just now.

The two hidden packages I can see but not get are annoying me greatly.

I should do some missions at some point, I suppose.

Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories

It's a GTA game.

But it doesn't look quite as good.

And the controls aren't quite as good.

And a lot of the post-GTA3 improvements have been brought over, but not quite all of them. It's annoying not being able to jump up and grab the tops of walls and fences, for example.

I only did the first mission and then buggered about exploring for a while, trying to get used to the controls. It's not easy, but I don't think it'll hurt the game too much, Certainly, the familiarity of the map is going to be the main hinderance to long-term enjoyment. It's similar enough to GTA3 to be annoying, while being different enough to be, er, annoying. Haven't found any hidden packages yet. If they exist. I think I may have seen one, but it seems to be somewhere impossible to get.

And I wanted the garage to have a Banshee in it, damn it!

It's certainly a worthy achievement and I tip my hat to all the guys and girls that worked on it, but I'm not quite sure if I want a handheld GTA3. Maybe if I travelled more.

Oh, and having subtitles off by default is an odd choice, especially as I don't think you can put them on during the first cut scene. How many people always have sound on when playing a handheld, eh?

Doom

Well, I put the Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories in the PSP, then realised I'd need to update the firmware to play it, which would mean getting up and plugging it in to the wall, which seem like far too much effort.

So I took my final chance to play some Doom on the PSP. The controls are shite and it's horribly, horribly blurry... but it's still Doom, and therefore great.

Just not as great as it is on a PC without those new-fangled annoying Windows keys that get in the way so badly when playing Doom.

World of Warcraft

My first mission into contested territory. That's where enemy players are free to kill me. I didn't see any, but I died anyway. I wasn't ready. I'll need to find some more missions in The Barrens or Silverpine before going back there.

For one thing, Donkey is only up to level 14. Quite impressive, in a way, but it means he's still pretty useless.

World of Warcraft

I called my spider Donkey.

World of Warcraft

My God! How much did the level twenty talents cost?!?

I'm really starting to feel broke now.

I read a web site that said my wind serpent was one of the very few bad pets in the game, so I got rid of it. Tried a few new pets, before deciding for some reason that it would be fun to tame a level three spider and level it up into something useful. Which basically means I won't have a useful pet for a long, long time, which is a bit of a disadvantage, really.

Oh, and it took me thirty-six hours to get up to level twenty. That's thirty-six hours in... has it been two weeks yet? I don't think so. What makes it so compulsive? I wish I could tell.

World of Warcraft

Wind serpent's called Tara now. Well, she is a kind of amber colour. Does fit. Sort of.

I've just down a load of quests, got to level nineteen and, indeed, halfway to twenty. Quests for my level seem to be getting thinner on the ground now, though, so I think I'm going to nip back to Silverpine for a bit and finish off a couple I've got there.

Once that's done I might have to go back to The Crossroads and do some quests that don't appeal until I get sent somewhere new. Trouble is, somewhere new is probably going to be contested territory, where I find out how annoying being on a PvP server is. It was quite annoying when I used to group and it was close to release, so most people were about my level.

Now I'm on a server where the majority of people seem to be level fifty and above and who don't have any qualms about killing people thirty levels lower than them.

Gulp.

This is what I signed up for, though. Willingly and with eyes open.

World of Warcraft

Won't let me name my new wind serpent 'Norma Jean'.

Invalid name.

Stupid game.

Dunno if I'll keep her, anyway. She only eats bread and cheese, both of which cost money. Meat and fish eating pets are much easier to keep happy.

World of Warcraft

My first taste of PvP since starting again.

It involved me suddenly seeing a fireball flying towards me and dying in one hit.

Bit higher level than me, you see.

Still, I did my best.

World of Warcraft

Lots of good stuff this evening. I made it up to level eighteen and Pooh got up to level seventeen. We went into contested territory for the first time and found a bear that was so high level the game wouldn't even tell me what level it was. Pooh died. I ran. That's what pets are for. Learnt some new skills that might come in handy. Made myself a new gun.

Trouble was, the gun cost me a lot of money. I found the parts I could, but I ended up having to buy some parts, including some expensive leather to complete it, which really wasn't cheap. I guess I could have asked the guild for the leather, but I don't want to leech. I can't contribute anything yet, after all. Anyway, the new skills and the gun parts cost well over 1G and my previously healthy balance is now looking a lot lower than I'd like.

It occurs to me that I probably could have bought a new weapon that was better than the gun for half the price it ended up costing me, but I like making my own stuff. And I have to get my engineering skills up somehow.

Gunstar Super Heroes

Played through the first level.

Moves along fast you like without a hint of slowdown, so far.

Lots of shooting. And kicking.

Incomprehensible story.

Some endlessly respawning enemies. Run!

Quite a few save points in the first level, although there isn't one right before the first boss (who took me two attempts).

I'm playing on Normal difficulty, which could be a mistake, given how hard Treasure like to make their games.

Basically, it's Gunstar Heroes / Astro Boy. Or, to put it another way, exactly what I expected.

World of Warcraft

Gah.

I've been opening ports and forwarding ports and shutting down virus scanners and all sorts, but I get disconnected everytime I go somewhere with more than about three other people in it. Orgrimmar, Undercity, even The Crossroads, just disconnect after disconnected after disconnected. It's just taken me about forty-five minutes to get from the gate of Ogrimmar, to the windmaster in Orgrimmar, to the windmaster at The Crossroads, to the inn at The Crossroads. Sometimes I was being disconnected before I could even walk one step.

Gah.

Not much fun.

GT Legends Demo

First off, THE FUCKING FREE DOWNLOADABLE DEMO decided to install FUCKING HORRIBLE COPY PROTECTION SOFTWARE on to my PC, which required a reboot. Copy protection? On a demo? For fuck's sake. PULL YOUR FUCKING HEADS OUT OF YOUR FUCKING ARSES, publishers. Oooh, I'm angry. Grrr.

Anyway, it was the same copy protection stuff as Space Rangers, as far as I can tell, so it's not that big a deal with me. (Though, interestingly, my anti-virus software complained about being disabled when I rebooted and I had to go in and re-enable it. Hmm.)

Still not as scary as Sony Audio CDs.

But was the demo worth it? Well, no, not really. It's a hardcore driving simulator or 'unplayable', as we used to say. Really, I just couldn't keep the thing on the road. I tried all three cars. I did kind of like it, in an odd way, but the whole not being able to go round corners thing took some of the shine off it.

World of Warcraft

Well, I thought I'd play it for an hour or so. My normal server seemed to be down, as did my alt servers, so I started a new alt on a completely new server.

So I now have an orc Shaman called Revdoc on Frostbiter.

Got him up to level three, but it took a while as everybody else seemed to be constructing alts on this server, so the low-level farming grounds were full of players and enemy corpses. Most of my time was spent waiting for respawns and trying to taf newly spawned creatures before any bloody hunters got in first.

First impressions are that Shamans seem pretty good, but it's pretty much impossible to tell what a class is like that early. I'm wondering if I should create one on my normal server at some point and give it a good go. Seems like it might be possible to solo with one, though I'm never quite sure how easy it would be to solo without a pet.

Final Fantasy I

I'm mainly Nanowrimoing (it's a word! shush!) right now, but I did do some wandering and random battling while on the toilet earlier.

And then realised I'd gone back the way I'd come from last time I played, so I had to wander back again.

D'oh!