Mega Man Powered Up

Hooray! Now 0.8% of the way through New Style mode! I'm flying!

Mega Man Powered Up

I couldn't get any further with the Old Style game after playing more, so I tried New Style, which is more different than I thought it would be. There's an extra initial stage and the two main stages I've seen so far are very different from the originals, but with lots of hints of the original layouts. Anyway, did the first stage with Mega Man and Roll, then did the Cut Man stage with Mega Man. Tried the Gut Man stage after that, but just couldn't do it. That left me with a completion percentage of 0.6%. Of New Style mode, not including Old Style or the challenges.

And talking of challenges, I'd unlocked the Cut Man ones, so did the first two of them without much trouble. Then the third one took me a long, long, long time. Number of goes well into triple figures. But unlike, say, Marble Blast, it doesn't feel unfair or impossible. The fourth Cut Man challenge was hard, but much, much easier and went down within thirty or forty tries. The fifth one... well, I took one look at it and ran away. Tried the third Mega Man one, having down the first two earlier, but just couldn't do it. After about twenty tries I was really feeling tired, so I just gave up.

I'm knackered and the battery is low again, anyway. You do get an awful lot of game for your money.

Mega Man Powered Up

I've just used up a fully charged battery on this, near enough. PSP needs more battery life.

Mostly Old Style game, which is almost the same as the original Mega Man game. Music and graphics have been changed and enemies and bullets don't pass through walls any more, which makes a big difference. Did the Cutman level - twice, because autosave, er, doesn't - then the Gutman level, then the Bombman level. No real trouble with any of them. Then tried the Elecman level. Getting to the end isn't a problem, but Elecman has a stupidly powerful attack and I can hardly get any hits in before he kills me. It's annoying. So I tried the Iceman level and haven't been able to get to the end of that at all yet.

Other than that, I tried a couple of the challenge levels, which were fun. I see you need to play the New Style game to unlock new challenges, but I don't really want to play that until I've finsihed off Old Style. However, Old Style may be a bit too tough, so maybe I'll have a crack at New Style later.

Also went online and downloaded a user made level called "Just try it!!" Was fine until I got to a bit I just couldn't do at all. Broken level or am I just rubbish? I don't know.

Football Manager Handheld

Ah. No transfer budget. Well, £3K, which is as good as nothing.

Played my three pre-season friendlies. Not good results.

This coming season may be... tricky.

Football Manager Handheld

End of my first season.

English League Cup: Second Round
English FA Cup: Fourth Round
English League Two: 3rd

Yes, third. We climbed that far back up the table by the end, helped no end by Robinson turning into a goal-scoring god for the last few matches of the season. Only third on goal difference, mind. In fact, we had exactly the same won, drawn and lost stats as Bury, the team who came fourth. We also had scored the same number of goals. The only difference was that they'd let in twenty (!) more goals than we had.

And third means automatic promotion. So now League One beckons. It's quite scary. I don't think I'm going to hope for more than survival. I wonder if I'll get any transfer funds?

Connell, one of my best strikers, won the young player of the year award for League Two. I'd be more pleased if he hadn't broken his leg a couple of weeks before the end of the season. We'll be lucky to see him in action this year.

Mega Man Anniversary Edition

Jumped forward to Mega Man 8 this evening. I seem to have done one level before, so I tried another. And another. And another. And another. In fact, I tried all four that were open to me. Only got through to one boss - Tengu Man - and couldn't kill him. After upgrading my charged shot I managed to get him to about two-thirds health at one point, but that was the best I did.

Still, it's a pretty good game. A bit too busy at times, making it less precise than the first game, and the side-scrolling and snow boarding bits I found were a bit rubbish, but I still had fun.

Hooray for Mega Man!

I've got Virtua Tennis and Burnout Legends to trade in towards Mega Man Powered Up tomorrow.

Football Manager Handheld

League form inconsistent in February and early March, but we're still looking for a play-off place.

More importantly in my head right now we've just lost the LDV Vans Trophy on away goals. A horrible injury in the second leg and it finished 2-2 against Cholcester at home after a 0-0 first leg. I am gutted. Completely. Sick as a parrot, even.

New Kameo Demo

Yep, there's a new demo of Kameo up on Live Marketplace.

I can see what they were trying to do - give a little taster of all the different bits of the game - but it's just odd and confusing and unsatisfying and not a patch on the old demo.

And that boss battle has put me right off ever buying the game now.

Mega Man Anniversary Edition

I've been really wanting to get Mega Man Powered Up for the PSP. Bit odd, as I've never really played Mega Man games. It just sounds so packed full of great stuff - challenges! level designer! downloadable designed levels! - and looks so nice. And it doesn't hurt that I'm full of PSP love at the moment.

Anyway, I've been trying to stop myself from getting it and realised today that I have Mega Man Anniversary Collection for the Gamecube, which I've hardly played at all. Mega Man is on there and Mega Man Powered Up is a remake of that game, so I should play Mega Man, realise I don't like it much and be at peace.

See?

Except... I've just lost my evening to the bloody game. It's ace. I barely got three screens in last time I played, or something, but this evening I've finished two levels and seen the boss on a third. It's lovely stuff. With cool graphics, more stuff and sound effects that don't drive me insane, the PSP version is now a definite must buy.

Shit. I hate it when that happens.

I also gave Mega Man 2 a quick go out of curiousity. Seems to be more of the same but - gulp - possibly even harder.

Football Manager Handheld

Three games at lunchtime, two wins and a draw. That's taking us up to seventh - which is a play-off spot. Now we just have to hold it...

Football Manager Handheld

Another two matches on the bus this morning.

First was a comfortable away win, second was a 2-2 draw away at Grimsby. Was happy with that. They're above us in the league and I was resting three or four of my first team regulars who were starting to look a bit shagged out.

We've not been able to climb above 11th in the table, but I'm hoping we'll get there. I really want a play-off place.

Loco Roco Demo

It's very, very replayable.

There are still secret areas I can see but not get to. And probably ones I can't see.

Football Manager Handheld

That's better!

I had the idea that maybe I needed more presence in midfield, so should move back to 4-4-2 from 4-3-3. Posted about my collapse on the official forum and received the same advice from one of the nice developers of the game, who really should know.

So I tried it out and - hoo-rah! - we're winning again.

Six games in January. Four wins, a draw and a loss. And the loss was an FA Cup match against Hull, who are two divisions higher than us, so that wasn't too much of a shock.

This game is bloody great.

Football Manager Handheld

I don't know what's going on.

I played through December this lunchtime. Lots and lots of league games, of which we lost all but one, which was a 1-0 win over Shrewsbury. League win is nice, but one out of six matches, or however many it was, is just rubbish. We're down to 14th now.

And an LDV Vans cup match against Swansea, a division higher than Torquay. We won it comfortably.

The board won't give me money for new players. And they won't pay high enough wages to tempt any good players in. And talking of the board, instead of being delighted with my performance as manager, they're now only pleased. Slippery slope?

Maybe I should see if there are any jobs going...

Football Manager Handheld

A tale of two matches on the bus this morning.

First up, away to Bristol Rovers in the FA Cup. We thrashed them 4-1 without seeming to break much of a sweat.

Then a league match away at Boston Utd. We lost 2-1, with the consolation goal coming with virtually the last kick of the game.

Same old story. Cup, good; league, bad. We're down to seventh now. Okay, so the league match was only two days after the cup match, but I was hoping the euphoria of the big win would be more important than tiredness. I guess not.

It's weird and annoying, this form. And what's with Walton? An absolute star in cup matches - in his five cup appearances he's got man of the match twice and hammered in goals - he just doesn't do a thing in the league.

And we're really missing Woods in defence. I'm having to play Lloyd out on the right and he was much happier on the left. He'll probably just get used to playing on the right when Woods gets fit again and I swap him back.

Loco Roco Demo

Those lovely people at Sony have released a demo of Loco Roco for the PSP. I've just spent a good forty-five minutes or so playing it. And it's wonderful. It's a 2D platformer at heart, where you control a blob and try to get from left to right, eating fruit to make you grow. Left shoulder button tilts the world left, right one tilts it right, pressing both makes you jump. Press O quickly to split your big blob into little ones, hold O down to recombine them. It's got lots of charm, bags of fun and tons of secrets. The obvious comparison has to be Katamari Damacy. Hoepfully this'll be another - gnng - "wacky" game that crosses over to a larger audience.

(Well, at least in the States Katamari seemed to crossover. Over here it just seemed to die, as far as I can tell.)

It's a sure buy for me, though I can see it getting too hard later in the game and making me cry.

If you have a PSP and you don't mind updating your firmware then you really need to go and get this. Instructions over at Eurogamer should see you through. Go, go, go!

Football Manager Handheld

Oh dear. A few more injuries has exposed the lack of depth in my squad.

This lunchtime I played through four games. Three of them were league games, all three were defeats. But at least the win in the other game means I'm now through to the quarter finals of the LDV Vans Throphy...

One problem is fitness. I've been neglecting the fitness training, so now a lot of players don't recover to top condition between matches. But training fitness any harder leans to more injuries.

I've got my two first choice central defenders out, Kuffour's still out, Bedeau was out for the matches I played this lunchtime but is okay now and we've got a few others out, too.

Hopefully Bedeau coming back will help. He was a great asset in midfield and we've really felt his loss. At least, I hope the loss of Bedeau was the problem. If not, we're stuck.

I've got a sneaking suspicion that the PSP has seen that I'm better in attack than defence and has reacted accordingly. Though maybe that's paranoia. But it does seem that I'm facing more teams coming out to smack me down in the first half before locking up tight in the second.

Football Manager Handheld

A fraught bus journey into work today.

Just one game, but it was the FA Cup tie against Cambridge City. An easy game, so I rested Woods and Connell, who weren't at peak fitness in the run up to the game. Connell especially has been getting tired lately, so I thought the rest might do him good. (If not, I'll have to put him on fitness training for a while.) Put Goodwin in for Woods, who I think is the only player I've signed who has actually played in the team.

I'm trying not to blame him for the fact that Cambridge City went 1-0 up almost immediately, as I've got no proof it was his fault. I'm also trying not to blame for the fact that after we equalised they went ahead ahead again half way through the first half.

I took him off at half time and we ended up winning 5-2, much to my relief. Can I lay the early trouble at Goodwin's door, or is it just a case of Cambridge City coming out fighting but not having the legs to see the game through?

Anyway, we've been drawn against Bristol Rovers in round two who, like us, are jostling for space at the top of the League Two table. I've got a decision to make - do I concentrate on the FA Cup or the league? League does make more sense. We're not going to win the cup, so getting through another round or two would be ultimately meaningless. But there's something about the cup that fires the imagination. Maybe it's just that each match is so meaningful, unlike the league where the odd defeat can be shrugged off. I'm not sure. Maybe I should treat the next cup tie as a normal match, with no special preparations at all.

I shall ponder.

Zuma

Well, my eyes are now unable to focus, but I'm now up to stage eight.

Well worth it.

Zuma

Hooray! I finally got off Stage 5. Didn't get an achievement for it, though. It was definitely worth one.

Stage 6 isn't letting me past right now, the git.

Geometry Wars 2

What a bizarre session. Fifteen or twenty games, only got above 100,000 three times. Which, for those who don't know, is so crap it's just plain weird.

However, one of those games saw me get 343,000, beating my previous best score by 50,000 points. How odd.

Eight thousand short of the next target on my friends list though. Bah.

Marble Blast Ultra

Final advanced levels are stupid. I've just checked. They will never be completed.

BEGONE!

Animal Crossing: Wild World

Fishing tournament winner is me!

Football Manager Handheld

Well, I should be happy. Two league wins on the trot have seen us go top of League Two. Priso got a 10 out of 10 rating in one of those matches, my first of the game. I've just won Manager of the Month for October. We've been drawn in the FA Cup against Cambridge City.

All good things. But putting a downer on all that is the fact that Jo Kuffour got a calf strain in the last game which is going to see him out for two months. I'm really not sure how we'll do without him. He always seems to be mixed up in the action, even if he's not scored an awful lot.

Football Manager Handheld

Two matches on the bus into work. A league game against a team way below us in the table which we lost, sending us back down into fourth, followed by the first round of the LDV Vans Trophy against Cheltenham, which we won. We've drawn Leyton Orient in round two. We should be able to beat them, but I'm not confident about any match right now.

Football Manager Handheld

And a 2-0 win against Cheltenham puts us back on track and means I can go to bed feeling slightly more positive.

Gunbird 2

The DC version, prompted by someone saying they'd completed it on one credit on their first go.

I got as far as the level two boss once. That was my best effort. And I typed my name in wrong on the high score table.

Sigh.

Football Manager Handheld

I finally got up the courage to continue the game. We scored an early goal, but Leicester quickly came back with two of their own and sent us crashing out of the League Cup.

And since that match our league form has wobbled. We're up into second, but we've had a draw or two and we've just lost to Rushden away. Morale is still okay, but it's wavering. I'm worried it's about to crash. We need a few good wins in a row.

Football Manager Handheld

Torquay are now unbeaten in eight games.

We're fourth in League Two. Unfortunately, the three teams above are also on great form so I've been fourth for a few weeks without being able to get any higher.

Next game is the big League Cup match against Leicester, so I'm taking a break before I dare play it.

I'm really crossing my fingers that I get through the next few days without any injuries. Even with a full-strength team I might not be able to win, but I'd like to give it a go.

Pokemon Trozei

I have now caught 41.9% of the possible Pokemon.

Last I check, P'anther was at about 55% and that was ages ago. I have some catching up to do.

Animal Crossing: Wild World

Rubbish fishing today.

Hardly anything and what there was was tiny.

Ended up finally getting hold of a 47.5 inch sea bass, which is the current leader in today's tournament.

Blazing Angels Demo

Tried this again. Someone left a long comment here saying I should and I noticed deKay had played it, so I thought I'd jump in again.

The voice acting hasn't got any better.

But this time I managed to drop the flyers over the church in the tutorial bit. Hoorah! And then I shot some Germans down and sunk some battleships and shot some more Germans down and then let parliament get destroyed. Because I'm rubbish. I've always been terrible at lfying games and this is no different. It's better than most - rather like Rogue Squadron without the Star Wars - and it was quite fun at time, but I ended up just getting annoyed with having to wrestle with my plane, as I always seem to in these games.

Better second impressions than first impressions, then, but I can't see myself buying it. I probably wouldn't even play it much if I got it for free. It's just not for me. Apart from the voice acting, though, it doesn't seem bad as far as these things go.

SiN

Came free with a pre-order of SiN Episodes on Steam, so I thought I'd give it a go. I was aware of it when it came out, but I'm sure my PC was up to it, even if the game hadn't been notoriously buggy.

It doesn't seem buggy so far, but it does look quite, quite horrible. However, after a few moments getting used to the feel of the thing, I began to enjoy it. A run and gun FPS with hostages, headshots and helicopters. Being old it ran completely smoothly at a fair old pace. Nice.

But then I got to a bit with security guns firing at me and I couldn't work out to get past them, so I turned it off.

Space Channel 5

Thought I'd try this again. I've had an extra five or six years of video game practice since I last tried it, after all.

But, no, I still can't get past level one. I normally end with a viewing figure of 13% and less than 15% means cancellation.

I don't think I'll ever see level two, but maybe I'll try again in another five years.

It's ridiculously hard and it's made even more annoying by the fact that everyone else on earth seems to think it's stupidly easy. Bah.

Tower Bloxx

I've got 10,568 people living in my city now, but it's getting really tricky to find ways to get more in. I really need to think about how the layout rules work.

It's a head-scratcher, planning this city.

Pokemon Trozei

Of course, the next time I tried after posting that last message I kicked her arse all the way to... er... [POKEMON LOCATION NAME]. You'd think I'd remember at least one, wouldn't you?

Pokemon Trozei

Aquarella is kicking my butt.

A lot.

Ow.

Chu Chu Rocket Demo

A mobile phone demo, that is. You can get it for free, with no hidden nastiness that I've noticed, by texting CHUCHU to 60030 if you're in the UK, which will give you a link to the WAP site. So, er, that's free apart from any WAP charges. Which is slightly different.

There's not much of it, truth be told. Took me less than two minutes to do the three puzzle levels and the challenge level included in the demo. Really could have done with a bit more meat, maybe including some of the harder levels from the 100 included in the full game. The three "puzzles" in the demo are ridiculously trivial.

Ah well, I won't buy it, at least not right now. But I might dig up my old GBA copy and shove it in my Micro tonight.

Oh, and you can play it for free online here.

Tower Bloxx

I've now filled my city with towers and it has a population of 7,980 and is level 14/20.

I've been given a parade by my citizens... and been told that to get to the highest city level I need a population of 19,000.

This may take longer than I was expecting.

Tower Bloxx

BAD THING: It's bloody hard to play on a moving bus.

GOOD THING: My city building progress has slowed down a lot, which should help me get a few more precious minutes from that mode.

Animal Crossing: Wild World

Big Top tried to move out last night, so I asked him to say. Several times, until I got a "good" answer.

Started it up this morning to see if he's unpacked, but he was asleep, so couldn't check. Lazy bloody elephant.

Sahara was outside, so I gave Pelly a carpet to give to Phyllis, gave Blathers some wallpaper he'd ordered and then Sahara gave me some Meadow Vista wallpaper, which fits perfectly into my grass-floored room.

Pokemon Trozei

It properly clicked this evening and now I seem to be hopelessly addicted.

Damn it.

Unown levels are a real pain, though.

Tower Bloxx

Decided to download this for my phone after reading this review. Took me bloody ages to find somewhere selling it, but found it on Yahoo! in the end. Seems to be a reasonable €3 and that doesn't seem to involve signing up for anything nasty.

Anyway, I've had a go and it's good fun. Another example of one-button gaming, like Skipping Stone, but with a more fleshed out main mode where you have to build a city. It gets complicated because bigger towers, as well as being harder to build, can only be placed near certain other towers, so city layout becomes a head-spinning challenge. Well, it is for me. I've laid out my city in a bad way, so I need to recover it. Luckily, you can overwrite old buildings.

Only concern for now is that after a few minutes of play I've got up to level 11 of 20, but I can always replay. And there's the endless high score mode there, too.

It's one of those games that seems stupidly easy when everything's going okay, but then can turn into a disaster with one false move. Rhythm, you see.

Pokemon Trozei

It seems to be a good little puzzle game.

Bit confused by the structure. Are silhouetted Pokemon ones I've not got?

How do I tell if I've earned the prize coin for a stage? Or can I just earn multiple coins from one stage?

It's all very complicated.

Elder Scrolls: Oblivion

I'm the Grand Arena Champion.

Other than that, I just wandered around aimlessly. My heart wasn't in it today.

All the special items I've been earning are rubbish. Armor worse than stuff I've got, weapons that I can't use.

Animal Crossing: Wild World

Gah! I got Resetti again, even though I saved before turning off last night. I hate it when that happens. This is the third time, I think. It's very, very annoying.

Elder Scrolls: Oblivion

I felt a bit lost when I started it up, the main quest being finished with.

So what did I do? Well, I decided go to the Arena. I'd never even been into the Arena District of the Imperial City before. Bet 50G on the blue team and lost. Gambling's never been my thing. (Though I did get my own back my stealing 500G from the bookmaker later.) So I decided to enter the ring myself.

Piece of piss, it is. I've been using my trusty Sickening Bow, only changing my lovely fire sword Smelter when the long range thing isn't working. I go out, fight, come back, heal myself and then conjure up and soul trap some scamps to refill my magical weapons. At the end of the day I wander over to the weapons shop to get some repairs done. It's a good living and I'm up to Gladiator rank already.

Elder Scrolls: Oblivion

Ah, well, the main quest was shorted than I thought. All done and dusted now.

Not the best part of the game, I reckon. All a bit dungeon-crawly.

Football Manager Handheld

And a 1-0 win at home to Carlise and it's time to put the PSP on charge.

Football Manager Handheld

Phew.

I was worried last night might be a fluke, so it was some trepidation that I started the game back up.

It soon crashed as I played around with the squad and my PSP rebooted, but I hadn't lost much. I think I'll be saving after every match now.

(Got the same draw in the League Cup both times - Leicester, might be tricky.)

I was on the edge of my seat as my next match kicked off. Away at Chester, nine places above us in League Two. I needn't have worried, it was a good 2-0 win.

(Looking at the official forum for the game, I've seen someone else has seen miracles after switching to 4-3-3. I do hope it's just our teams and management style being suited and not some super game-breaking formation.)

Animal Crossing: Wild World

Big Top's sick.

Wolfgang's moved out.

Katie's lost again and needs to get back to Vatican.

Elder Scrolls: Oblivion

Some more Oblivion gates closed and a bit more of the main quest completed.

Not sure what else can happen in the main quest, but it can't be finishing quite yet, so there must be a twist or two to come.

Football Manager Handheld

Well, that's better. I just turned it on for a game before bed, ended up having two. I changed my formation to 4-3-3 so I could play Kuffour in a position he's more comfortable in and that one change seems to have worked magic. I won my next league match, 2-0 at home against Mansfield. Good result.

But the next game was even better. We were away to Swindon in the League Cup. They're a division higher than us, so I didn't hold out much home, but we scored twice in the first five minutes, then Walton came on as a second half sub and hammered one home in the eighty-forth minute, just to really kick Swindon when they were down. Excellent stuff.

And I've bought a chap called Lee Goodwin from Dagenham & Redbridge. He's really just to cover the right side where I'm short on players, but I brought him on as a late sub in the Swindon game and he didn't seem to do badly. Got a six and we kept a clean sheet, but probably not really much of test.

Football Manager Handheld

Had this sitting next to me for a couple of days, but hadn't dared start it up until this evening. Faffed around for ages and ages trying to decide who to manage, so in the end went for the random option. The game chose Torquay United for me. Suits me. I don't feel ready for the Premiership quite yet. And I've just check the BBC web site and Torquay are bottom of the real League Two, so I can't do any worse than reality.

Anyway, got two or three rubbish players on free transfers, just so I'd have some cover. Not that that made me feel much better when my two most expensive players picked up long term injuries in pre-season training. I took the fitness part of the training regime down to "light" after that and haven't had anything more than an odd knock since.

I did well in my three pre-season friendlies - two wins and a draw. But the league's proving to be a different matter. First match, lost 2-1 away at Wycombe, then lost 1-0 at home to Oxford. We've just picked up our first point of the season in our third match, away at Wrexham. Hopefully this will be the start of a good streak. Morale's holding up okay at the moment, but a lot of players are merely satisfied and I'm sure it won't take much to knock them down a bit. Goal for this season is survival, I think. Nothing more.

Oh, yes, and it's very good. Works surprisingly well on the PSP.

Elder Scrolls: Oblivion

Spent a few hours running around closing Oblivion gates. Not the most interesting part of the game, it has to be said. But they don't take long. I'm really, really fast now, so I can out run just about everything. I don't even sneak any more. I just charge through hammering my healing spell.

OutRun 2006 Coast 2 Coast

Still trying the OutRun 2 continuous route on the PSP.

Still failing.

Elder Scrolls: Oblivion

Argh!

It's too hard to stop playing!

You want to do A, but to do that you need to do B, but on the way you get distracted by C, which leads to D, so then you go back and do B, but after that you find yourself doing E instead of A and then...

Elder Scrolls: Oblivion

Played for about six straight hours today. I didn't mean to... it's just... you know... Oblivion.

Thing is, I wanted to do the main quest. But Martin wanted me to give up Axura's Star to progress. Frankly, he'd have had to prise it from my cold, dead fingers. So I had to find another item of the same type.

Which took six hours. Okay, I got distracted a bit. Ruins to explore. Twins to reunite. Ghosts to kill. That kind of thing.

But I've got an item I can part with now and I've saved the game exactly where I was standing when I started today. Tomorrow we progress.

Animal Crossing: Wild World

Deena's sick again. I'm telling you, there's something wrong with that bloody duck.

Yuka's moved in. She's a koala. Yes, I can recognise koalas now. I wasn't always able to. The name's a clue, too.

And I do feel sorry for everybody who hasn't got Big Top living in their town.

Astropop Demo

Block-moving puzzler.

Very boring for ages, then gets frantic and fun for about two minutes before death occurs.

And it looks bloody awful. I know graphics aren't especially important in this type of game, but something about the look of the thing makes me clench my jaw.

And I hate "people being suspected of something they didn't do" storylines. Sorry, that's nothing to do with the game; I'm watching ER.

Anyway, Astropop. Full version will not be bought, I don't think.

Tiger Woods PGA Tour 06 Demo

One gigabyte of data.

Four holes.

I used to own a computer with 1K of memory and you... could... do nothing with it. Okay, fair enough.

Anyway, the core golf seems pretty good. Got a triple bogey on the first hole, but an eagle on the final hole. It started to make sense quickly, then. And the analogue swinging seems a lot better than the last version of the game I played a few years ago. As it bloody well should, unless EA spend each year laughing and rolling around in piles of cash instead of actually changing their games between versions.

Still, nothing in there persuaded me to spend fifty quid on it. Fifteen, maybe, if I was desperate for some golf. (Would be twenty, but I need to be paid at least a fiver to put up with the crap EA smear all over their interfaces. While the demo has a nice, easy menu I'm sure the full game has some awfully complicated and confusing "world tour" type structure. And you probably have to say "Yes, I'm sure" eighteen times before it lets you save your game. And stuff.)

Elder Scrolls: Oblivion

Another gate closed, using the "sneak, sneak... leg it!" approach.

Did a quest where I had to kill some spies. Got told they turned up at a certain spot, so I lay in wait, saw one of them, let fly with an explosive arrow, one dead spy. She was the only one there and I got a nice message saying she was dead and I should go to talk someone about the rest of the spies. Riding my horse back to town I got a message saying another spy had died. Must have caught by a guard or a lion or something. Radiant AI doing me a favour, I guess. Odd. Also turned out he was the last spy, despite only being the second one, so the quest turned out to be a bit easy. Not that I'm complaining. There are enough hard fights in the game, I don't mind things going my way now and again.

OutRun 2006 Coast 2 Coast

Bloody hell. That fifteen stage continuous stuff is knackering. Absolutely exhausting.

Tried the OutRun 2 version on the PSP again. Got to stage thirteen, which is my best ever go, but still not good enough. Can I blame the framrate in Paris, please?

OutRun 2006 Coast 2 Coast

Just a quick race online to check out my port forwarding.

Seems to work, but leaping online after over a week without playing maybe wasn't the best idea. I came third out of four people. Well, I was in third when the race ended. I was right near the finish line, too.

Oooooooooh, I'm riled.

Animal Crossing: Wild World

HOORAY!

P'anther - WHO IS OFFICIALLY THE BEST GIRLFRIEND IN THE WORLD - just popped in to Venture to drop off an Iguanadon Skull - the last fossil I need for my collection and the one I've been looking for for months.

Best!

Nemesis The Warlock

To answer my question, yes, there is a second screen. And a third. And, I assume, a fourth, but I've not seen it.

You seem to have to kill enough enemies to take the counter on the left of the screen down to zero and then quickly run off the top right of the screen.

I'm starting to get into it, somehow. Controls could do with being more responsive, mind.

Spectrum Emulation

Been trying out some Spectrum games I remember fondly. You can play them online, you know.

Turbo Esprit - It's basically GTA 3 fifteen years too early. You can't get out of your car, but you can roam the whole city freely and kill pedestrians. I can't believe how much I played this game when I was a kid. I can still kind of see what I saw in it, but only just.

Batman - Fantasic, even now. Or it would be if the save points were good for more than one use. Restarting gets tedious. But I was so pleased when I worked out how to get the boots so I could jump. I rock.

Nemesis The Warlock - Definitely not as good as I remember. At all. I think I just thought the bodies piling up were really cool when I fourteen. Is there even a second screen?

Xbox 360

Downloaded the Amped 3 demo. People have been sniffy about a launch game getting a demo, but I think it's an excellent idea. I've been wanting to try the game out. Seems all right, as it happens. A nice big mountain and some nice relaxing play. The "throw yourself off a sledge to cause as much damage as possible" is fun, too. Random, could be better, but fun. Actually, that seems to apply to the game as a whole, though the main game d