Rainbow Six Vegas (360)

More of the single player this evening. Shot my way through some Mexican tunnels and finally arrived in Vegas, rather later than I expected given the title of the game. Some great firefights along the way.

I want to know where they found all these terrorists. There are bloody hundreds of them running around.

Pokemon Diamond (DS)

Well, I got through the Elite Four this time, but the champion beat my face off. I turned the DS off when I lost, so I have a save just before the fight. I might see if I have any decent TMs that might help, but I'm not sure that will be enough. My Noctowl doesn't seem to be able to last a single turn, my Bibarel dies almost as quickly, my Rapidash is still way too weak defensively... it's all a bit rubbish.

Rush'n Attack (360)

I got further than I ever have before today. I got to the very end of the second stage, but then died. One day I will see stage three. One day.

I think this is the only Live Arcade game I've got which nobody else on my Friends List has bought. Very odd, as it's easily one of the best.

Mad Tracks Demo (360)

Seems fun enough, in a lightweight kind of way, and that may have been worth 800 points a year ago. Now, though, with Live Arcade stuffed with games, it seems horrifically overpriced - especially as there's not much content in the "full" version. No, to get the full full game you need to spend 1200 on the game and the two expansion packs. Not that they're even out yet.

More races, fewer mini games, better pricing and a track editor would tempt me. Right now, my 800 points are very safe.

Hour of Victory Demo (360)

Well, I actually went back and played through until I beat the tanks, which was the end of the demo. Grenades and bazookas are the way to go there; normal gunfire seems to have no effect at all. I initially thought that maybe bullets were doing small amounts of damage, but I think I was wrong there. Which is a good thing.

Couple of other points worth mentioning -

1) At one point my HUD disappeared and wouldn't come back until I changed character. Odd.

2) Enemy corpses disappear quickly, including the corpses of tanks. I was recharging my health by hiding behind a dead tank at point when it disappeared, leaving me open to fire. Bit off that, I thought.

I also thought that maybe the different character classes would be really good in online co-op. One person hanging back on rooftops, one sneaking, one distracting the enemies by running around in full view spraying machine gun fire everywhere. No mention of online co-op in the splash screens after the demo, though, so I've no idea if that's even in there.

Hour of Victory Demo (360)

Now, you know me. I'm not one of those people constantly looking for something new in gaming. Sure, I love me a Katamari or Ouendan, but I'm equally happy with Racing Game #48,392, RPG #102,392 and FPS #99,318... as long as they're good and right and do what they do very well. I'm happy with better, not just different.

Which is to say that I'd be quite happy with yet another World War 2 FPS if it was done right. The setting and genre are okay with me. I like shooting things - and I especially like shooting Nazis.

Hour of Victory is... perfectly competent. It's got its own "new" feature, which is the ability to choose a character class to play as. One for running up and shooting people in the face, one for hanging back and shooting people in the face and one for sneaking up and shooting people in the back of the head. It looks pretty nice, in a slightly plastic, very brown way. The controls are fine, without feeling as tight as the kings control like Doom and Resistance. It sounds like it should, with loud gunfire, explosions and dodgy voice acting. The first level is tight and linear, with a good amount of cover and some alternate routes for the different character classes. The second level is a little more open and requires you to destroy tanks (which don't seem to require any special tactics, they're just big, fat soldiers with huge energy bars, effectively). I died a few too many times there and stopped playing the game to write this.

If I got it as a present, I could probably have some fun with it. If I saw it for a fiver in a bargain bin, I might be slightly tempted if I was bored. But there's nothing there to make me want to pay full price. It's not broken (apart from some odd graphical glitches when using the sniper rifle's scope), but there's just nothing there to hook me at all.

Pokemon Diamond (DS)

Well, I was levelled enough for Victory Road, but I lost to the fourth member of the Elite Four, so I've been out and about tending to my berries and levelling up some more before trying again.

Pokemon Diamond (DS)

Well, everyone in my team is at least level fifty, so I'm going to try Victory Road when I next play. It's underground, so I'm not going to bother trying at night when the encounter rate's high.

Pokemon Diamond (DS)

Ahhhhhh, and the Lucky Egg has been obtained.

I'm now levelling up my team before trying Victory Road. It's taking a long time and isn't any fun, which makes me wonder why I'm bothering. RPGs can be odd like that and I don't understand.

Rainbow Six Vegas (360)

Lots of multiplayer today. No single player at all.

Started off with a nice group of people playing deathmatch type games. Didn't do too well, but got some experience points.

Followed that up with some co-op terrorist hunts with a really nice group of players, who welcomed me and let me play despite my newbieness. They even sent an invite when I crashed out at one point and came back online. I actually started being quite useful by the end of the session. Not top of the class, but not sitting in the corner with a pointy hat. We were playing on Realistic with no respawns so we died a lot, but we did win a couple of times, which got me a promotion to Private First Class and unlocked a nice helmet for me to wear.

It's really, really, really good.

Rainbow Six Vegas (360)

Started single player. A bit hard and I got annoyed when a team mate died in a mine shaft, so I quit.

Jumped into a game of Survival on Live, got told my character's face was ugly and was then killed very dead, so I quit.

Rainbow Six Vegas (360)

I haven't actually played this yet, but I ddi just boot it up and map my face on to my character using the Xbox Live Vision camera. Took a few attempts and I've ended up with something reminiscient of me, but with a very orange face and huge, sad, black-ringed eyes. If I ever mate with a panda I'll know what the children will look like, anyway.

It's really quite spooky and I spent a while staring at this face before turning off the console.

Pokemon Diamond (DS)

Lucky egg count: 0

Test Drive Unlimited (360)

What just happened?

I was merrily driving along when a message popped up saying I had a $147,000 fine and that as I couldn't pay it I had to go to jail. So after thirty seconds of staring at a jail I was dumped back in my house with no money.

Except, I've spent hours today playing and saving up about $300,000. It's all gone. I feel like I've been kicked in the stomach.

How did I run up a $147,000 fine? Why did it suddenly stop me without me being caught by the police? And where did all my money go, anyway?

What am I going to do now?

MLB 07 The Show (PSP)

Well, MLB 08 The Show should be fantastic.

This almost is - I've just started playing and the only reason I've stopped is that my PSP battery has run down - but it's spoiled by some very rough edges. I'm playing The Road to the Show mode, where you create a played and play as that player alone. I'm a second baseman on the Braves and I hit when it's my turn, control my baserunning and if the ball comes near me when I'm playing defense I'll have to get the ball and throw it. The rest of the game isn't shown - it just jumps to those moments where I've got something to do.

It's almost great.

The first trouble is the load times. They are truly atrocious and quite possibly the worst I've seen yet on the PSP. You simply can't just sit down and play this game. You need something on TV to watch while it loads, or a magazine, or some cake, or something.

The second problem is that there's not a lot of feedback. If you go for a double play when you're fielding then you'll know if you got the first out, but not the second. Without pausing the game and waiting for a text display to scroll across the screen you won't know whether the last pitch was a ball or a strike while you're on base. (This may possibly be better with sound, but I've been playing with sound off and I think all handheld games that aren't music-based should be designed with silent play in mind.)

The third problem is that sometimes rules don't seem to be applied properly and now and again the post-game box score won't agree with what's displayed on your stats for that game. I'm sure I've had a run credited before that shouldn't have counted and in my last game the box score said I had an RBI, but the summary screen after that said I hadn't. Odd.

Still, despite all those problems, it is incredibly addictive. The PS3 version might fix a lot of these flaws and be a good buy and, as I said, MLB 08 should be great. They can't keep those load times in the next version, they just can't.

Pokemon Diamond (DS)

Spent a lot of time trying to catch a Chancey holding a Lucky Egg. Failed dismally.

Also spent some time battling the old lady near the trophy garden place to get lots of money to buy new Pokeballs with.

Wen on a short fossil hunt; didn't find any.

Not the most successful day ever.

Test Drive Unlimited (360)

Only one Achievement today, for buying Chevrolets. It's not really an achievement, though, more an addiction. I'm not progressing through the game, I'm just buying cars I like and driving them for miles to get to challenges with tiny rewards.

But given the amount of fun I'm having progress can go hang for now. Mind you, I really do want an Enzo after driving one in a car delivery challenge earlier.

Test Drive Unlimited (360)

Lots of Achievements today. For buying a house, buying a car online, getting up to Expert level, driving 400 miles, having four cars... maybe more.

I spent the whole day driving my bitchin' Camaro, which is now fully tuned and a lovely metallic purple with yellow stripes. Yeah, I pimped my ride.

I'm now leaning back to getting Forza 2, rather than DiRT, simply because I love the car ownership thing. I love to buy a car, learn to drive it, customise it, all that. And Forza's got that in spades, I believe. It's certainly got the customisation down.

MLB 2K7 (PS3)

Another win against the Pirates. A good start to the season.

MLB 2K7 (PS3)

Played two excellent games.

First up, I played an exhibition game as the 1946 Red Sox against the current Astros lineup and won 4-2.

After that I decided I should start a season. Might take a while, as there are 162 games in the standard season and each game takes over an hour to play. And that's ignoring all the time spent doing all the managerial things I've not worked out yet. I've set it to automate as much as possible, as I just want to play to ball.

Anyway, I'm playing as the Astos and I've played one game so far this season. A win at home against the Pirates, 6-4. Was looking bad until a three-run homer in the sixth and then a solo homer in the eighth to take a two-run lead going in to the ninth.

Gran Turismo HD (PS3)

I went through and did all the basic Time Trials, unlocking all the cars and the different modes along the way. Wish there were more persistant leaderboards - on the daily leaderboards my highest position is 4 and lowest is 71, which basically just shows roughly how many people have tried each challenge, rather than my own quality. If you see what I mean.

DiRT Demo (360)

Oh, this is very nice. Very nice indeed. Not too sure about the tarmac racing, but the buggy racing is just different enoguh from Motorstorm to be worthwhile and the hill climb is brilliant.

I'm really not sure about Forza now.

Test Drive Unlimited (360)

So, I played this for the first time in months. I nearly started a new game, but decided against it. Took my gorgeous Charger out for a spin, then got in my Nissan Nismo, which though not sexy in the least is at least useful.

A few events wouldn't give me a gold, so I settled for silver, but I added over $150,000 to my bank balance, mainly thanks to a car delivery mission that I almost, almost, almost did perfectly. Also got a few Achievements, reached Pro level (no idea how, it just popped up) and created and uploaded an online challenge.

Soltrio Solitaire (360)

It's very simple, but I really like the way you can construct your own decks of cards. You just choose three elements to create the back of the card, but it's still a very nice touch.

Xevious Demo (360)

Just checking I didn't want to buy this. Though it was better than I remembered I still didn't think it was worth 400 points. Maybe 200, but not 400.

Gyruss Demo (360)

Just checking I didn't want to buy this. Though it was better than I remembered I still didn't think it was worth 400 points. Maybe 200, but not 400.

Pokemon Diamond (DS)

I'm trying to find fossils.

I'm failing.

I've also decided to bury all spheres outside my base in future. I know I buried some a while back and can't find them anywhere. Oops.

Rush'n Attack (360)

No new high score today, but I did get an Achievement for completing the first level without losing a life.

Soltrio Solitaire (360)

Who'd waste 800 points on Solitaire?

I would.

This is because -

1) After my operation yesterday this is a perfect chill out and relax on the sofa game.

2) My wife was very excited about it.

Rush'n Attack (360)

Otherwise known as Green Beret.

It's the same excellent game as always, with updated graphics that aren't an amboniation and some neat achievements.

Pity the 360 controller has killed me almost as many times as my own rubbishness, but there we go.

Doesn't seem to be very popular, as nobody on my Friends list is on the leaderboard and I'm number 669 in the world.

Pokemon Diamond (DS)

Just a quick go to do a trade with my wife and get my trendy saying for the day. And check the GTS. And plant some berries. And do a quick bit of levelling up of my new guy.

Test Drive Unlimited (PSP)

This is now starting to get tricky. Either that or I'm just rubbish tonight.

Pokemon Diamond (DS)

Well, that's all eight gym badges obtained.

I'm not ready for Victory Road yet, though, so I'm going to have to level up a bit. I might change my team round a bit, too. My Medicham is far less useful than I thought she'd be.

Pokemon Diamond (DS)

Team Galactic are defeated!

The trek up Mount Coronet was awful, with random encounters every two steps. (I think caves might be worse at night, because the last bit this morning was much quieter.) Then Team Galactic's boss very, very nearly wiped me out, but I just about won and got the chance to fight the legendary Pokemon Dialga, who in a somewhat anticlimatic battle I managed to catch in the first round with a Quick Ball.

Pokemon Diamond (DS)

No new gyms today. I've just been wandering around getting experience and waiting for an egg to hatch. Not overly interesting, but it took up about three hours of my life.

Crackdown (360)

After Halo, we decided to play some Crackdown. Polished of Los Meurtos, then killed all the Volk. Only the Shai Gen left, then I'll have done all the bosses in co-op.

Nice.

Halo 3 Beta (360)

Played a few more ranked games of Slayer and did very badly. Then tried out the team matches, but we only seemed to play Team Slayer. Everything else got veteod by the other people in the game. I didn't do very well at all, but I did get to see the fabled third beta map, Valhalla.

Then a friend of mine came online and we played some unranked games of Slayer together. I did better there, but didn't win anything.

Test Drive Unlimited Demo (360)

The handling really isn't as annoying as I remember it. I think I might have been playing with assists off when I had the full game, which was a bit silly. Good enough fun to play for the full hour of the demo, which is a good sign. Lots of other drivers whizzing around, too, though nobody was doing the formal races.

Anyway, I've ordered a stupidly cheap copy from Play to replace the one I foolishly traded in, which I hope should be here in time for me to play during the recovery period after my upcoming operation. Fingers crossed.

Pokemon Diamond (DS)

Forty hours in now. This evening I beat the sixth gym, finally. I only needed to use one Pokemon in the end. Now I've battled my way to Snowpoint City and I'm going to see if there's anything that's good against Ice type that's not fire.

Halo 3 Beta (360)

I just won a game! Yes, a real game. I got up to 25 kills in Slayer on High Ground before anyone else. (The nearest person was on 22.) That's probably never going to happen again, so I'll let myself feel some fleeting glory.

That Rev Chap
SPARTAN - R37
Recruit - Grade 1
Games: 9
Last Played: 5/17/2007 4:04:28 PM
Total Kills: 69
Total Deaths: 129
Kill/Death Ratio: 0.5349
Total Assists: 44

Pokemon Diamond (DS)

Thirty-five hours in. Five gyms down. Tried the sixth this evening, but I'm not ready. So I intended to level myself up, but didn't do very well, sintead getting distracted by new Pokemon, trading and mixing records with my wife, dressing up my Crandios and going for a nice walk with my cute For Bear.

Yes, a bit of a contrast with Halo 3.

Halo 3 Beta (360)

It's Halo 2, but with a lick of paint and couple of new bits of furniture.

This means two things -

1) It's truly excellent.
2) I am rubbish at it.

At World's End Demo (360)

A grown-up version of last year's DS game, basically. As such it's a fun swashbuckling romp and possibly worth getting in full, if you like that sort of thing.

Which I do.

Animal Crossing: Wild World (DS)

THE WEEDS! THE WEEDS!

Pokemon Diamond (DS)

Well, I finally beat the fifth gym leader. About thirty-three hours in now and I'm going to see if the sixth gym is doable.

Picross DS (DS)

I made two puzzles and then handed them over to my wife to do. She was very impressed. Darth Vader and Jason Voorhees. Didn't actually solve any puzzles myself.

Pokemon Diamond (DS)

Went to the gaming casino. You get some super special prize if you get to ten bonus rounds. So I played the tedious no-skill fruit machine mini-game for ages and ages, getting bonus round after bonus round, until after the ninth bonus round... the bonus rounds stopped. No idea why. Was very annoying.

Since then I've been seeking out trainers I've missed to try and eek out some experience for Batowl, my Noctowl, who's the only anti-ghost guy I've really got.

Forza Motorsport 2 Demo (360)

I think I'm going to have admit that I like this, as I can't seem to stop playing it. Today's car was the Gallardo, which I managed to drive reasonably well for the most part. I wish tiny mistakes weren't punished so severely, but there's no way round that as it's, you know, car racing.

Crackdown (360)

First! Ever! Co-op!

Played with a friend of mine and it was great fun when it wasn't disconnecting (when I was winning a checkpoint race) or crashing (when I won rocket tag).

I also got my first achievement for a while - the one for killing a boss in co-op.

Pokemon Diamond (DS)

I'm unsure about what I should be doing right now. The next official task is the fifth gym, but I've somehow got to that stage with a severely under-levelled and unsuitable team, so I've got to try and level my guys up. If I just do battling of random Pokemon it's going to take about six thousand years, so I'm trying to find a shortcut.

Crackdown (360)

And that's the Volk down.

It's a bit quicker second time through.

Centipede/Millipede (360)

Been playing Millipede today. It's fearfully addictive, despite the fact that I can't come anywhere near the high score I set on the first day I played. Don't you just hate it when that happens?

Blacksite Demo (360)

Short and sweet. If the framerate can be sorted out before release - right now it's astonishingly bad - then this might be worth keeping an eye on.

Forza Motorsport 2 Demo (360)

This is very odd.

One part of my brain watches as I carefully, carefully drive a car round the same track fifteen times in a row and thinks it's the most boring thing in the world ever.

Another part of my brain is very happy to carefully, carefully drive a car around the same track fifteen times in a row.

Very strange.

I can now pretty consistently win the race without getting any penalties in the Class C Impreza with the two aids that aren't ABS turned off. Which is nice, I guess, but it's not exciting in any way and it doesn't feel much like driving to me. Okay, so I drive an S40 and the only fast bit of curvy road I ever get to drive down is the A229 between Linton and Staplehurst, but this game doesn't feel anything like that. It's either much more sedate (despite the speedometer reading 100 miles per hour) or spinning round and round in gravel.

Crackdown (360)

So, there's new DLC. It's good stuff, too. The best bit is the simple "reset gangs" option, which means I've spent the morning killing all the Los Muertos bosses again. The new vehicles are fun and the guns are a novelty, but I suspect the new modes are where the main fun will come from.

Omalone (DS)

A very polished Homebrew board game. It's too late to explain the rules here, but you use your pieces to push your opponents pieces off the board and it's all very simple but well done.

Test Drive Unlimited (PSP)

I've just driven around the island for seventy miles or so looking for a Class C car to buy. Finally settled on some sort of Aston Martin, which seems okay. I need to do a for more challenges before I can be sure.

Anyway, yes, I just wanted to point how odd it is to spend an evening just driving round an island looking for a new car - and to enjoy it.

Picross DS (DS)

Ah ha!

Using button input means that the big puzzles aren't zoomed out when you play them, making the whole game about five thousand times more playable.

I really don't need another puzzle game to play, but I can see myself getting right back into this one now.

Double Dragon Demo (360)

Not very good at all.

Forza Motorsport 2 Demo (360)

Hmm.

I seem to have become an arcade racing fan in my old age. I'm not sure I have the patience for this sort of thing any more.

Slitherlink (DS)

Haven't played this for a while, so I did a couple of 10x10 puzzles. Took 5:31 and then 5:54, which wasn't too bad considering I'm a bit rusty.

Panel De Pon DS (DS)

Did my daily training. Somehow I managed to get 0 in Avalanche mode again, despite seeming to do quite well. Odd.

Test Drive Unlimited (PSP)

Hooray! I've got 250,000 points, so I've gone up a level.

Still using my Pontiac GTO, but I might buy myself a Class C car tomorrow. Actually, I just won an AC 427, whatever that is, so I should see if that's any good before splashing out any cash.

One of the nice things about this game is that I'm beating cars that are better and faster than mine, unlike Gran Turismo where I have to make sure I have a better car than the opposition.

Panel De Pon DS (DS)

I loved this when it had Pokemon it, way back when. Since then I've not been too in love, but thought I'd try the DS version anyway.

Not sure if it was worth bothering yet. Firstly, there's a ton of Japanese. (I'm playing it off my R4 with the English patch installed and there's still a ton of Japanese.) Secondly, well, there's a nice Daily Practice section, but it gives you options, so I'm not sure how it can keep track of scores if you can play around with levels and difficulty settings. Thirdly, I tried a go of Avalanche mode and played for half an hour without any stress, at which point it just dropped a million blocks on me and killed me dead in seconds. Odd, confusing and annoying.

On the plus side, the stylus control works really well and with some experimentation I should be able to find a mode which balances fairness and difficulty.

Still wish there were Pokemon in it, though.

The Legend of the Mystical Ninja (Wii)

Hooray! First boss down!

I can't find a Log Book Shop where I can save, so I've gone to the second island. The locals are annoying me, so I've stopped playing for now.

Test Drive Unlimited (PSP)

Well, I've exhausted the Class E challenges, I think, so it's on to Class D. I did win a Class D Cadillac, but it was a bit frisky for my tastes - no, really, a frisky Cadillac - so I went and bought myself a Pontiac GTO instead. I've not done any events in it yet, just driven it from the dealer to the tuning shop, but it seems lovely.

Test Drive Unlimited (PSP)

Hooray, I'm now an Amateur. Not quite sure what that means, think it's just more races being open to me.

I think I'm actually going to have a read of the manual. Shocking, I know.

Pokemon Diamond (DS)

Failed a gym battle this evening. Bother.

I was five or six levels before the gym leader's Pokemon and managed to beat the first two, but the third one went before all my Pokemon and killed them in one hit. Not much I could do about that.

Test Drive Unlimited (PSP)

This is excellent. I've played for a while this morning and driven over a hundred miles in my first car - a Ford Mustang - and I've had a very good time. It is Test Drive Unlimited as it was on the 360, pretty much. There's an obvious downgrade in the graphics and sound, of course. It's very, very impressive, but obviously the PSP isn't going to have high-def, high-poly graphics and booming surround sound. So no dashboard view, for one thing. Apart from that, the only other major difference I've seen so far is the handling. It seems much, much easier to get round corners in the PSP version and it's consequently a lot more fun. There's not the same feeling as learning your car and constantly driving on the edge, but I think the fun to be had screaming round corners as soon as you get in a car makes up for that.

There's also a nice feature I don't remember from the 360 version, which is that the GPS automatically points you towards the next race after you finish an event. Makes it a lot easier to find things to do. And if you decide to go somewhere else then once you've been there the GPS will set tiself back to te next race. Lovely. But, you know, a few days ago I thought Ninja Gaiden was a 360 game, so my memory's not to be trusted.

There are also a lot of (to me) minor downgrades. No bikes, no delivery missions, that sort of thing. I think there might be fewer cars too. I can't say I'm too bothered. My main wish for the game would be for the sun to come out. It's awfully grey for Hawaii at the moment.

The Legend of the Mystical Ninja (Wii)

This is fun, but I keep losing to the first boss, even though I know how to damage her. I hate bosses.

Pokemon Diamond (DS)

Well, that's the fourth gym done. No mention yet of being able to use traded Pokemon above level thirty though. I've now got a team of Pokemon I've caught myself.

Rainbow Islands (XBOX)

There are people in this gaming subculture who think that some games, mainly fighting games, can't be played with a pad, but require an arcade stick. I've never been convinced by this and I'm quite happy playing Street Fighter and its children with a standard controller.

However, there is one game that I can't seem to play using a normal controller. As the title of this post might suggest, that game is Rainbow Islands. I tried the Taito Legends and the MAME version on my Xbox today and I couldn't play either of them. Random jumping, rainbows flying everywhere, it wasn't pretty. It's because I need to use my thumb and not my fingers for the jumping and firing.

(Well, either that or I'm just rubbish these days. But that can't be the explanation, can it?)

Spider-Man 2 (XBOX)

As I've not got the shiny new Spider-Man 3, I decided to revisit this old thing.

The camera is rubbish, the graphics have dated horribly and it generally doesn't feel nearly as good as I remember. Swinging around is still fun when it works properly, though, so I did some of that.