Resident Evil 4 Wii Edition (Wii)

These new controls are great. Wiggling the remote is far superior to hammering a button in QTEs, apart from the pointer shooting. Anyway, first boss encounter is over now and wasn't very hard at all.

Flatout Ultimate Carnage (360)

Well, Blockbuster gave me lots of store credit so I picked up a few new games, including this. I didn't like the first one, ignored the second, but this one has been getting lots of good feedback online. With good reason, it seems. The handling is massively improved and the framerate, though very inconsistent, is much, much better. The first game had sim leanings that I don't think worked too well; this is an out and out arcade racer and really, really good.

Tony Hawk's Project 8 (360)

Well, I didn't trade this in and played it a bit today. I am so rubbish. So, so rubbish. Not quite as rubbish as I was last night, though. I've not really found any missions I can do, given my rubbishness, but my best combo score is now about 60,000, which is an improvement, at least.

Tony Hawk's Project 8 (360)

So, got a free copy of this and decided to test it, out as I'm taking a load of games up to Blockbuster to trade in. Wondered if this should go with them.

After forty-five minutes, I was ready to set the disc on fire and rocket it into orbit. I can't do the tutorial. You heard me. I can't do the bloody tutorial. After much frustration I got to the sixth tutorial, about combos, but couldn't do the first part of that.

So I gave up and started the game. I'm rubbish. Really rubbish. Best combo is current about 25,000 points. That's nothing, in this over-complicated day of reverts and manuals and everything. I miss the old days when everything was so much simpler.

But, the thing is, I've started to have fun. The Nail The Trick thing is excellent, the game's letting me progress just by hitting the ultra-simple amateur goals (which I can just about do) and it's got Jason Lee in it.

So I think I'll be keeping it after all.

Sega Presents Touch Darts (DS)

It's very good, but it wears thin after a while. About half an hour at a time is my limit, before throwing darts starts to get very, very boring. Doesn't help that it's so incredibly easy right now. I'm not very good, but the computer players are just awful right now. Must unlock the higher difficulties.

Resident Evil 4 Wii Edition (Wii)

This is qite an old game in a new edition, so it counts for Retro Week, right?

Yeah, okay, I give up.

Anyway, it's the same old RE4, but with pointer controls for aiming. And, er, that's it. And, er, that's enough.

Carcassonne (360)

Okay, I'm bad at Retro Week. But this is an old board game, so it counts, right?

Anyway, I like it much better than that Catan thing with its confusing trading. In this game you make maps, and I do like to do that. My wife doesn't like it, though. It fits in the same part of her brain as the much-loathed Risk.

The computer seems a bit easy to beat on default settings, though, due to not using farmers. (Who aren't mentioned in the tutorial, oddly enough. I'm a bit confused and pleased I read a manual online before playing.)

Sega Presents Touch Darts (DS)

It's the first day of Retro Week, so I started off with this, as you can't get much more retro than darts... Okay, okay, I had new game excitement and forgot it was Retro Week. My wife's been playing this and raving about it and I got to have a go today and it's really good. It's just darts, yes, but it's good just darts. Won a couple of tournaments and then played some single-DS multiplayer against the wife. I won 2-1. Go me!

Now, hopefully, the rest of this week will feature real retro games, at least until Friday when I see what I've got left in the trading pile that I can swap for all the new releases coming out this week. And there are loads of them. Resident Evil 4, The Darkness, Overlord, Harry Potter... gulp!

F-Zero X (Wii)

Well, I was going to leave this until the official start of retro week tomorrow, but as it seems to be Futuristic Racer Day, I thought I'd give it a go.

Unlike WipEout, it's not stupidly hard. I nearly didn't finish the first cup after losing all my spare lives on the last track, but I pulled it together in the end and came first. Go me.

It's very fast and very fun, but the Classic controller is really bloody uncomfortable.

Worms (360)

Challenge 13 seems to be impossible, but at least the AI worms don't take as long to think about their turns as they did before the game got updated.

Band of Bugs Demo (360)

I like this. I like this a lot. (Apart from the graphics, which seem to make things needlessly confusing.) Trouble is, it took me several goes to do level four, the last level in the demo, so I'm not sure if it would be worth getting the full version. I've got the points ready, but I think I might save them up for new Lumines skins or something.

Eets: Chowdown (360)

Haven't played this for a while, but it was surprisingly easy to get back into. Just did a few levels to get myself up to the end of the second world. Didn't find any amazing shortcuts and didn't think any of my solutions were very elegant, but they got the job done.

Pac-Man Championship Edition (360)

I've finally stopped playing the main mode and I dipped into Challenge One. I can't survive for the full ten minutes yet, but I'm already better than some of my terrible, terrible friends.

Forza Motorsport 2 (360)

A few more time trial levels and then back to career, where I won a few races despite driving like a complete idiot. And then I fell asleep in front of the car selection screen, so decided it was probably time to stop playing.

WipEout Pure (PSP)

Just to check that it was WipEout being too hard and not me being too rubbish, I dug this out. I started it up, selected a race and won it. (I'd played about five or six races in WipEout and come last in all of them.) Tried another race, a class up, and won that. Tried another race... and got blown up while I was about sixth with only about half a lap to go. Still, yes, WipEout Pure is much, much easier and a better game for it.

Also, I thought WipEout wasn't looking too bad for its age, and maybe it's not, but the difference when I started up WipEout Pure was amazing. It looks incredible. We've come a long way.

WipEout (PS3/PSP)

Even Sony don't seem to know if it's WipEout or WipeOut or whatever. I'll stick with WipEout, as it's the stupidest way of spelling it.

Anyway, this is unplayable. It's not bad, not at all, it's just way, way, way, way, way too hard and the only reason it took off must because the graphics and sound were so amazing at the time that people were prepared to put the time in to learn to play the game properly.

It was a different time back then, eh?

Crash Bandicoot (PS3/PSP)

Looks much better on the PSP screen than on the PS3. There's something odd about on the PS3, as if the colour and contrast are turned up way too much, or something.

Anyway, what's it like to play? Well, it's a bit rubbish. Certainly not unplayable, but it's very unfair and the controls don't quite work. Still, it kept me playing for quite a while, so it has got something, even now.

Go! Puzzle (PS3)

Played a bit more Skyscrapers, which is a fair bit easier now I've worked out what the white blocks do. (It was probably covered in the tutorial, but if it was I've forgotten.) Might be a bit of a cult hit, this, if it wasn't on the PS3.

Then I tried Swizzle Blocks, which went on and on and on. I started on Easy mode and in one game swept through all the Easy and Normal levels, getting gold stars on each, before dying on the first Hard level. My score was put in the Hard mode high score table, which seemed odd, but there you go. Nobody on my Friends leaderboards yet.

Jumping Flash (PSP)

Hooray! World 3's boss finally fell.

Unfortunately, I'm now stuck on level 4-1. The exit doesn't appear to exist.

Forza Motorsport 2 (360)

Tried a couple of time trials. In both of them I was sixth on my Friends Leaderboard. Not too shabby, but a long way off the top times.

Once again, Trousers seems to be dominating the top spots. And he claims not to be good at games. Tch.

Motorstorm (PS3)

Blimey.

My skills have gone. Or, rather, I can't remember which routes are best for buggies.

Did one race, came tenth. Tried again, came eleventh.

Go! Puzzle (PS3)

The difficulty in Skyscrapers really ramps up after a few levels. I'm doing the third set of towers now (after skipping some infinite towers) and there's no time to think at all.

Jumping Flash (PSP)

A slight problem. The boss of World 3 is quite hard and losing all your lives dumps you back at the beginning of the first level of the world. Which is a bit annoying.

Go! Puzzle (PS3)

That Skyscrapers game really is very good. I've unlocked the first infinite tower and I don't think I'll ever get a silver or gold star for it. It's impossible.

Aquatica hasn't got any better, unfortunately. I just don't get on with it.

Jumping Flash (PS3/PSP)

There are now some classic Playstation games available to download from the Playstation Store. Three so far, in fact. WipEout, Crash Bandicoot and Jumping Flash. I'm tempted to give Crash a go, as I never did play more than the demo, back in the day. WipEout is quite tempting, too, but I fear it will have aged very, very badly.

Jumping Flash, though, I like. I grabbed a second hand copy a couple of years ago and enjoyed it, so I knew it still stood up today. Graphically, it's really quite nasty technically, though there's some charm to the design. The controls could do with some updating now we have two sticks. But the core jumping gameplay still stands up pretty well.

There aren't many first-person platform games and jumping bits in first person shooters tend to be rubbish, so this still feels different, twelve years later.

I wish I'd known that to save my game I had to create a virtual memory card before playing, though. Didn't take me very long to do World 1 a second time, though.

After playing it on the PS3, I decided to try it on the PSP. Took a while to get it copied across - you need to use a cable and I had to update my PSP's firmware - but I got there in the end. Looks much nicer on the small PSP screen, but the d-pad isn't quite as good, which meant I had to do some readjusting.

Also, there doesn't seem to be any way to keep save files in sync between PS3 and PSP, which is odd. I thought the idea was that you could play the game on your PS3 and then take it with you when you're gallivanting about town, so I might be missing something.

Anyway, hopefully more people will discover Jumping Flash now it's on the Playstation Store. I'm not sure it quite deserves full "lost classic" status, but it is an interesting and entertaining trip down one of gaming's evolutionary cul-de-sacs.

Go! Puzzle Demo (PS3)

Time to start up the old PS3 for something other than watching DVDs and see what's come to the Playstation Store recently. First up, the demo of Go! Puzzle, which packages three puzzle games together.

Swizzle Blocks is a game where you rotate groups of blocks to make squares. It hurts my head a bit, but seems fun.

Aquatica is a block-dropping, field-clearing type of game with a twist - the twist being that it's the worst one I've ever played. Puyo Pop, Lumines, Tetris, Columns, Puzzle Fighter, etc., etc., etc. are all better than this, based on what I've seen. Of course, it could get much better if I give it a bit more time and I'm probably being horribly unfair, but the quick little go I had didn't grab me at all.

Skyscrapers seems to be the best of the lot. You have to jump across playing fields using only - and all - squares of one colour, in a strict time limit. I started to enjoy this one before the demo ran out.

The trouble is, that you only get five minutes before the demo kicks you out. That's not even enough time to get through the tuorial for Skyscrapers - I had to start it up twice before actually getting to play the game. Anyway, the price is okay. £1.99 per game, or all three for £3.99. That seems reasonable to me. I shall mull things over.

Chocobo Tales (DS)

Yes, I played a video game for the first time in days. Didn't play for long, but I beat a boss, progressed the story and played some mini games.

Pokemon Diamond (DS)

Did my increasily-less-than-daily tasks, then took a quick trip into the Survival Zone. There's still a town I've not been to, which I'm going to work my way towards, trainer by trainer.

Forza Motorsport 2 (360)

So, I sold the anime Mini I'd bought at auction for more than I'd paid for it and used the cash to turn my 2006 Charger into an S-ranked super car. With that power it was almost undriveable, but not quite, and I finally managed to win the last Proving Ground races that had been a sticking point. Hooray!

Then I jumped back into my Lotus Elise and did the first couple of Amateur races, which I won with ease.

Chocobo Tales (DS)

Well, some mini games are better than others, but I'm really enjoying this. Starting to build up a nice lot of cards, too. Mainly concentrating on green cards right now. Or yellow. One of them, anyway.

Chocobo Tales (DS)

Back to this after a long break. Only played it for forty-seven minutes before tonight, which wasn't even enough to get me to my first card battle. Well, I've now done a couple of card battles and I played a couple of mini games and I have to say, this is a great little game so far.

Pokemon Diamond (DS)

Just doing my daily tasks, which I haven't been doing very daily lately. Batowl has six ribbons now, but I'm still not being let into the big poncy place that tells me to get ribbons. Tsk.

Prince of Persia (360)

Basically, a console version of Gameloft's mobile Prince of Persia games.

And I'm stuck. I'm on the third or fourth level. There's a fight I'e only ever got past twice, followed by a secion of level that only seems to lead to dead ends.

Forza Motorsport 2 (360)

Spent two hours making a car (1, 2), then did one race in it (1), then turned the 360 off.

Pokemon Diamond (DS)

And then I caught the Pokemon I'd sorted out in Pal Park, traded them to my wife, then did some more daily stuff. Oh, and evolved my Sneasel into a Weavile. Which was nice. Eighty-six hours in now.

Pokemon Sapphire (DS)

I didn't really play it, as such. Just started it up to sort out some Pokemon and delete their HMs before transferring them across to Diamond.

Everybody's Golf 5 Demo (PS3)

I'd like the full game now, please. Or at least an English demo.

Gran Turismo HD (PS3)

A few minutes to kill between end of DVD and TV show starting, PS3's already on, what to do?

Well, first up, a quick, annoying lap in Drift mode on GT HD. I don't like it much.

Forza Motorsport 2 (360)

I've spent the day so far trying and failing to win the final Proving Ground event, three races in heavy cars. The problem is, there's one car that's far, far better than the competition and though I can easily beat the other cars, I can never catch the one in first. It's very annoying indeed. I've upgraded and upgraded my 2006 Dodge Charger, but still can't keep up.

Grr.

Pokemon Diamond (DS)

Why didn't anyone tell me that Sneasel can only evolve at night?

Forza Motorsport 2 (360)

I got up to driving level ten and got the best reward ever.

Seriously, that's half the reason I bought the game, being able to get that car and put that paint job on it.

Forza Motorsport 2 (360)

I'm quite pleased with this design.

Forza Motorsport 2 (360)

Won some races in that Intergrale car I won. Well, it's called something like that. It drives nicely and lets me win races, which is a good thing, but it doesn't have the personality of the American cars. it's like an agile wee squirrel next to great galumping bears.

I also bought a car from the Auction House, which has some sort of anime design on it. Anyone know who this is?

Oh, and if you're reading this within an hour or so of me posting it, please bid on my Jason-themed Solstice, which was my first car and which I'll never drive again.

And while we're showing off pictures, go on, take a look at the Hello Kitty car my wife designed.

Pac-Man Championship Edition (360)

No new high score today, but I did come close.

Should maybe try some of the other modes some time.

Overlord Demo (360)

Pikmin, with two differences. Firstly, it's from a traditional 3rd-person behind-the-main-character viewpoint. Secondly, it's evil.

The evil bit works well. Killing hobbits by setting fire to corn fields and controlling horrible (yet very cute) goblin minions is great fun. It's played for, well, maybe not laughs, but big smiles and it has an atmosphere nestled snugly between Dungeon Keeper and Fable.

The viewpoint's not so good. You have a huge character who, most of the time, is standing back and controlling things, rather than getting involved, and who obscures some of the screen. Also, the camera having to pulled back some way behind him means that events going on in front of you are less clear than might be useful. Optional first-person and top-down views might have been nice. Then maybe I'd see the hobbits in the corn field and not need to be told that they're there by huge text messages in the middle of the screen.

Regardless of the graphical griping, though, I had great fun. I didn't realise how much I was enjoying myself until the demo stopped and I just sat there staring at the screen, willing it to change its mind and give me more.

Pokemon Diamond (DS)

Today's main task was to catch a couple of Bedlum, who were swarming up on Route 228. I'd never been up there, so I had to surf my across, only to find that level 53 Bedlums are very hard to catch. I took a lot of damage and a lot of my party fainted, but I got two in the end. One for me and one for my wife.

Pokemon Diamond (DS)

You see the daily tasks I posted about yesterday?

That's what I did today.

Pac-Man Championship Edition (360)

After a couple of terrible games where I didn't even last the full five minutes, I managed to beat my old high score and am now 571 in the world and second on my Friends list, behind a frankly score of 217.420 from Dimahoo.

Forza Motorsport 2 (360)

In short, I like this.

I like the car collecting, the customisation and, to a lesser extent so far, the actual racing.

I decided to make my home region North America, because I do love American muscle cars. I know that they may not be the best at going round corners and other such trivialities, but they've got more soul than an Impreza or an Audi TT. Or, perhaps more accurately, the speak to my soul more.

Anyway, I got some rubbish little Pontiac convertible thing, painted it up with a crude image of Jason Voorhees and entered the first set of races. Took me a while, but I won the first event and, in doing so, won two more cars. One of them is a Mustang, which my wife is currently transforming into a lovely pink Hello Kitty car.

Sweet.

Pac-Man Championship Edition (360)

Best retro update ever? Possibly.

Biggest gaming surprise ever? Possibly.

It's Pac-Man, but better and faster. So much better. Wow. I'm just amazed.

And it works with the 360 controller, which is a bonus.

Pokemon Diamond (DS)

These are my daily tasks -

1) Transfer six Pokemon from Pokemon Sapphire.
2) Catch those six Pokemon in Pal Park.
3) Trade those six Pokemon with my wife for six not yet in my Pokedex.
4) Get my trendy saying for the day. (Today: Neutrino.)
5) Check GTS for trades. (Today: a Bronzong from Mexico.)
6) Ask Dawn's sister for swarm information. (Today: Electrikes at Valley Windworks.)
7) Get a berry from the woman in Pastoria City.

Pokemon Sapphire (DS)

I can now transfer Pokemon from Sapphire to Diamond, so I started this up to sort out my boxes. I also tried to catch some new Pokemon, but didn't see anything I didn't already have. It looks surprisingly primitive compared to Diamond, but it runs about twice as fast, making battles much easier to cope with.

Pokemon Diamond (DS)

Off work today with a sore willy. (I think going back yesterday was a bit optimistic, should have stayed off for the recommended two full weeks, probably.) Anyway, between checks of my work email (yes, I'm all diligent and stuff), I decided to try the Champion again. I used a few TMs - most useful: Toxic, least useful: Fling - and without too much trouble I managed to... WIN!

Hooray! I've saved the world from Team Galactic and beaten the Pokemon Champion after seventy-six hours and nineteen minutes of play.

Normally that would be the end of it, but I need to go to the new areas now opened, fill my Pokedex, open up Pal Park, etc.

For the record, my winning team was:

Barry - Level 56 Ursaring (Rest, Strength, Toxic, Faint Attack)
Dialga - Level 56 Dialga (Flash Cannon, Shadow Claw, Dragon Claw, Roar of Time)
Neighbour - Level 58 Rapidash (Fire Blast, Ember, Flare Blitz, Flamethrower)
Gnawsome - Level 55 Bibarel (Surf, Cut, Waterfall, Rock Climb)
Butthead - Level 56 Rampardos (Rock Smash, Fling, Thunderbolt, Zen Headbutt)
Batowl - Level 54 Noctowl (Hypnosis, Fly, Extrasensory, Air Slash)