An Open Letter

Dear Publishers,

It has come to my attention that some people get free stuff from you in return for being nice about games. So if you want to send me any games or gaming-related tat then I promise not to be rude about them. If they're rubbish, I'll probably just pretend not to have seen them. Seriously, though, I'm a staunch defender of the PSP and found several nice things to say about that Tamagotchi board game on the Wii, so unless your product name includes the word "Sims" you're pretty safe.

Looking at my stats for last month (October 2007) my atom.xml feed file was viewed 2,307 times and my blog's main page was viewed 531 times. That's, like, loads. (Although the atom.xml file was accessed about 70,000 times, but I guess the 2,307 is after search bots have stripped from the figures or something.) I bet IGN and Gamespot don't have many more hits than that. And I post loads on Usenet and rllmuk. Sometimes I even post on NTSC-UK when I'm really, really bored.

Please email me at the address listed in my Blogger profile if you wish to take advantage of this very special offer.

Love,

Rev. Owen Allaway

P.S. I also accept cash, bourbon and Star Wars merchandise.

Team Fortress 2 (360)

I was meant to be playing this with friends last night, but nobody showed up. So after half an hour wandering round maps listening to the developers' commentary, I leapt into a public game.

I was rubbish. Just awful. I had fun, though, even though I kept dying. And despite my incompetence my team won a couple of times, including one win that was so decisive that it got me a (richly undeserved) achievement. (Though there is a case to be made that by being such an easy target, I distracted the enemy from the better members of my team, and thus helped in my own way.)

Looking at the stats afterwards, it seems that I did far, far better when I was a pyro and sat back in defence, so I think that's probably what I'll stick to from now on.

Assassin's Creed (360)

This is brilliant. Yes, it's a glitchy, buggy and repetitive mess, but it's a brilliant glitchy, buggy and repetitive mess.

The core world and mechanics are just so good that I find it easy to overlook the problems. Like last night, when a mission I'd finished reset itself because I happened to bump into a Templar on the way back to talk to the guy who'd given me the mission. (As luck it would have it, it was the best side mission yet - a stealth kill of a guard in a crowded street - so doing it again wasn't something I minded.)

I've now taken to killing beggars. You lose sync (i.e. health) whenever you do it, but they're so annoying that it's worth it. "Please sir, spare me a coin. Just a single... gurrgggh." That actually sounds really horrible written down like that and it's not something I'd recommend in real life, but in the game world it feels great. I'm also killing any lunatics that get in my way, after one alerted an assassination target last night and stopped me from getting a stealth kill.

Disgaea: Afternoon of Darkness (PSP)

Today I didn't go into any sort of gum or candy. Nope, I went into an Unopened Drink.

Managed to get some specialists with DEF/INT/SP bonuses to add to an orb Flonne's carrying, but didn't manage to level up a single character, despite using my low-level guys (i.e. Prinnies) most of the time.

I suspect these entries might need a translation for some people. I'm not sure it's worth doing, though.

Disgaea: Afternoon of Darkness (PSP)

Another lunchtime spend inside some candy looking for specialists.

I'm really trying to keep all my characters equally levelled, but it's just about impossible. The guys with long range attacks always level up faster - my two fire-wielding guys are still above Laharl, even.

Assassin's Creed (360)

Last night, this was just about the best game ever... for the most part.

It was the best game ever when I was exploring cities, fighting guards to save citizens (or just for fun), galloping over the countryside knocking guards left and right, running over rooftops to assassinate a guard before he knew I was there and posing like Batman on top of tall buildings.

It was a bit rubbish when I was actually playing the main game. The missions you use to gain intel aren't very interesting. They're very short, but just not very fun. There are three types, one of which involves, er, finding a bench to sit on. Yes. That really makes me feel like an assassin. Picking pockets and roughing people up to gain information are more interesting, but not as fun as rooftop escapes or counter-filled fights against six guards at once.

I only did one real story assassination in the four hours I played, but that was just a fairly standard fight bookended with annoying cut scenes. It's not Hitman, by any means. In Hitman fights against multiple opponents generally mean death and stealth is the way to go. In Assassin's Creed stealth is the far more difficult option, with combat against multiple opponents being reasonably easy (so far) and more of a way to show off than anything else.

It's as if they've got the world right, the controls right and the combat right, but then tacked on a main game unworthy of all the rest. Combat is really superb now I can counter, the cities are wonderful and the simplified running and jumping controls that sounded so rubbish from previews actually work superbly. There's enough control to make it feel like you're doing everything, but it's automated enough to stop you from constantly falling over, cursing and dying. Sometimes things go wrong and you end up throwing yourself off a building when you meant to jump up a wall or leap a gap, but it doesn't happen very often and given the nature of the game they've done a really great job there.

I'm not sure if the fun will last, but right now it feels a lot like a GTA game to me. That sense of freedom, coupled with the annoyance of having to do annoying story missions to open up new areas to play. (I've never liked the story missions in GTA games. Ever.) The other comparison that springs to mind is with Crackdown and I think Assassin's Creed would probably have been better structured in a similar way, with all the targets open and available from the beginning.

Oh, and it crashed on me last night. I was in an enemy camp out in the kingdom and I'd just slaughtered a load of enemies with my amazing sword skills. The last one fell, I started to walk towards my horse and my 360 froze up completely. Grrr.

Disgaea: Afternoon of Darkness (PSP)

I've just noticed something today. I always thought specialists were only "unlocked" if you defeated them Item World, but it seems they get unlocked if the other enemies killed them, too.

I went into some candy today and saw three specialists, two of whom I killed and one who was killed before I could get to him. Upon exiting the Item World at level ten all three could be moved.

Well, that changes my item World tactics a bit, then.

Halo 3 (360)

Things I learned last night:

1) Being party leader is really quite stressful.

2) Lag's no fun. Except in Rocket Race, which is insane enough to survive.

3) I am not good at all at Ninjaball.

Assassin's Creed (360)

In ugvm, Zomoniac wrote, "Simultaneously the best and worst game I've played in a long time."

After an hour and half spent with it last night I'm tempted to agree.

Sometimes it feels like the best thing ever, but then it goes and fails a mission for unclear reasons, has rules for guard behaviour I've not even begun to work out yet and takes you out of the action for another huge cut scene just when you're getting into things.

And it looks absolutely incredible... except when the screen's tearing itself in half and shadows are glitching all over the place.

I really can't tell whether it's any good yet or not.

Disgaea: Afternoon of Darkness (PSP)

Yesterday lunchtime; a fairly short session. I taught Laharl Mega Fire and Mega Heal, then went into some chewing gum to grab a Marksman to put in Mina's gun.

As you do.

Disgaea: Afternoon of Darkness (PSP)

This is what I spent most the weekend playing. Hours of it. Didn't achieve much, really. I spent most of the time on the last level of the ice world, which is episode two or three, just killing and killing and killing until I got a Golem down to a price I could afford.

(I originally wanted a Gremlin, because Hell Pepper looks like a good special power to have, but they don't look very good, do I decided against it.)

Anyway, I'm now trying to level Franky the Golem up a bit, so he can slot into my team. He's up to level six now, which is good. (I'm not a GameFAQs-reading power leveller. These things take time for me.)

I've also created a rogue called Mina but she/he is really, really rubbish. I'm not sure why I bothered. Stealing items sounds good - and I'm guessing there are some items it's only possible to get that way - but it hardly ever works and keeping Mina alive is provin very tricky. I've now given her a gun and am doing early levels with just her, Franky and Laharl as healing backup, but it's a slow process.

It sounds really tedious, I know, just doing levels over and over and over again, but it's actually really good fun. I think it's because it's not stressful and because the goals are mine, not set by the game.

Mario Kart DS (DS)

Not sure why I decided to play this after so many months/years away, but I did. I started again from the beginning and did two 50cc cups, which I won with ease. It wasn't very interesting. I don't want to skip ahead, but I don't think it'll come to life again until I get to 150cc level.

Halo 3 (360)

One quick go on Saturday, second round of the UGVM Tournament.

I lost 10-5, but I'd feared a much harsher score line, so I was quite happy with the result.

Super Mario Galaxy (Wii)

Just finished this. Well, you know, not finished finished, just seen-the-credits finished. There's still a whole set of galaxies up top I've not even been to yet.

Playing through this with my wife collecting stars, shooting enemies and helping me jump has been absolute, total joy.

So, so, so good.

Halo 3 (360)

Last night was the first UGVM Halo 3 Monday. It's a lovely game to play with a good group of people, it really is.

We tried out some standard game types and then tried some new things - Storm The Beach and Zombies.

Storm The Beach is the Halo 3 version of D Day, with the attackers having to leave a landing craft and try to control six zones on the beach. Being the defending team is far more intense, I found, and neither team managed to grab the final zone, but it was good fun. If we play it again and find a good way to attack the sixth zone then things might become even better.

Zombies split the group, some of us loved it, some hated it. It's very fast, very silly and not a little bit random. The humans have lots of weapons, the zombies only have melee weapons but can run very, very fast and jump very, very high. There's only one or two zombies at the beginning, but every human who dies respawns on the zombie team. I loved it, but I'm not sure we'll be playing it again, as it's so divisive.

Everyone seemed to love Rocket Race, but I had to leave before that got played. Hopefully we'll play it next Monday.

Disgaea: Afternoon of Darkness (PSP)

I didn't play this much, just a quick go while the wife was using the Wii for Endless Ocean. (Which is a fantastic game everyone with a Wii should own, by the way, and which should probably sell more copies than even Mario if the world worked properly.) I'm currently trying to work out how best to level Flonne up. I'm thinking I need to get her enough mana to create a disposable pupil with some attack magic she can learn, but getting that mana is proving tricky.

Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga (DS)

As well as the 360 version, I also played some of the DS version. Unlike last year's terrible effort, this one works properly and is very playable. A huge amount of stuff seems to have been fitted into the DS cart. The levels are massive, the graphics are great and it sounds just like it should.

Very, very impressive indeed.

Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga (360)

Another game that's great for co-op gaming with the wife. Like Mario, it looks lovely - but not as polished. Like Mario, it sounds great - but it's using the movie's sounds. Unlike Mario, it feels slightly clunky to control and deaths often seem random. That's not a problem, though. The joy of the game doesn't come from the base gameplay, from the Star Warsy Legoness of it all.

This is two great pieces of Star Wars merchandise polished up and put into one package. It's fantastic value for fans of the Star Wars universe. A good game in great clothes.

And you can give Darth Maul a giant afro.

Super Mario Galaxy (Wii)

Over the weekend I got 52 stars, reached the ToyTime galaxy and enjoyed every single second of the time I spent playing. Everything seems to have been tweaked and tested until it was perfect. All games should be like this, but very, very few are.

The graphics are great, the sound (both effects and music) are utterly exceptional. The controls take five minutes to get used to, but are then never a problem. The whole game is just so imaginative and polished it makes other games look, well, broken.

The difficulty level is perfect for me. I've seen the Game Over screen twice, I think, and I've lost a lot of lives, but nothing has frustrated me, nothing's seemed impossible or based on luck. Even the bosses are great fun, being quite easy to kill once you've worked out how. A mole boss gave me a fair bit of trouble, but by the time I killed him I'd worked him out so managed to go back and get an extra star for killing him without being hit.

Of particular note is the co-op gameplay. It sounds rubbish but is, in fact, genius. And I think I really mean that. I can't imagine who would have thought it up, but it works. My wife would probably have trouble with the main game, but this way she can play alongside me and enjoy the game. We work well as a team and the special high jump you can do by both pressing A at the same time has come in surprisingly useful at times.

I think that it's fair to say that this is actually a better game than Mario 64. It's taken a long, long time, but we've finally got it.

Super Mario Galaxy (Wii)

Incredible, glorious, joyful and, yes, triumphant.

So far.

I'd still be playing, but my hand hurts. Stupid Wiimote.

360 Catch Up (360)

Last night I caught up on a load of Live Arcade demos. They were all rubbish, I'm afraid to say. Okay, I don't want to spend points, so I was going in with an attitude, but still. Screwjumper: rubbish. Shrek and Roll: less rubbish, but not worth money. Mutant Storm Empire: like the last one, but zoomed in and somehow rubbish. Etc.

I also tried the Two Worlds demo. It's Oblivion, but rubbish. It's too hard, the interface is impossible to read and the wolves look like pigs.

So I went back to Pinball FX, because it had a new table to download - for free! Pretty good table, too, though the game's still too fast and I can't work out what's going on most of the time. Fun enough, though.

Then it was time for some Carcassonne. I'm slightly grumpy about it now being free after I paid 800 points for it, but I've had fun with it. Last night I got the final single player achievement, which was nice. Not sure if I'll bother with multiplayer.

I also deleted a load of old Live Arcade games because I never play them and they were taking up space. I can always download them again if I miss them. Prince of Persia: bye! Castlevania: Symphony of the Night: I have you on PSP now, bye! Cloning Clyde: I've not looked at you in months, bye! Alien Hominid: you're way too hard, see ya! Assualt Heroes: you're not as good as I thought! Gauntlet: have I played you since launch week? Etc.

Halo 3 (360)

Last night was the first round of the ugvm knockout tournament, a duel against DBSnappa on Epitaph. It was close until the last thirty seconds or so, when I got a quick run of kills to win 10-7. Go me!

Before that I'd played a bit of single player. I'm really struggling to get through the first level on Heroic (I know, I'm rubbish) but it's incredibly good fun. Best bit was the game checkpointing me while a huge alien git was charging towards me with a gravity hammer. Took me a few tries and some lucky grenade throws to survive that.

Disgaea: Afternoon of Darkness (PSP)

There's really not much to say about this.

I did a few battles to get Laharl's mana up and then created an average Warrior. I've called him Chopper, because I had a spare axe in my inventory, which I wanted him to use.

And that's it.

Uncharted Demo (PS3)

Tomb Raider meets Gears of War, or something. Jungle exploration and jumping, punctuated with gunfights where taking cover is of paramount importance.

Luckily for my wallet, I didn't much like it. Yes, it looks nice. Yes, it seems to have a nice balance of combat and exploration. Yes, it's got some loevely touches. But the aiming controls are horrible. I didn't have any troubles using the PS3 controller for Resistance, but it's taking far, far too long in this game to get the cursor over my enemies. In the time it takes me to pop out of cover and actually get my cursor over an enemy I've been shot to ribbons. Give me some sort of aim assistance or a 360 controller and I'd probably enjoy it, but as it is I just found it too frustrating to play for long.

Disgaea: Afternoon of Darkness (PSP)

In many ways, I don't understand why Disgaea is fun. It shouldn't be. Spending half an hour revisiting the tutorial map so that my brawler can learn some ice magic from his Ice Mage pupil (you know, just in case) shouldn't be fun. Yet somehow it is, despite being repetitive and ultimately pointless. (He hates ice, doesn't do much damage with it, can't use it much and is fast enough so that he can normally get into range of an enemy for a direct attack.)

So that was about half an hour of the six hours I've spent on the game so far. Apart from that I've taught my cleric some fire magic, taught Laharl to heal, gone into Item World a couple of times to get some specialists out of rare gum, created a few characters and, oh yes, finished the first chapter in the story.

I think the appeal of Disgaea lies in the team. It's not about getting to the end of the story, but about creating and moulding characters to reflect your vision. It's a reversal of the RPG norm, where you level and customise your team to enable you to get through the story. Here you go through the story to help you level and customise your team.

Or maybe the appeal lies in something more direct, in the way that battles are always fun, with the puzzle-type levels that often populate SPRGs kept to a minimum so that you always have tactical freedom.

Let's not forget, also, that the player decides how difficult these battles are. The focus on levelling means that you can decide where to go, what level enemies to face and therefore how hard you want the game to be.

It's less of a traditional RPG and more of a tactical, character-building sandbox, where choice and customisation are far more important than the (fairly funny but emotionally unengaging) story. It's not a Final Fantasy style game trying to be an epic movie, it's just trying to be a bedroom floor littered with toy soldiers.

So here we are, with the sorely underrated PSP playing host to three great SRPGs in as many months. Jeanne D'Arc's got the looks. Final Fantasy Tactics has the brains. And Disgaea's got the soul.

Go team!

Disgaea: Afternoon of Darkness (PSP)

Has it really been over three years since I was playing the PS2 version of this game? (Yes. It has. I've checked.)

Anyway, the PSP version is finally here. (I paid for it in August, I think, so it's nice to get it at last.) First impressions, based on about nintety minutes of play - and, remember, that's a blink of an eye in Disgaea-time - is that it's the same game as the PS2 version, so therefore full of greatness.

It looks lovely shrunk down on the PSP screen, though the stats can be a bit tricky to read at times. There seems to be a new person in the castle, who just gives you a list of items you've owned, or something. (And there is a brand new story, but I've yet to unlock that.)

I've not done much yet. Just the tutorials and the first couple of missions. I've created a cleric and got Laharl up to rank one in the assembly and now I'm wondering whether I should make a red mage or a green skull for my next character.

I've looked back online and one of the last things I wrote when I was playing it in 2004 was about the difficulty I was having levelling up my cleric. And that's the problem I'm already having right now.

It's good to be back.

Castlevania: The Dracula X Chronicles (PSP)

I won't bore you with the details. Online reviews will give all the details about what this release contains. Rondo... 2.5D... etc.

What do I think about it all? Well, the main game is very hard. It's good, but it's harder than any modern Castlevania and, I think, harder than Super Castlevania IV.

I've unlocked Symphony of the Night now, though, so I'm playing that instead. You unlock it in a really stupid way (you have to find a certain item on Level 3' (not to be confused with Level 3) but I've done it now, so I can't complain too much.

Dungeon Making: Hunting Ground (PSP)

Well, level two's boss has come to live in my dungeon. Defeat him, and I get access to level three.

I'm not ready for that yet, though. Level two is unfinished and I want to finish it off before starting the next one. I can come back to live two any time I want - I still visit level one every day - but I want to take things slow. Also, I need to get some more magic points. I'm running out far too quickly.

Scrabble Interactive 2007 Edition (DS)

Career mode gets annnoyingly hard annoyingly quickly. That's all I have to say. I will, however, growl for a bit.

Grrrrrrr.

Grrrrrrr.

Grrrrrrr.

Grrrrrrr.

Slitherlink (DS)

I went back to this for a few puzzles. It takes a lot more thinking than Nurikabe, square for square, but it's probably more satisfying when a puzzle is finally completed.

Nurikabe (DS)

Starting to get slightly trickier now, but a long puzzle takes seven or eight minutes.

Pogo Island (DS)

Collection of poor minigames. The Puzzle Bobble clone is particuarly rubbish. The word game would fun, but is hampered by a terrible dictionary. Very poor.

Marvel Trading Card Game (DS)

As part of my quest to go back to old games I didn't give enough time to, I thought I'd try this again. First time I tried I got a couple of pages into the tutorial and quit out. This time I made it through the tutorial (twenty odd minutes spent reading text) and then tried the first puzzle. It's meant to show that you understood the tutorial. Well, I thought I had, but I obviously didn't because I was utterly clueless. I tried about four times, but couldn't work out the interface or what the heck I was meant to do.

The Legend of Zelda: The Phantom Hourglass (DS)

Nope, I'm not ready to get back into this. I thought I might be, but it just didn't work for me. I sleepwalked through my current dungeon until I got stuck for more than twenty seconds, at which I promptly turned the game off.

I'm not quite sure what happened. I was enjoying this game a lot, but now I'm just finding everything about it annoying.

Nurikabe (DS)

It's the new Slitherlink! (This is number eleven in a series of DS puzzle games from Hudson, Slitherlink was number five. It's all in Japanese, but it takes all of about ten seconds to figure out the menus.)

Starts off with the 6x6 puzzles, which take about thirty seconds, but soon grows. I'm on the 10x10 puzzles now and most of them are taking me about two and a half minutes to do, so it's perfect little bite-sized gaming.

I could describe the rules, but that would be tedious and confusing. It's probably best if you just click this link and try it for yourself.

Beware, though - it's horribly addictive.