Grand Theft Auto IV (360)

Last night was a big GTA night. I got home, did the washing up, then sat down and played through to bedtime, apart from a quick break to get some food. So now I can give some real first impressions. Which basically boil down to WHOA! MAN! BEST GAME EVER! GUFFAW! KABOOM! PEW PEW! WHOA!

So, what did I do last night? Let's try to remember.

I got out of bed and watched some TV. Saw a whole episode of Republican Space Rangers, which was puerile, obvious, yet still somehow very, very funny. Classic GTA humour, then. Watched a bit of poker, but then got antsy for some action.

Did some missions, including the infamous "brick through the window" mission. I'm pleased to say I did it first time by, you know, picking up the brick shown on the radar and then throwing it through the window.

I finally got a gun, The first gun I got I found in a staff only area of a strip club, but before using it I got given another gun.

Gunplay is much better than previous GTAs. Killing hits are dealt with amazingly, enabling me to create scenes that look like they came out of The Wire. Gunning down a fleeing drug dealer in the middle of an empty street is going to stay with me. It looked amazing and felt a little... odd. There was little sense of elation, more grim satisfaction. People can still take point blank hits to the chest and hardly flinch, though. The killing hits hurt and shots to limbs provoke a reaction, but other shots just seem to get soaked up at times.

I'm not sure whether I should turn auto-aim off or not. I find myself using the manual aim so much that I might just get rid of the automatic option altogether.

(And talking of changing settings, I put the brightness and contrast up by a few notches. Makes the game a whole lot better. I can see again!)

Got to the first mission where you get to make a choice at the end. After a long race through the streets and over rooftops I was asked whether I wanted to kill my target or let him live. I think I made the right one, but I guess only time will tell.

My current favourite car is the Dukes car. It's basically an old Dodge Charger, hence the name. It's loud, looks good and is very exciting to drive, once you get used to it. I'm a fan.

Took Michelle on a couple of dates. Went to the cabaret and then later took her out to a small backstreet bar. Tried my luck and was rewarded with the Warm Coffee achievement.

I've done some amazing stunts in cars. Flips and rolls and jumps, oh my! One particular series of jumps and rolls had my wife staring open-mouthed. She then said, "That is the coolest thing I've ever seen." And she sounded like she meant it.

I think that so far I've only shot one innocent civilian. She'd run me over and I'd only recently got a gun, so I decided to kill her. Didn't get a wanted rating, despite the presence of several witnesses, but did get a sense of vague disquiet. I'm sure I'll get over it.

Got drunk a few times. It's a really good effect and very funny, stumbling around, falling over and failing to use my mobile phone. I got terribly drunk on a date with Michelle and decided to hail a cab to get home. (It's a immediate one-star wanted rating if a cop car sees you driving around when drunk.) Cabs are excellent. I've been using them a lot. It's a risk-free way to get around and reasonably cheap. I haven't skipped a cab ride yet, but I have told the cab driver to hurry up. Drunkenness is, I think, my favourite thing about GTA IV right now.

Saw my first chain reaction of car explosions. I clipped a taxi in my car at full speed. My car conked out and wouldn't restart. When I got out I saw that the taxi I'd hit was on fire. The driver was writhing around on the floor on fire. Oops. Then a tire exploded. Then the whole taxi exploded. People ran away screaming. And sometimes on fire. More cars exploded. More people ran, more people caught fire. And then a car too close to me exploded and I woke up at the hospital. Again. Classic GTA mayhem, but bigger and better. Obviously, the graphics looked better, but the fire works better, the explosions work better and the animation on the civilians caught up in it all was amazing. One lady on fire practically fell over her car door, scrabbled around, managed to right herself and then got a few paces before collapsing. I took the money she dropped. It is GTA, after all.

All good fun, anyway. I was only slightly late to bed. I would have been on time, but on the drive back to the safe house Roman called my mobile and asked me if I wanted to go out to a strip club. How could I refuse? I picked him up, took him out and then drove him home. A few minor police chases along the way, but it was reasonably incident free.

If Sony hadn't already used it, "This is Living" would be a good tag line for this game.

Grand Theft Auto IV (360)

So yesterday evening I raided my TARDIS money bank and got out the coins I'd been saving since January for this day. My wife and I left home at about half past ten and by a quarter past eleven we were in a queue outside the Game on Week Street in Maidstone. There were at that time three people in front of us. I'd expected more. My wife played Pokemon on her DS while I rocked back and forth on a loose paving stone, counting the minutes. A minute before midnight I was standing at the counter; the shop assistant had my copy of GTA IV in his hands. When the clock changed he swiped it, I refused the offer of a £12.99 strategy guide and handed over my cash. On the way out my wife grabbed a free poster and we left.

Despite being the only car in the car park outside the Archbishop's Palace The General hadn't been broken into or stolen - which would have been ironic and upsetting in equal measure. We were blessed on the way home - for the first time in my entire life I managed to get out of Maidstone without having to stop at a single traffic light.

By half past twelve I was sitting on the sofa with a huge grin, watching the opening cut scene and credits. I only played for an hour and fifteen minutes, because I had to be at work the next morning, but that was enough to form some first impressions.

The main shock was that this is definitely a 3D GTA game. That may not sound like it should be in the least surprising, but I was expecting it to be very different, somehow. But, no. It's got the same type of look, the same kind of structure. The cars have GTA-style handling, though it's now weightier and meatier. In fact, that probably applies to the game as a whole. It's GTA, but more solid.

I've never known a game before where I looked forward to cut scenes so much. They're superbly done, with great direction and voice acting. One character stood out to be as being voiced by bad actor, but after finding out more about them I'm beginning to think that it's not the voice actor that's bad - I think the character is a bad actor. That may sound like trying to paper over the cracks in an otherwise great game - which is always a temptation when a game I love does something badly - but, trust me, I don't think it is in this case. You'll see what I mean.

Graphics? Well, they're a mixed bag. Stunning lighting and a world of extraordinary character, but it's all a bit muddy. The details can be hard to see at times, and not only when it's dark. (According to forum reports, people have achieved great things with messing with the display sliders in the Options menu - I'll try that out tonight.)

It's got some lovely touches that make the world feel more real - mainly to do with the random street characters actually doing things other than milling around. A homeless man shuffles past, someone reads a newspaper, a nurse leans against the hospital having a smoke. (The last one I noticed after attempting to get into a fist fight with a random passerby, just because I could. Someone else joined the fight and they beat me into unconsciousness. That didn't happen in previous GTAs. Yes, other people may have joined the fight, but there was never a problem with putting them down. Either I'm out of practice, or things are harder now.)

As for sound, it's great. But it always has been. My favourite radio station so far is called, I think, San Juan Sounds. Never heard any of the tracks on there before, but it's great stuff. I was especially impressed with the gunfire the one time I was shot at. It sounded terrifying. Sharp cracks and pops and dings as bullets hit metal.

I've not got my hands on a gun yet myself. And I've only been in one cop chase. (I sped down a hill, slammed into a police car and managed to turn my car over a couple of streets away trying to escape. Managed to avoid the cops, but wrecked the car I was in and failed the mission I was doing.)

There's a lot left to do and I've only seen a few streets in the city. I'm already recognising places, though. Not just the obvious things, like the huge roller coaster seen in the first GTA IV trailer way back when. I found my way to a character's house not through use of the GPS system, but because I recognised the building at the end of her street.

So, I've not scratched the surface yet. At all. But what I've seen I really do love. There's a real world there, with characters I want to see more of - and the tools are there to really enjoy it. Tonight, hopefully, I'll get my hands on a gun. Gunplay was always GTA's biggest weakness, so I'm interested to see how it is now.

It's going to be a long day in work.

Grand Theft Auto IV (360)

And. It. Was. Good.

Mr Driller: Drill Spirits (DS)

Some terrible performances which are probably best forgotten, Suffice to say that I managed to die before reaching 500m on all the attempts.

Nurikabe (DS)

What can I possibly say? I solved four or five grid-based number puzzles and had fun doing so, though I got stuck on one for a few minutes.

Mario Kart Wii (Wii)

So much fun had and I didn't even go online. I did a fair few time trials - badly - then did some Grand Prixs. It was great, but then my TV decided to show random flashing pixel-high two-centimetre long lines all over the screen, so I had to turn everything off and on again and by the time I'd done all that it was time for the Eastenders Omnibus and too late for more Mario Kart.

Current favourite track is Rainbow Road, but it's often my least favourite track. Depends on whether I'm in a big heavy kart or on a tiny bike.

Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Time (DS)

Utterly infuriating, far too much text, unskippable repetitive cut scenes, yet somehow still charming. One of those "turn off in disgust and come back to ten minutes later" games.

Metal Gear Solid Online Beta (PS3)

Well, after hours and hours of slow, slow downloads and updates I finally got online with this. Not quite sure what to think. It seems to encourage one type of play control-wise and another well, play-wise. It's all very well to try to be sneaky and cunning, but it all boils down to speed and accuracy with the right stick in the end. Unfortunately, I have none of that. I'm very good at faking people out by playing dead and using the cardboard box, when it comes time to capitalise on that I'm all over the place and my shots merely serve as a way to give away my position to the enemy who just ran right past me.

Sigh.

And I've no idea how the CQC stuff works at all.

Siren: New Translation Demo (PS3)

Downloaded this horror game demo from the Japanese store. Shouldn't have bothered. Awful camera, clunky controls and not a lot else that I could see. I could have been missing something, mind, what with it being in Japanese and all.

Frogger (360)

One quick go, then my wife got off the phone and it was time for some TV. Bye 360!

Sonic The Hedgehog (360)

Except, not.

It keeps telling me I've got the trial version, even though I bought it, and won't let me play. Nor will it let me buy it again (not that I would) because I've already bought it. I deleted it and redownloaded it, but nothing helped.

GAH!

Carcassonne (360)

A quick game against the 360, which I won handsomly.

Mr Driller Online (360)

My high score is now over twice that of any on my friends list. I win, or something.

Half-Life 2 Episode Two (360)

Well, I'm never going to play through Half-Life 2 and Episode One on the 360 after all this time, so I thought I'd start off Episode Two. Seems pretty good so far, in a "more or the same" kind of way. Just finished an antlion siege, which was more fun than I expected it to be.

Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Time (DS)

...I'm sure there are odder game concepts than "roguelike Pokemon bounty hunter", but few spring readily to mind.

Nurikabe (DS)

First game I've played in ages and there's nothing to say about it.

I started it up, I did three puzzles, I stopped.

I think I'm just waiting for GTA IV before getting back to the gaming, though hopefully I'll get some Mario Kart time soon.

Mario Kart Wii (Wii)

I need italics.

This game is brilliant.

The wheel is a great accessory and really adds to the experience, after five or six races of falling off things, bashing into walls and failing to do tricks. I thoroughly enjoyed my time paying through the first couple of 50cc cups.

But where it got the italics was online. Just playing random people was amazing. No visible lag at all, which is incredible. Whether Nintendo have written amazing net code or amazing lag-hiding code I don't know, but it was just as smooth as playing offline. Except, you know, instead of playing cheating AI characters I was playing real people in the UK, Germany and France. I just thought I'd try out a race or two and ended up playing for an hour. I only stopped because I had to get some potatoes out of the oven.

Grand Theft Auto 2 (PSP)

Always my least favourite GTA and, oof, it's not aged well at all. Played for half an hour or so, but failed to find the fun.

Gran Turismo 5 Prologue (PS3)

Just one event completed tonight, and only with a bronze medal. Still, it was a great few minutes. I'm just loving the handling in this so much.

Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Blue Rescue Team (DS)

My wife finished this today but missed a cut scene, so I'm going to try and finish it so she can see it. Made some good progress today, opening up a couple of new areas and getting my first new team members.

Ikaruga (360)

I've owned Ikaruga on the DC and GC, but it's never really clicked.

Tonight, though, after a good few tries of the demo it finally did. Took its time, but we finally got there.

So I bought the full game with some points I've had sitting around since last year and I'm about 2050th in the world, or something.

NetHackDS (DS)

Game gave me a human knight today. Nothing very interesting there, I don't think, but at least I had a pony as a pet, which was new to me. Couldn't work out if I could ride him, though.

Got down to level six, before a milky potion made me hallucinate and fail to fight off the monsters that came to get me. I forgot to try praying again, but I'd prayed a little earlier to get over a bought of food poisoning so my god probably wouldn't have done anything for me, anyway.

NetHack (Mac)

Sometimes, this game is just awful.

I was continuing a game from yesterday lunchtime, where I'd got down to level nine in the dungeons, much, much better than normal. I had some good equipment and was doing well. I attacked a floating eye (I think) and suddenly I was dead. The message history just had "The Tengu bites" all down it and I couldn't scroll back any further.

I guess that the floating eye had frozen me or something and the tengu had come up behind me and killed me while I was helpless, but it would have been nice to have been able to see what happened. Boo.

Mario Kart DS (DS)

Did a 150cc cup. Won every race, but still only got a C ranking. I guess I'm out of practice.

I wonder if anyone plays online still? And, if so, do any of them not snake all the way around each course?

Mr Driller: Drill Spirits (DS)

A few more attempts at the 1500m stage, none of them in the least bit successful.

Ah well.

Nurikabe (DS)

Haven't played this in ages, but fancied a break from NetHack half-way through the evening. Did two or three puzzles. Took a few minutes to remember/work out how it all worked, but got there in the end. I think I prefer it to Slitherlink, you know.

NetHackDS (DS)

Another evening mostly filled with NetHackDS. I was letting the game choose for me, so I ended up playing as a lot of races and classes and got killed in a variety of ways. Like attacking a shopkeeper while hallucinating. Not a good idea. I keep kicking myself if I die and have forgotten to pray, though. I've also taken to sacrificing stuff on altars when I see them, though they're pretty rare. At least, they're rare at the depths I normally get to.

NetHackDS (DS)

Today the DS gave me an orcish rogue. I got my best score ever in the DS version - still pitiful, but better - but starved to death on level five of the dungeon. If only my dog hadn't eaten all those jackal corpses before I could get to them...

NetHackDS (DS)

This ate up most of my evening yesterday. It really is a very good substitute to the Mac-based version I've got. Some things are slightly clunkier, simply due to the nature of the input devices, but it mostly works superbly well. (And it's nice that it uses the tileset that I'm used to, too.) The main problem is one I've mentioned before - it's far too easy not to notice that your hungry and end up dead because of it.

Nothing much of note happened last night. I started, I got a few floors down, I died. Over and over again. Sometimes it seemed unfair, like when I walked into a room and was immediately by a hobbit firing a magic missile at me. But that's NetHack for you.

The biggest thing of note was that in one game I - ironic gasp! - didn't actually play as an orc barbarian. I let the game choose for me and I ended up as an poncy elven ranger. Still, he did okay. No worse than anyone else, anyway.

NetHack (Mac)

No stupid deaths today, really, just lots of being beaten to death by monsters while wearing cursed gear. Yeah, I know I should identify things before wearing them, but identity scrolls are few and far between in the game. I've never managed to uncurse items in NetHack, either. Not because I don't know how, just because I've never had the stuff to do it.

Sigh.

Mr Driller: Drill Spirits (DS)

Several rubbish attempts at the 1500m stage. Mercifully, I was stopped from trying too many times by the Red Light of Battery Doom.

Mr Driller: Drill Spirits (DS)

A quick couple of goes in bed. Controls felt slightly clunky, but at least they didn't kill me.

Mr Driller Online (360)

Haven't taken this online yet - which sounds like a good thing, as it's apparently horribly broken - but I did have another quick go at the India stage between Mad Men and bed. Didn't do awfully well and lost one life simply because the controller didn't seem to want me to drill upwards. Gah. That's the funny thing, when the controls are working they feel more fluid and responsive than just about any other version of the game, but when the stick refuses to go in quite the direction you want it to, it's horrible.

Gran Turismo 5 Prologue (PS3)

Had a wonderful few hours with this on Sunday morning. It just clicked. Throwing the Integra round that windy, hilly countryside track was a definite highlight. I wasn't suddenly get golds in everything, mind. I did, however, finish of the C-class stages with a mixture of bronzes and golds. (No silvers, oddly.) I also went online. My RX-8 couldn't really compete with all the concept cars everyone else seemed to be fielding, but I did okay. Apart from one race where I smashed into the wall on the last corner I managed to end each race in the middle of the rankings and, more importantly, I wasn't an awful driver. Maybe I was a little too safe, but I didn't smash into people or go spinning off the track, so that was lovely. Infuriating and addictive in equal measure, once I get a decent car or two I think I'll be okay. (Either that or the extra power will prove to be completely uncontrollable and I'll be awful.) Shame about the lag - cars jump around a bit and don't become insubstantial quickly enough for my liking - but it's still great.

The Simpsons Game (360)

First impressions are that it's a standard platform game, elevated by fantastic Simpsonsness but then let down again by an atrocious camera. Still good fun so far. I just try not to think about Mario Galaxy when the camera moves 180 degrees during jumps and I fall to the floor AGAIN.

Mr Driller Online (360)

The 360 controller's killed me a few times, but other that...

::happy sigh::

I love Mr Driler.

Gran Turismo 5 Prologue (PS3)

Sony really don't make this easy to love. Bought it from the store, waited a couple of hours for it to download... then had to try for three hours for to download an update. Progress bar was going up incredibly slowly and it kept failing. I thought I was going to have to leave it overnight, but just as I was going to bed I checked the PS3 and the update had finished, so I actually managed to get two quick races in before sleep.

Leapt it and bought an RX-8 and took it to London in arcade mode, with everything set to the defaults. Hit many barriers and didn't do very well at all.

Then I went to the first C-class event and played with physics on professional and traction control turned down to 1. Still kept it on automatic gears because I can't do manual. Not in games, not in real life. Came first by a long way, despite spinning out in the same place both laps.

It was excellent and all the installation nonsense was forgiven as soon as I was driving. Looks very nice, though London stuttered a bit here and there.

Pity there's no way to turn the music off during a race.