Animal Crossing: Let's Go To The City (Wii)

My goodness. Redd sold me a real painting!

Crystal Defenders (iPod)

After a long, long break, I played a couple of games of this at lunchtime. Still didn't manage to complete the first level. In my first game I decided to spam loads of low level units all over the map and got to level eighteen. In my second game I concentrated on a very few high level units and got to level twenty-one.

Great way to waste half-an-hour, even without great success.

Animal Crossing: Let's Go To The City (Wii)

Delivered a package from the kangaroo, distracted me, missed Pascal.

Gunstar Heroes Demo (360)

Probably the best Megadrive/Genesis game in the whole world. Fast, fluid and fun. But did it always look so horrible?

Played it, loved it, but didn't buy it. Why? Well, because I'm awful it, that's why, and didn't actual get to where it asked me to buy it. If I'm so terrible that I don't need the full game, then I think I'll keep my points.

(Although, I know the boss that killed me was pretty easy when I used to play on the Genesis, so I'll probably cave eventually.)

Fuel (360)

Got an Achievement last night. First one in a while. It was the one for collecting one hundred liveries. As luck would have it, it wasn't just a random livery for a vehicle I never use, but a new design for my beloved Dustgrinder bike. Hooray!

Collected another livery after that, then went off to do an actual career race - this one a buggy race that took place mostly on roads. Took me three tries, but was pretty easy once I discovered a shortcut at the beginning of the race that put me far enough ahead that I could avoid being overtaken on the bits that I couldn't do very well. There was a hairpin on to gravel which I could never quite get right, a jump it was hard to hit at the correct angle and a curved, woody section where I knew there must be a shortcut - the AI cars were certainly finding it - but which I couldn't find. Excellent race.

Animal Crossing: Let's Go To The City (Wii)

Wandered around, didn't see anyone apart from Alli. No idea where they were all hiding, but everyone was out when my wife played straight after me. Maybe the animals just hate me.

The Sims 3 (PC)

Sims now properly autonomous - except for fact they won't come home from trips out unless you tell them to, as far as I can see. Left to their own devices, they will do what needs doing, including peeing, showering, sleeping and cleaning. This is a major step. My wife likes to micro-manage her sims, I prefer to watch them and then prod them gently or get them doing things they wouldn't normally do.

Making friends seems to take ages. Acquaintances are easy to get, but building up relationships seems hard.

La'Quisha grew up to school age. Once she's going off to school each day, I'm going to have Steve explore the town a bit during the days before he gets a job.

Used build mode to extend the house, as it was far too small. Very easy to do, doesn't cost the earth. Good. Restrictions, though, like not being able to move walls with counters attached to them. Reasonable, understandable, annoying.

Animal Crossing: Let's Go To The City (Wii)

New monkey, Tammi. I've always wanted a monkey.

Sam & Max Save The World Demo (360)

Didn't play this for long. I probably want it, despite the voices being all wrong, but I don't honestly know if I'd ever play it. I can see myself spending 1,600 points and then never even finishing episode one. Something to ponder.

Rocket Riot Demo (360)

Lovely art style, brilliant "Rocket Riot, Rocket Riot" sound burst at the end of levels (almost enough to make me buy it on its own), plays as well as an unholy union of Bangai-O and Worms ever could. Very generous demo, too. If I had points to throw around, I might well throw them around on this. But I don't. And after hearing complaints about a terrible second boss, I'm not going to add points for this game.

If that makes sense.

Wolfenstein 3D Demo (360)

Doom has aged very, very well. Wolfenstein... less so. It's nice to see a shooter with a score, though. That's always good.

Droplitz Demo (360)

Wasn't quite sure what I was doing - I knew to make paths, but didn't know what the win/lose conditions were - but enjoyed my time with this time. Four hundred points would seem like the right price for a puzzle game like this, eight hundred seems a bit much. Not completely out of the question, but a bit much.

Animal Crossing: Let's Go To The City (Wii)

Catchphrases in McNulty include "on a boat", "like a pig" and "I like men".

Animal Crossing: Let's Go To The City (Wii)

Bella's gone. Redd sold me a fake a painting and a rocket.

The Sims 3 (PC)

I'm reviewing this - I have an actual free copy from EA and everything - so this post will just be some notes of things I need to remember when I write up the review.

Install takes ages. How much disk space did it take up? I'll have to check.

Runs like a dog on default settings on my PC, but so did The Sims 2. Taking everything down to low means it runs fine and doesn't really seem to look any different to my eyes. No different from medium settings, no different from The Sims 2.

Set up a family - Steve and Sasha Beato and their baby daughter, whose name is something like De'Quesha. I let my wife name her and she watches far too much Maury. Steve is evil, Sasha is reasonably good, but not overly so.

Moved them into a small house in town. It's not a trailer... it just looks like one. I've fulfilled a few small wishes for them - a new sofa, a crib for the baby, etc. Steve, though evil, loves his little daughter very much and most of his wishes involve taking care of her.

While he was doing that, Sasha went out to the grocery store - fancy new feature alert! - and bought some food. And a duck. For the bath. The bath they don't have. Then she came home and got a job on the journalism career track, as she wished. Steve wants to have a criminal career, but I'm keeping him home to look after the baby for now. Global domination can wait.

I experimented with letting my sims get on with their lives themselves and they went to the toilet, ate food, went to bed and went to work without me having to tell them to. That's an improvement from The Sims 2 right there. I think they were meant to do it in the last game, but they never seemed to actually do it.

When I left, Sasha was still at work - her first day - and Steve was looking after the baby. I think I might get Sasha to invite her co-workers over for a party soon, see some interation.

Steve and Sasha love each other very much and when they can they spend a lot of time talking and canoodling. Sasha wants another baby - they've not tried that yet.

Fuel (360)

Played this for a couple of hours last night while the wife played The Sims 3. Managed to go over half an hour without seeing a road or dirt track as I tried to get the Warrior to climb a mountain with a vista point on the top. Several likely looking slopes proved fruitless, but I got there eventually... then fell off. Another climb and I reached the vista point. That was a good feeling. Then found some more points of interest before trying out a checkpoint race across the top of the Dead Lady's Lake area. Took me several tries, but I eventually won it, despite not being able to find a shortcut the other cars were using. I like races where I get to drive the General Custer. It may not be the best car I could have used, but I know how to drive it and didn't want to spend any money on a new vehicle that may have been rubbish.

It's funny, a few days away from the game and the scale astonished me all over again when I jumped back in. There's also a lot of variation and character to the different areas, despite the small number of different objects and terrain styles. In a sequel I would dearly love to see many more unique buildings. Could they be generated, as the world is, I wonder?

Animal Crossing: Let's Go To The City (Wii)

Last night, I bought a clock.