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Pikmin 2: slow progress until day 7

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Without the overall time deadline of the first game, there's less incentive to rush around the levels, having multiple groups of pikmin on multiple tasks simultaneously.  Instead, I spent a couple of days just exploring Awakening Wood, building up my red pikmin numbers before entering the second cave.



Down in this cave I found white pikmin, adding to the purple pikmin I had from before.  The white pikmin are resistant to poison, which should come in handy, but only because the game has introduced poisonous enemies and obstacles.  It's a bit more complicated than the first game, and there are new 'sprays' which I know I'll never get around to using since they're a disposable item.


I find it pretty limiting that the white and purple pikmin can only be gained by going into the caves - and the caves are all a bit dark and miserable.  As a result I've got very few white pikmin left, particularly after half of them died in the final battle in the white flower cave.



Still, with poison-resistant pikmin in my party, I was able to break through to new areas, and I've found the yellow pikmin as well.  With the lack of time limit, I feel that my next task will be to build up numbers again ...

Euro Truck Simulator 2: get out of the way

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My word, this is amusing.  I'm hopeless at it though - reversing into the spaces is just hilariously bad.  Cars seem to have a habit of driving into my side as well, meaning that each trip is earning me not much money.


On my first trip I made the mistake of discovering Birmingham.


Unfortunately I didn't blow it up.




My second delivery was to Swansea.  There were some horrifically narrow roads on the way there.


And some stupidly slow drivers.



I was glad to work out the key to flash my lights at everyone.

Team Fortress 2: a great community

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I felt like playing an online shooter, but I'm not sure where my copies of various Halos are and I've not bought a Call of Duty game since number 2 (and that was in Portuguese).  I've completed Portal a number of times and have made my way half-way through Half-Life 2 (as described the last time I wrote about it - the last bit I remember was playing with Alyx's dog and then being separated from her by a tunnel collapsing, but that was a good few months ago), but have never played Team Fortress 2.  I decided to change that.

I'm really glad I did.  The game's not particularly friendly to newcomers, with the different classes seeming bewildering, but I decided to just jump in and try to work it out as I went.  Of course, this meant that I died a lot, but that just meant I could experiment more with different playing styles.


I quickly realised that the best class for me was the pyromaniac, which was surprising since in most games I don't like getting up close to enemies.  The pyro has an advantage in that the weapon - a flamethrower - doesn't need to be completely accurate, though it relies on an extended contact with enemies.



I also played a few games with the spy, which was great fun - trying to act like a member of the other team in order to prevent getting discovered, while sneaking in to the base to steal the documents.

The thing I found most difficult was learning the maps.  I only played on two different areas, one with two forts with identical mazes within (on which I played capture the flag), and one where the idea was to make progress through the level.  I was on the losing team on every game but one, and I can't help but feel my participation may not have helped on that.



The thing that struck me most about the game was the community.  Everyone was playing as a team, not boasting about kills, and a couple of people actively helped me - I managed to get the documents back to our base while two others protected me.  I said thanks, they told me I was welcome.

Uncharted: completed!

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They did introduce something new - but hardly innovative.  It turns out that the treasure is cursed, and all associated with it turn into the undead.  Yes, it's yet another game where you get to fight zombies.  These aren't the shambling hordes of Resident Evil, these are agile and quick and vicious.  These are just horrible.

While I did find the three-way battles between Drake, the zombies, and the mercenaries pretty clever, the general tone of the game was worsened by their inclusion.  I'm sure that many would argue that they were crucial to the plot - don't take the gold off the island, it'll make the world cursed! - but it could have just been a disease inside the golden statue instead.  Maybe it's just that I don't like things jumping out at me.

So, Drake went into the tombs, found Sir Francis, found the zombies, worked out that the gold was cursed.  There were some clever platforming bits around a 3D maze, where I had to follow signs marked either II, V or VII, which would have been a clever puzzle if it wasn't for the very obvious notes shown at the start of the section.  Unfortunately the platforming bits kept on being broken up by more mercenaries appearing from nowhere.  Also unfortunately, Drake died many times on the platforming bits because the controls are just a bit woolly.

Right at the end, there was a section where Drake had to chase the real enemy, and I kept failing it because unlike the rest of the game, there was a time limit.  I had to run past lots of zombies and mercenaries, shooting without aiming, and then jumping onto the treasure as it was hoisted into the air.  The final level thankfully had no zombies, but lots of sniping, rocket launchers, and an invincible enemy who ran from area to area.  The final battle had me foxed for a while until I realised I had to brute force it, rather than taking cover I just had to make Drake rush the enemy as he reloaded.

So, game finished, and I immediately went back to the first couple of levels to try to understand the plot a bit better, having forgotten about it in the years since I started the game.  I found a few more treasures by exploring, and was struck by how different the first couple of chapters felt, before gun-toting enemies turned up.  If only there was more of that during the game.

Anyway, while I've been a bit down about the game in my write-up, I was keen to continue it, and must admit that it's been well worth playing.  I hope that its sequels have learnt from the progression in game mechanics over time, and I'll move onto Uncharted 2 at some point soon.

WarioWare DIY: leaving it until the last minute

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As part of my drive to get the most out of Nintendo WiFi Connection before it gets turned off, I've downloaded all the extra puzzles for the Layton games, loaded up games with online leaderboards such as Geometry Wars Galaxies, and played a last few games of Mario Kart DS and Tetris DS.

Deep in the DS pile was WarioWare DIY, which I'd never even unwrapped.  I've no idea why, since I loved all previous games in the series, and the idea of programming your own games seems inspired.  So I started it yesterday, playing through Mona's games, going through the initial game building tutorial, and then wondering how I could unlock all the other characters.  I built my own game (Smash TV, so called because in it you must smash a TV), followed the other tutorial, and still nothing.

This morning I found that you have to wait until the next day for the next character to unlock.  Obviously.

This wasn't a huge problem, though, since I went online last night and downloaded loads of extra games.  Some were built by professional games programmers, others came from the "weekly games" which I understand were generated by users.  I had to download one game at a time, which was dull, but it meant that I could then play loads of games last night with varied levels.

None were as good as Smash TV though.