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Project Gotham Racing 4: moving to the silvers

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Following an evening on Wednesday where John, Kieron and I met up online to kill each other in Halo 3, race around in PGR4, and find orbs with each other in Crackdown 2, I decided to see where I was in the various modes in PGR4.  A fair way in, it seems.

Back in 2008, I got frustrated that I had to play some levels with bikes.  I got past those at some point and when I started last night I was up to the eighth of ten sets of arcade challenges, with a variety of platinum, gold and silver medals.  I managed to complete each of the remaining challenges in set eight on my first go, so was feeling confident moving on to set nine.

Suddenly I couldn't use a nice controllable car - oh no.  Big powerful slippy monsters of cars that don't actually go where you want them to; coupled with elimination events where a single mistake can mean that you're never going to survive to the end.  It took many attempts, but I finally passed them ... to be confronted with a race around the Nürburgring.  Hmm.

Still, the game remains ace, and there's also the career mode to explore, which I have obviously played some of before.  It may stay in the Xbox 360 drive for a while.

Mario Kart 8: crossing the line

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I was dragging a green shell behind me, but as I turned the final corner I saw red and blue shells approaching.  The red shell would be disposed of by the green, but would I cross the line before the blue hit me?


No.  But the blast threw me forwards the 10cm I needed.  Huzzah!

Mario Kart 8: refinement extraordinaire

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Is Mario Kart 8 perfect?  No.  The series has stagnated in terms of its single-player mode, the battle arenas are no longer arenas, and the time trial ghosts are a bit glitchy. But those surrounding aspects do not  change the fact that the central game is utterly glorious, and remains a superbly fun experience.  The racing gameplay has been refined with new items (and the loss of some old), the track designs have been meticulously put together, and everything is balanced beyond compare.

A good player will win 75% of their races.  A great player will win 90%.  The chance for less talented gamers to win keeps them interested, and while it's fashionable to claim that there's no skill and too much randomness in the game, that is less true than ever with the addition of the horn item which can destroy blue shells.


I've been working my way through the 50cc tournaments, but have just learnt that completion of 100cc and 150cc unlocks the lower levels anyway.  Practising on 50cc has helped in any case, and my first 100cc cup was a breeze.


The other amazing aspect of the game is MKTV - not the short-lived Milton Keynes endeavour, but rather a replay mode which enables uploads to YouTube and replays on its own website.  The details that you can see when watching these replays are quite amazing.


Mega Bomberman: completed!

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Time is a great healer. I remember the underwater levels, the giant boxers on the last stages. I remember the final boss, with his dragon machine. What I wasn't expecting was the slowdown.

Particularly on the final level, with many enemies on screen, the start of the stage slows to a crawl. This makes it more difficult, since you can no longer judge well how long the bombs will take to go off. Instead, you have to learn times in terms of the distance you can walk.

Still, I managed to complete the game with a minimum of lives lost. I've completed it before of course; attached to the manual was a post-it note with a few passwords, the last of which was 0515 which corresponds to the final level.

I then moved onto the battle mode, and tried to remember what each type of louie does. The pink louie appears to dance.  I set the green bomber to be a fat one, and he won the first set of games and almost won the second. I snatched victory in the final game.

The Conduit: one-hit killed

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I have still played relatively few first person shooters using the Wii remote, which is surprising when you consider how well it works. It's easy to aim at an enemy quickly, and as long as you fiddle with the sensitivity settings it can be much quicker to turn than a pad.

I enjoyed my time playing The Conduit's multiplayer, although I was hopeless. I'm pretty sure that a couple of the games I played were ruined by hackers - people who came into a room, survived a few headshots, and killed me with one shot. If they're not good enough to play properly, so be it.


I may well try the single-player game at some point.  It was great to see a vibrant community playing the game, and I hope that they can find another similar game to play going forwards. Maybe The Conduit 3 on Wii U …