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Everybody Votes Channel: screenshots

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Back in June of this year, Nintendo closed down a few of the channels on the Wii which relied on someone sitting in head office maintaining some sort of online service.  These included the news and weather channels; while there are far more effective ways of looking up the news and the weather, Nintendo's approach of giving you a globe to grab and spin was more fun than most.

One of the services closed down was the Everybody Votes Channel.  When this first launched I visited it a lot - checking the results every couple of days, suggesting my own questions.  I was pretty good at predicting which option would be more popular.  I'd not used the channel for a couple of years, but when I heard it was closing I went back to look at it.  It seemed to still be quite well populated - there were at least enough people to form meaningful results, at least.

There are few good quality screenshots of the channel on the Internet.  I captured quite a few in June, which are included here.  If you want to use any of these on your websites, feel free - please just include a link to this post.



































Pikmin 2: a disastrous day 4

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As you can see from my to-do list, there are a number games that I want to play and complete before I move onto the next in the series.  I loved Pikmin, and completed it properly by playing through twice and getting all the rocket ship parts within thirty days.  I bought Pikmin 2 for the GameCube, and then never got around to playing it because I wanted to devote time to it.  I bought the original and the sequel when they were released on the Wii, and have bought the third game for the Wii U.  I've never played any of them.

Until now.  Spurred on by the blue Wii U game box sitting on the shelf mocking me, I've started to play New Play Control Pikmin 2 on the Wii.  Yes, actually on the Wii and not on the Wii mode of the Wii U, so that I can take screenshots and video through my component capture box.  One of the best things about the Wii U is the integration of Miiverse, and it's daft that you can't use that while running Wii games.


The Wii seems to output at a bit of an odd resolution which the capture box has difficulty with, but you get the idea.


I'd forgotten how freaky Olimar looks, but compared to other people on his home planet, he's positively plain-looking.




Louie's expressions in particular are pretty horrific, and I was pleased to get into the game with the lovely pikmin.


The idea of the game is to collect rubbish which has a high value back home, so that Olimar's boss won't have his business closed and all assets repossessed.  The SS Dolphin was already taken, and so Olimar and Louie travel back to Earth in a rickety old rocket which has a really annoying metallic twang every time it speaks.

While I'm talking about things that annoy, the font used to show the number of pikmin, the name of areas, the results of the day, and so on, is really ugly.  It's odd that there are two different fonts used, with one nice and neat and the other really scrappy.

The first piece of rubbish indicates that we could be looking at a heavily branded experience ...



... but luckily so far I've not found anything too bad, and most stuff is actually old Nintendo memorabilia, like a Game & Watch, Love Tester, or playing card.  There are, of course, other things that you can collect in order to spawn more pikmin.


On day 2 I went into the first cave, where time seems to stand still and there are treasures aplenty.  The caves are a bit dingy.



The aforementioned Love Tester was also in a cave, and the annoying rocket thing reckons he can use it to make a gauge of some sort.  That sounds like a waste of a good antique electronic device.


I was doing well until day 4, but I then went through a long cave and found a big bug at the end.  I threw loads of pikmin at him, and he then straightened out and started rolling from side to side.  Many pikmin were squashed almost immediately.


They shall not be forgotten.

Red Dead Redemption: Completed!

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While looking for beaver furs in the Northern regions, I noticed a new stranger mission open in Blackwater.  I met a government man who told me that Edgar Ross was living in a shack overlooking a lake.  Suddenly the lack of a previous ending made sense.  Don't read if you've not played ...
On reflection, I think the original 'ending' of Red dead Redemption is one of the best I've seen in a game.  The game makes you care about the character, giving you hope for him in the future, before having it all taken away.  It's brutal, made more so by the last few missions in the game giving you the opportunity to remove yourself from killing.

What's more brutal though is the way in which you feel once you're given control of Jack.  Despite his keenness for Jack to accompany him on hunts and protecting the farm, you get the feeling that John wants Jack to grow up sheltered from the world he once knew.  Jack's keen on reading, learning about the world.  However, once you've been given control of Jack three years on, standing over the graves of his father and mother, what you really want is to go and find the government to have revenge.  John's assassination turns Jack into what John was trying to avoid.

So I rode to the shack and saw his wife.  I rode to Mexico and met his brother.  I rode up the river and found Edgar, who killed me in the first duel because I was trying to shoot his weapon and arm, like I had in most other duels.  When I restarted I shot him four times in the head, because that's what Jack had become.  Then the credits rolled, and the game was properly over.


Well, apart from collecting a few herbs and helping someone kill himself by jumping over a cliff with a flimsy glider.

Great game.

Red Dead Redemption: completed?

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I'm up to around 70% of the game completed, and it feels like I've reached the end of the main storyline.  A pretty major character's death is a big sign of that.  If you don't know what I mean, and plan on playing the game at some point, don't read on ...

The major character is, of course, John.  The end of the game sees John being executed by the government, evidently to cover up his deeds.  I'm in two minds about this - it's a valid story mechanic of course, and the death of the hero is common in books and film.  It helps to draw things to a close and makes you realise just how emotionally involved with your character you've become.  My John was a good guy to the extent possible, helping people who were being attacked by wolves, capturing fleeing prisoners rather than killing them, not shooting deer or wild horses or rabbits.  The game needs to fit a story in, and to that extent John has killed many people, small animals, and stolen treasure and even a train.  Despite that, he's done everything that the government asked of him, and he was looking forward to settling down with his wife and son.  He didn't deserve that ending.

The game's endings have all been a little anti-climatic.  I wasn't given the choice of capturing Bill Williamson, but I didn't shoot him when I had the chance to - Reyes did.  I was expecting during that carriage chase that he'd have escaped somehow, but I quickly stopped the carriage and he was still there.  I'd realised that there was part of the map which I'd not been to, so I thought that my quest to kill Bill would continue there.  Instead, the government sent me after Dutch instead, with lots of little bitty missions that made me feel used and insignificant.  After Dutch died, again not at my hand, I went home, and the music that played while I rode to the farm at Beecher's Hope (that I'm sure I'd been around a number of times previously) was superb - it felt like a fitting end to the game.

I really appreciated the missions after this, for people around the farm, almost returning to the first few missions of the game where Bonnie wanted help with running her farm.  Going back to see Bonnie, and Abigail's jealousy, made it feel that John was settling back to a life he aspired to.  There were still some elements of the rough gang member, ready to kill those who stole horses or cattle rustlers, but he was ready to settle.  And then came the last mission; an assault by the army and the government.  Really affecting.

And now I'm back in the game, playing as Jack, given the opportunity to go and finish off all the bits and pieces I didn't achieve before.  I can go and try to win some more money at poker, gather the beaver furs and red sage needed for the flying machine (the last stranger mission I found but didn't complete), level up the challenges.  I don't think that I'll be doing everything in the game, but I'll certainly go and help the man with the flying machine because I want to see if he actually manages to fly.

Trine 2: so pretty

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Trine 2 is a platform puzzle game, which feels quite traditional in terms of how it plays and controls. Combat is a bit hit and miss, jumping isn't overly precise, the controls just feel a bit awkward.

But my, it's pretty.


It made me feel a little disappointed to start with, because the backstory references the first game a lot - which I've not played.  I don't even know which platforms it's for, but I shall investigate.  You're initially given control of a wizard, who controls with a bit too much momentum until you get used to anticipating needing to stop in advance.  He meets up with a knight and a thief, and from that point on you have to choose which character to control in order to get past obstacles.

The enemies are a bit generic, but provide a suitable challenge, and there have been many a time when I've had to run back to a checkpoint to revive a fallen team member.  Given this, the temple entrance was just a bit ominous.


A great boss fight inside, though.  I couldn't damage the snake directly, so had to jump onto the roof supports and then dodge his attacks, so that he brought the building crashing down on top of himself.

Simply progressing is easy enough, but there's an additional game hidden within, where you can try to get as many green orb things as possible.  Getting to some of them is very tricky, requiring good timing with the right character.  In the middle of the swamp, I found some pieces of pipe which could be put together to direct hot air into the water, which then formed bubbles I could stand on.  Doing so was tricky in itself, but the timing needed to jump from these to platforms was just overly fiddly.


I believe this is a pretty short game, so hopefully I'll get around to completing it at some point ...