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Rhythm Thief and the Emperor’s Treasure: ooh hoo hoo

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Rhythm Thief is like a combination of Layton and Space Channel 5.  Set in Paris, you move a character around the city from location to location, talking to other characters and playing games to progress.  In Layton these games are puzzles; in Rhythm Thief they're (unsurprisingly) rhythm games - listening for a scale of notes, tapping in time, or responding to or repeating movements.

It's charming, even if the story is a bit weak.  I'm well towards the end point now, after six hours, chasing Napoleon through Paris after a daring hang-glider rescue off the Eiffel Tower.  Some of the rhythm games are pretty difficult, and I'm currently stuck on a second Samba-de-Amigo-inspired side level which was reached by talking to a dancing Mexican.  I think the buttons just aren't responsive enough.

The other amusing thing is that the on-screen text doesn't always match up to the spoken words.  Challenged by Napoleon on the tower, he gave an evil laugh.  On the screen, he said "Ooh hoo hoo!".  Charlie, the detective's son, has a comedy cockney accent; the text read "roam free", he said "runnin' rampant".  Of course, this may be the case with other handheld games but I very rarely play them with sound on.  This demands that I do - and the soundtrack is great.

New Super Mario Bros U: so pretty

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I've continued through Soda Jungle, and found a level called Painted Swampland.  The backgrounds and some of the foreground elements to this level have a very stylistic look to them ...



This is a really pretty game.

This whole area was a little confusing at first.  I had initially found a secret exit on stage 2, but I didn't follow that path and instead replayed the level to get the proper exit.  The secret path seemed to disappear off the bottom of the screen.


After I'd played stage 3 and the tower, I found myself on the previously mentioned painted level (4) and another level (5).  Each time I exited one of these levels, the path led back up in a loop.  In order to progress, I actually had to find the secret exit in stage 5, which then took me down to meet the other end of the secret path from stage 2.

New Super Mario Bros U: choosing a route

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Nintendo fixed my Wii U in a very efficient manner indeed, although unfortunately the game saves weren't carried across so I'll have to restart collecting ornaments in Nintendo Land at some point.

For now, however, I've started to play through NSMBU, even though I've not yet completed the Wii game.  I'm not sure why I stopped playing NSMBW, but it seemed a bit too much hassle to actually start it up, and I think I was bizarrely put off by the fact that I found a warp from one of the towers to the start of world six.  I was finding the game pretty tough as it was, and so being catapulted through the game like that was a bit too intimidating, and I also felt like I was missing out.  I tried to travel back to world four, and then had difficulty in the tower level getting to the proper exit.

I'm sure I'll go back to it at some point.  It was jut a bit tough at times, and felt like there was too much content for me to actually get a grip on giving the limited time I get in front of the TV.

Perversely, NSMBU has more content, has a more varied and labyrinthine map, and at times is a little tougher (but generally seems a little easier), but I find that I can easily understand where I'm going and how much of the game is left to do.  Because of this I've played it a lot more; I've now defeated the boss in three worlds (Acorn Plains, Layer-Cake Desert, Sparkling Waters) and have half-completed two other levels (Soda Jungle and Frosted Glacier).  I found it a bit annoying having to choose a path after Layer-Cake Desert, but at least I knew I could go back at any time.

The game, as with all the NSMB games, is really well designed and playable.  Something that's new here and works well is the Miiverse integration.  You can see messages from other players before and after a level, and if you die then you also see things posted by other players who died at the same point.  It turns a single-player game into a social experience, even if half the messages are from people you've never met!

The other benefit of Miiverse, and its new webportal, is that getting screenshots is much easier than it used to be!  I just need to be a bit quicker in pressing the home button ...







Super Hexagon: ADD

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Attention Deficit Disorder sufferers are likely to really appreciate Super Hexagon. It's a simple game where you have to steer your market around a central hexagon, avoiding the walls coming inwards. It's made more tricky by the speed, the fact that the entire playing field is rotating and skewing, and the music is pretty heavy.

I've managed to last just over 35 seconds on the easiest setting (called 'hard') which is the best of any of my friends on Game Center. I feel as if I'm improving all the time, and as the games only last half a minute each it's a game I'll come back to often.

Gunman Clive: Completed!

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It didn't get dull; each level introduced new ideas, and then it finished.  The last levels were set in space, with changing gravity and directions.  The last boss took a couple of attempts to kill.  And then "duck mode" opened.  If you want to find out about duck mode yourself, read no further ...


Duck mode has you navigating the same levels with the same controls, with one exception - you have no gun, and therefore you can't shoot.  Suddenly the whole point of the game shifts, becoming an exercise in timing between opponent's shots rather than positioning yourself for your own shooting.  I'm not sure I'll go through the whole game again, but it's a great idea for an unlockable.