Gaming Diary — Page 306

StreetPass Mansion (3DS): COMPLETED!

Posted on 26/08/2014 Written by deKay

With my Windbag of Woe +2 almost maxed out (I got it to level 28 of 29), I didn’t see much point in pursuing more treasure chests. Not least because I can kill anything in a single hit and they can’t damage me more than 1HP (I have about 160) at a time. Assuming they manage to get a hit in. Which they rarely do.

As a result, I didn’t bother too much getting matching blocks, and just tore through floors 25 to 30, before meeting up with the boss and promptly dying. Not because he could do much damage, as even his flurry attack only dented me about 8HP, but because he can generate a mirror shield which does half the damage you do to him back to yourself. I didn’t realise this, hit him for 300HP, and that did me in. Oops.

My second attempt went much better, and I soon saw him off. I still had to use a health potion mid-fight as he used his shield again (but I didn’t hit him as hard that time), and that heralded the first and last time I’d used any items at all in the entire game. Yeah, it was a bit easy.

Gaming moments: I

Posted on 26/08/2014 Written by Xexyz

Ico (PS2, PS3)

I even remember writing about this on my blog. I'll paste some text from the previous post:

Ico starts off slowly, with a long cutscene. You get thrown into a murky world and have to work out the controls. The world's not actually murky, but playing it on my HD TV certainly made it look so. I worked my way through the castle, until I found the girl in white. I knocked the cage down the tower, and rescued her from the shadow monsters. I then couldn't find a way out of the room. Huh.

Never mind, I thought, I'll come back to that later. I'd been playing for 40 minutes or so. I turned the console off, and then thought ... hmm, I wonder if the game does save at checkpoints?

Evidently not.

Ikaruga (GameCube)
I have only ever played this for five minutes, and it made my head hurt.

Mega Man 2 (Wii U): COMPLETED!

Posted on 24/08/2014 Written by deKay

Is this 2 or II? The title screen says II, but everywhere seems to reference it as 2. Up until writing this, I’d thought the roman numeral numbering system for Mega Man games only applied to the NES ones, and the Game Boy games used standard decimals, but I don’t suppose it really matters. What does really matter? The game!

Which is just the same as the first one. Well, OK, that’s a slight lie. There are differences. First of all, there are eight robot bosses, not six. Secondly, the “Wily levels” are shown on a level map. You also have three additional tools – uselessly named “Item-1″ to “Item-3″ – which allow you to create various platforms. Finally, it’s a lot easier.

Apart from those relatively minor changes, Mega Man 2 plays more like a level pack for the first game than a sequel. I expect that’s how they’ll all end up.

As I said, it was easier than the first game. The levels seemed a bit shorter, and the boss fights were certainly much less impossible (although I seemed to fluke a one-hit-kill on Air Man, somehow). Overall, though, the game was a lot longer with more Wily Levels and a full all-eight-robot-masters SuckySuck(TM) bit. I never like boss rushes. There was also the issue of the final few levels becoming impossible if you use up certain weapons, meaning you’d have to lose all your lives and continue should this happen. Thankfully, I’d been pre-warned, so stuck to the stock arm cannon as much as possible.

Oh, and another wrinkle in the game was the introduction of those nasty patterns of appearing and disappearing platforms. Luckily one of the items you can use (Item-2, I think – they’re not described at any point) lets you skip over the worst bits on Heat Man’s stage. Phew. Unfortunately, I know they’re also in Mega Man 9 so I expect they’re a series main-stay from this point on.

And the dragon that comes out of nowhere and forces an autoscroll section! And the massive horizontal laser bits! OK. Perhaps it wasn’t easier than the original game after all.

At least the final, final boss was really very easy. For a Mega Man game. Once I’d figured out that only one weapon could damage him, anyway. I sent him packing, and then… Mega Man 3? Yeah, I think so.

Populous: the Beginning: juggling armies

Posted on 22/08/2014 Written by Xexyz

Level 10 was another timed one, with an established village being sunk at the start by the enemy. I was able to get two boats built quickly, and ferried nine followers and my shaman over to a stone head, which raised a partially-built village from the depths. Converting all the wild men on that island to my cause, I rebuilt the houses and trained up some firewarriors, then took my meagre army over to the other island to quickly worship at the stone head there before the timer ran out. I only succeeded because I made the worshipping party invisible, and they were therefore able to pray while my other warriors and preachers acted as bait for the attacking hoard.

The next level was more time consuming than difficult; there were two enemies, and the game hinted that the yellows were the weaker of the two. I spent a while building my village and placing towers with firewarriors around the edge closest to the green base, while amassing an army of preachers, warriors and firewarriors around a campfire on a causeway I had built towards a stone head. I was attacked several times by both greens and yellows, but managed to fend these off with relatively little loss - although once the green shaman did manage to place a swamp right in the middle of my settlement, leading to a few dead followers.

Once my army was a hundred-strong, I went off to the yellows, hoping the greens would not attack my relatively undefended village. As it turns out, they were in the middle of attacking the yellows as well. I was able to kill both enemy shamans, giving myself a load of mana for more destruction, and unlock the swamp spell before destroying the yellow village. My army had been halved in size, but so had my enemy.

I went back to the village and started expanding. The greens came by a few times on boats, but I was able to hit them with lightning quickly each time. I rebuilt my army, this time to 120, and then went walking along the side of the land which the greens hadn't touched. Halfway to the green settlement I was alerted that there was an invasion of my village - looking back I could see some invisible warriors had been infiltrating buildings, but they were, along with a couple of preachers, being killed by firewarrior towers.

Standing across from the greens, separated by a channel, I could see a vault of knowledge, containing hypnotise. This was going to be key. I raised a bridge and quickly crossed, then crowded my army around the vault while I worshipped it. The enemy shaman came near and I killed her with lightning, then I gained the power meaning that I could just get the greens to fight themselves. It didn't last long after that.

I'm getting closer to Bloodlust.

Gaming moments: H

Posted on 19/08/2014 Written by Xexyz

Half-Life (PC)

The very first time I played this, I remember sitting watching the opening sequence and being amazed by the detail in the surroundings. I accidentally nudged my desk and the view changed - and suddenly I realised that I could control my character already.

Headhunter (Dreamcast)

Travelling by motorbike, I somehow managed to get myself lodged in some scenery, and span on the spot. Funny until I realised that I'd lose progress since the last save. The accelerator controls on the game were really sensitive, and it was tricky to steer.

Hexic HD (Xbox 360)

I shouted with joy when I finally got a black pearl. It's so tense working up to it, as one mistaken move can lead to everything collapsing.