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Gauntlet 4 (MD)

Posted on 15/05/2016 Written by deKay

It’s a bit good this, isn’t it? Why i’m asking you, I don’t know. You probably don’t know anyway, and I already know. In fact, it’s my third favourite Mega Drive game. At least, it was a very long time ago and when I started playing it again today for the first time in at least 15 years, I was a little apprehensive that it may have aged badly. Thankfully, I need not have worried: It’s excellent.

Oh but wait – I’m not talking about the main game here. Arcade mode is essentially just the original Gauntlet arcade game, and although that is still an absolutely fantastic thing, the main game mode for me is Quest. Quest is almost an RPG, as your hero navigates four towers with ten levels in each, finding traps to open walls and allow progress to the final floor where a dragon resides. Yes, it has boss battles. As you beat foes, you gain experience which you can spend on improving your stats (shot speed, defence, magic power, etc.), and as you collect treasure you can spend that in shops to gain better equipment (which essentially also just boosts your stats).

So far, I’ve completed the Fire and Water towers, and am about a third of the way through the Earth tower.

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Rainbow Islands (MS): COMPLETED!

Posted on 14/05/2016 Written by deKay

I got very close to completing Rainbow Islands on the Spectrum once. I think I put a cheat mode on and made it to a high level but it crashed. Since then, although I’ve played many versions thoughout the years, I’ve never come close as it’s just too hard.

Or so I thought. I read somewhere that the Master System version was, for whatever reason, quite a lot easier than other versions. Having played it, and (obviously) completed it today, I think whoever wrote that was right because it is. Sure, it’s not a walk in the park, but it was relatively straightforward.

I found that once you have the power-up that gives you a double rainbow (I presume the missing triple rainbow is due to technical issues – the game suffers greatly from flicker and slowdown as it is), providing you’re careful, almost every level is quite easy. All the bosses are pushovers with a double rainbow too, whereas when I’ve played before they were nigh on impossible. Of course, if you die you lose it, but another power-up to give it back tends to come along soon enough.

Another reason it’s so easy is that the water that forever chases you higher, and serves mainly to make you panic and die, takes much, much longer to make an appearance. I saw it just once in the entire game, and that was near the end when I fell about four screens downwards – I still outran it without difficulty though.

However, easiness aside: I didn’t get all the diamonds. That really is too hard. What I did do, though, is complete the seven worlds and then use the code that provides you with to unlock the eighth and final world, and then completed that. I may not have found all the diamonds but I did beat all the levels and bosses, so that’s good enough for me.

Click to view slideshow.

The post Rainbow Islands (MS): COMPLETED! appeared first on deKay's Gaming Diary.

Magical Flying Hat Turbo Adventure (MD): COMPLETED!

Posted on 14/05/2016 Written by deKay

Magical Flying Hat Turbo Adventure (there’s some debate as to the correct order of the words in the title) was always one of my favourite Mega Drive games, and I’m pleased to report it hasn’t aged a bit. It’s still just as good as it ever was, although it seems far easier. Running out of lives was never an issue before as they’re so plentiful, even if you don’t make use of the springy poles that can give you about 15 lives each. Every level has two or three that are easy enough to find, and the bonus levels can net you up to five at a time without much difficulty, and up to 25 if you’re a gambler and are lucky.

All the lives in the world are not much use if the levels are impossible though, but there’s not. Even the bosses, several of which I’m pretty sure were really difficult back in the day, were complete walkovers. I remember I used to same some of my power-up potions for them, as one gives you a homing fireball and another turns you into an invincible rocket-launching mechanical monkey for 15 seconds, but in fact I only bothered with those on two or three of the bosses. I swear this game used to be more difficult. I think I only died twice.

If you’re looking at the screenshots and thinking, “hmm, this looks familiar”, then you may be thinking of either Psycho Fox, which is a similar game by the same development team (which I played recently too), or Decap Attack, which is essentially Magical Flying Hat reskinned for western tastes.

Click to view slideshow.

The post Magical Flying Hat Turbo Adventure (MD): COMPLETED! appeared first on deKay's Gaming Diary.

LocoRoco Cocoreccho (PS3): COMPLETED!

Posted on 13/05/2016 Written by deKay

A short post for a short game. LocoRoco Cocoreccho was a disappointing item on the PS+ free rental list this month. Not because it’s a bad game, more because it’s was already almost free and it’s very, very short.

It’s charming though, and reminded me a lot of Hohokum. Of course, it reminded me more of the PSP LocoRoco games, but this plays much more like Hohokum than those. Perhaps this game was a source of inspiration for Hohokum?

Er, so the game then. Or “interactive screensaver” as I think it was even sold as. You vaguely guide little blobs around flowers and platforms and water, waking up other sleeping blobs and jiggling the controller to make things move. Wake up enough blobs and you can move on to the next area. In the final area, you shoot your collected blobs at baddie spider blobs. And then you win. All while the blobs sing at you.

And I won! Yay?

The post LocoRoco Cocoreccho (PS3): COMPLETED! appeared first on deKay's Gaming Diary.

Never Ending Games

Posted on 13/05/2016 Written by gospvg

I've decided to quit playing Clash Royale & Galaxy of Heroes. The grind in Clash Royale was just too much & the constant needs for character shards or shortage of gold/materials in Galaxy of Heroes was just beginning to bore.

I also did not see an end point for either game which is the main reason I stopped I'm not a fan of never ending games.

Give me a good campaign I can enjoy & by all means add a multi-player section that I can dabble in but once I am done with the campaign I am usually finished with the game.

I am sure time plays a huge part is this because the older I get the gaming time I have seems to decrease. I've only managed 2 hours this week playing Helldivers with the Claptrap Boys which by the way is a fun co-op game.

Need to find some time to finish off Batman, I'm at a difficult driving section near the end which I have tried on a few occasions & just cannot complete.

I'll leave you Limahl