What indeed. You're a goat, you can do tricks like in a skateboarding game, you can lick things and headbutt things and destroy things.
You can wear a crown. It's daft.
You can wear a crown. It's daft.
Populous: the Beginning: an enforced restart
The best game ever? I have often wondered if that was just nostalgia talking, with the game's sublime mix of action and strategy existing only in my memory. I've been without a means to play Populous: the beginning for some time now, but a recent GOG.com promotion let me rebuy it for £2.50 with various patches to allow it to play on modern machines.
Or, at least, that was the idea. In order to run the game I need to delve into the game directories and find one of the executables, rather than running from the installed shortcut. Most annoying. Anyone else who's having issues, look for a file called popTB.exe and run that - you'll need admin rights though.
Unlike most PC games, it's well worth putting up with the game being a little unstable. The game is as good as I remember it, if not better - the carefully balanced strengths and weaknesses of each character really shines after all this time.
Of course, I had no access to my previous saved games, so I have had to restart. I initially had difficulty getting past the fifth level - Death From Above - because I didn't notice the timer in the corner of the screen, but soon cracked that. After that it's been relatively plain sailing, with only a couple of restarts.
I have grown to hate preachers once again, because they have the ability to completely stop an attacking party. In response I overcompensate by training too many preachers of my own, and as a result don't have enough attacking power.
In the last level I played, Fire in the Mist, I was constantly attacked and had to contend with a volcano near the start of the level. Still, it made a good platform for a lookout post.
Or, at least, that was the idea. In order to run the game I need to delve into the game directories and find one of the executables, rather than running from the installed shortcut. Most annoying. Anyone else who's having issues, look for a file called popTB.exe and run that - you'll need admin rights though.
Unlike most PC games, it's well worth putting up with the game being a little unstable. The game is as good as I remember it, if not better - the carefully balanced strengths and weaknesses of each character really shines after all this time.
Of course, I had no access to my previous saved games, so I have had to restart. I initially had difficulty getting past the fifth level - Death From Above - because I didn't notice the timer in the corner of the screen, but soon cracked that. After that it's been relatively plain sailing, with only a couple of restarts.
I have grown to hate preachers once again, because they have the ability to completely stop an attacking party. In response I overcompensate by training too many preachers of my own, and as a result don't have enough attacking power.
In the last level I played, Fire in the Mist, I was constantly attacked and had to contend with a volcano near the start of the level. Still, it made a good platform for a lookout post.
Things I’ve been playing recently
Euro Truck Simulator 2 (PC)
My first ever Steam Sale purchase! Sadly, it isn’t as great as I thought it was going to be. The graphics are flatter and drabber than videos had led me to believe, the roads are samey and short, and you’ve little choice in the routes you have to take.
Still, driving all the cars off the road on the way to Belgium, then running down all the Belgians when you get there, never gets old.
Picross e4 (3DS)
Having completed Picross e3 recently, it was obvious e4 needed to be bought. It is, as you’d expect, just more of the same. More Picross. It has the Mega Picross puzzles from e3, and the Micross puzzles from e2 though, and certainly seems a much longer game than e3. So far the Mega Picross puzzles have been completely doable without resorting to educated guesses, so in all it’s a better game.
And you get 5 bonus puzzles for each of e, e2 and e3 that you already own too. I suspect they’re Mega Picross versions of “normal” Picross puzzles found in those games, as some seem familiar.
I’ve been jumping around the various modes so I can’t really say how much I’ve done so far, but perhaps a quarter overall?
Pullblox World (Wii U)
It’s just like the 3DS version, only with different puzzles. Which is fine. It loses a little from not being in 3D, but gains a bit from a bigger screen. I’m almost certain that the 3DS game didn’t have an unlimited rewind too – it “ran out” – but here you can rewind all the way back to the start of your attempt regardless of how long you’ve spent on it.
It also appears that some of the levels are much bigger than in the original. Some are seemingly too big – as even zooming out doesn’t show half of it.
Apparently Pullblox World has something like 240 puzzles to get through. I’m on the final “page” of puzzles (with 10 on each page) right now, and completing them will total 120, so I’m not sure where the other 120 are…
StreetPass games (3DS)
The four additional StreetPass games are currently on offer (£8.99 for the lot, instead of about £15), so I bought them. I’ve exhaused Quest and Quest II, and apart from the occasional new picture, the puzzle game was finished long ago (and is quickly completed when there is a new one).
I’ve not spent ages on each so far, but some thoughts:
StreetPass Squad is a more than slightly enjoyable side-on shoot ‘em up. StreetPass’d Miis provide different weapons for your not-at-all Opa-Opa cloned ship, and the levels are varied and fun.
StreetPass Garden is a surprisingly deep gardening simulator, where Miis help you grow flowers and harvest seeds from them, with new breeds and hybrids and stuff to collect. There are tasks to perform by growing certain types of flower, and all sorts of garden paraphernalia to collect. I hated it at first but it soon opens up into a more enjoyable game.
StreetPass Battle is like a cross between Janken and Risk, where you build up your troops (bolstered by StreetPass hits) and then take on other nations. How well you do is defined by how many troops and what sort of attack they use (in a Janken rock/paper/scissors type way). It’s very slow going though, building up your army to be big enough to defeat the next nation. Unless I’m missing something obvious.
StreetPass Mansion is part puzzle, part RPG where Miis you meet give you pieces of floor which you arrange in the mansion to create rooms. Put multiple pieces of the same colour together to make bigger rooms with better treasures, and put non-matching colours together to trigger battles where you fight ghosts. Your weapons can level up and be upgraded Fallout New Vegas style too. Lay enough floor tiles to reveal the stairs to the next floor. It’s really pretty good.
Nintendo Pocket Football Club (3DS)
Not doing too well in this at the moment. All my players are getting old and I’m unable to train up new players to replace them quickly enough. Also I’ve lost any chance of promotion from “The football icon” league, although I’m almost certain to end up in second place at, so I’m not too worried.
I’ve played a lot of online matches recently, mainly to farm cards, but I’ve been doing surprisingly well. Not enough to rise up the ranks much, but I’m certainly not dropping like I had been previously. Mind you, I’m picking my battles.
Chibi-Robo: Let’s Go Photo! Demo (3DS)
I took a photo of my watch and it turned it into a badge. Then I cleaned up a kitchen with a sort of hoover thing, and chucked a load of rubbish in a robot bin blender thing. I had a conversation with a talking smartphone, and then wandered round a very small part of a very empty museum.
Which was all great. But I’m somewhat confused as to what all the cleaning up is for. One to wait for in a sale, I think. I’ll give it a miss at full price, not least due to having a trillion other games on the go at the moment.
Theme Park (Mac)
Bought as part of the GOG sale, in a Bullfrog games pack. It’s as janky as I recall (although I mostly played the Amiga 1200 version, back in the day), slightly more so due to running under Dosbox.
I couldn’t remember how to research new things for ages, so only had the same few rides and shops for several game years. Then I remembered, but by then half my rides had exploded, everyone was too hungry and thirsty to stay, and nobody liked Vomit Park any more.
Then I screwed up salary negotiations and all my staff went on strike, during which the rest of my rides blew up.
All in all, rather successful, no?
SigCorp Holiday Special: completed!
It seems that once the story for this little additional chapter had been completed, the developers decided they'd done enough and didn't bother to update To The Moon to link to it, or even add in any saving ability. It's short enough to not need saving, but the fact that I didn't even know that it had been sitting on my hard drive for a few months indicates that there should have been some effort to integrate it into Steam. Instead, I had to find the game folders on my hard drive and launch the game manually.
It's not much of a game, to be honest. There's very little exploring to be done, and it's all very linear in giving you one task to do at a time. To The Moon may have been similarly linear, but it didn't always feel like it.
After a brief explore of the facility, and learning that people are picketing outside, the game within a game provides a reasonable distraction, being a very basic and surreal version of the first game's story. Piloting Neil through top-down levels, avoiding "zombievas", and collecting some of the memory triggers from River and John's story. There was a bit of challenge here, but not much.
It was nice to see Neil and Eva again, and it's certainly renewed my interest in the next game. I can't help but feel that it would have been better to release this at a later date though ...
It's not much of a game, to be honest. There's very little exploring to be done, and it's all very linear in giving you one task to do at a time. To The Moon may have been similarly linear, but it didn't always feel like it.
After a brief explore of the facility, and learning that people are picketing outside, the game within a game provides a reasonable distraction, being a very basic and surreal version of the first game's story. Piloting Neil through top-down levels, avoiding "zombievas", and collecting some of the memory triggers from River and John's story. There was a bit of challenge here, but not much.
It was nice to see Neil and Eva again, and it's certainly renewed my interest in the next game. I can't help but feel that it would have been better to release this at a later date though ...
Euro Truck Simulator 2: get out of the way
My word, this is amusing. I'm hopeless at it though - reversing into the spaces is just hilariously bad. Cars seem to have a habit of driving into my side as well, meaning that each trip is earning me not much money.
On my first trip I made the mistake of discovering Birmingham.
Unfortunately I didn't blow it up.
My second delivery was to Swansea. There were some horrifically narrow roads on the way there.
And some stupidly slow drivers.
I was glad to work out the key to flash my lights at everyone.
On my first trip I made the mistake of discovering Birmingham.
Unfortunately I didn't blow it up.
My second delivery was to Swansea. There were some horrifically narrow roads on the way there.
And some stupidly slow drivers.
I was glad to work out the key to flash my lights at everyone.
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