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Pikmin 2: almost paid off by day 34

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I told you it was going slowly.  I have now completely cleared all treasures from the Valley of Repose, and almost all from Awakening Wood.  My total value collected stands at 9,895 wotsits, so the debt of 10,000 is well within reach.

Some of the caves have been tricky, mainly due to one or two areas where the combination of enemies makes it difficult to plan well.  However, I've found that returning to these levels normally has a higher success rate, so I'm guessing it's just a case of being more familiar with the territory.  In the Subterranean Complex, for example, I lost half my pikmin in the first few levels the first time I went down there, leading to an early escape, but on my second excursion ...



Collecting bulmin helped as well!


Completing the Subterranean Complex gave me a light bulb, which the robot space ship thing told me would be used to light up the caverns more.  I've not really noticed a difference.



The end boss of the Frontier Cavern was tricky - the Empress Bulblax returned but this time was giving birth to bulborbs throughout the level, making it tricky to even get to her in the first place.  The first time I battled her, I was left with only 14 pikmin at the end, but luckily some of those were purple and they were able to carry the treasure.


Day 32 was one of heavy casualties.


So, nearly finished.  I'm sure there's meant to be a fourth area on the selection screen - maybe it appears once I've paid off the debt?  I wonder if I will ever 100% complete this game ...

Pikmin 2: a veritable army by day 18

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After finding the yellow pikmin, I spent a couple of in-game days building up the numbers to around 150, before exploring the Awakening Wood and finding electrified gates that I could now break down.  Some of these led me to the blue pikmin, meaning that I now have some of each type.  I've also ventured back into the White Flower Garden, so I have 15 white pikmin and 18 purple pikmin in the rockets - but the white pikmin came at a cost, since I lost around 30 reds in the fight at the end of the cave.


The blue pikmin are extremely useful in gaining access to new areas.  Annoyingly, I've rolled out a few bridges over water which other pikmin don't seem to be too keen on keeping to - I've lost a fair few yellows and reds (and a couple of purples) when they've decided that walking on the bridge was far too sensible and they wanted to skirt around the outside into the river instead.  Survival of the fittest.

Pikmin 2: slow progress until day 7

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Without the overall time deadline of the first game, there's less incentive to rush around the levels, having multiple groups of pikmin on multiple tasks simultaneously.  Instead, I spent a couple of days just exploring Awakening Wood, building up my red pikmin numbers before entering the second cave.



Down in this cave I found white pikmin, adding to the purple pikmin I had from before.  The white pikmin are resistant to poison, which should come in handy, but only because the game has introduced poisonous enemies and obstacles.  It's a bit more complicated than the first game, and there are new 'sprays' which I know I'll never get around to using since they're a disposable item.


I find it pretty limiting that the white and purple pikmin can only be gained by going into the caves - and the caves are all a bit dark and miserable.  As a result I've got very few white pikmin left, particularly after half of them died in the final battle in the white flower cave.



Still, with poison-resistant pikmin in my party, I was able to break through to new areas, and I've found the yellow pikmin as well.  With the lack of time limit, I feel that my next task will be to build up numbers again ...

Aladdin: still amazing

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I've been fiddling with the emulators on the Wii recently and have finally managed to get them in a state where they're easy enough to use.  I've also been experimenting with ROMs I've picked up.

The joys of being an adult and being interested in retro games is that many of the cartridges you long after when you're young can be had for a pittance when you're older - and you have the money to spend on them as well.  The disadvantage is having space to store them and the machines.  I've been buying various cart games off eBay for years, but often these have sat unplayed because my Mega Drive, Master System Converter, Game Gear, and so on, are all in the loft.  This emulation gives me a handy way of playing the games - and, of course, adding features such as save states and allowing me to run it through my video capture box.  It's not as good as using original hardware, due to the controllers, the lack of a clunk as the cartridge engages, and some emulation oddities, but it'll do.

The other benefit is that I get to try out some of the games I never played when I was young.  I've never owned a SNES, though have played many of the games through Virtual Console or other rereleases.  One day I will get a second-hand console, but until then this is ideal.

Anyway.  When setting the emulators up, the first game I wanted to try was the Mega Drive version of Aladdin.  This was always one of my favourite games when I was young, and I was great at it - making it all the way through without losing a life or even throwing any apples.  I thought that at the same time, I should try the SNES game, which was made by a completely different company, and also try the Master System and Game Gear games, which I own on cartridge but have never played.

Mega Drive



I immediately noticed that the game felt faster, which probably means that the 50Hz conversion wasn't entirely optimised.  Having said that, the difference felt marginal, and if anything controls felt a little less defined than I remember.  I last played the game on the Mega Drive about four years ago, so it may be a memory trick.

I ran through the first level with ease; I can remember ever jump, every enemy, every secret.  I lost a life on purpose just before the end of the level since I couldn't remember what happened - the genie int eh boxing ring.  I picked up the golden Abu and completed the bonus stage.


I played halfway through the desert before deciding that I ought to get on with one of the other versions, rather than spend the entire day playing this again.  It's still an amazing game, one of my favourites of all time, and I will play it again soon even if only to get to the rug ride stage.

SNES


It certainly looks nice, though the animation on Aladdin feels a bit off - his running animation isn't quite at the same speed as he moves.  And the controls feel a bit off as well, though this may be due to the emulation.  I went in expecting a bit of a rubbish game, because I've always been told it's not as good as the Mega Drive game ... and while it's definitely inferior, it's actually pretty good anyway.  You don't feel as free and athletic running through the streets, there isn't the same sense of scale and exploration, and it's doesn't make you smile as much when dispatching enemies.  It's still fun.

Master System



I wasn't sure what to expect from this.  I've never heard much about it at all, other than how great it looks.  And you know, it does look pretty amazing.  Obviously it suffers from direct comparisons to the Mega Drive game, but the animation is still top-notch, and it's vibrant and colourful.

What really surprised me was the complete difference in game style.  This is more like the endless runners that are now popular on the App Store, except with an end point.  The screen constantly scrolls, and you have to jump obstacles and avoid enemies in order to not get caught behind.  At first it's quite tricky, but you soon learn the level and can breeze through it.


The backgrounds are impressively drawn and the game moves at a fair pace.  I only completed the first two levels, but I will be back for the rest at some point - I do own the cartridge, so it'll be interesting to see how it plays on original hardware.

Game Gear



As with most games of the time, the Game Gear version is just a port of the Master System game, with a reduced window and slightly brighter graphics.  This makes the game a lot harder, as obstacles appear in front of Aladdin with much less notice.  It was no doubt great for anyone without other versions to compare it to, but against the Master System game it just seems unfair.

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.