I did another level in Duke Nukem 3D, getting me to the secret level in the first episode. I don’t really feel compelled to play it for long periods of time at a stretch though, for some reason (perhaps the nostalgia just isn’t as strong with this one), so I’ll probably continue doing just one or two levels at a time.
I also played a bit more Rock Band 2, finally starting on the instrument challenges and unlocking a handful of them, and doing a couple more random sets in tour mode, since I still need some 230+ stars to unlock the Endless Setlist 2. I’ve started trying to play on Hard with the bass when possible; I’m only scoring three and four stars on the songs so far, but I’m not failing yet, at least.
And I completed a few more chapters in Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: EoT, doing a bunch more jobs, including rescues and deliveries this time. There was also a minigame where I had to identify pokemon by their footprints, which was frustrating a bit at first since there’s not much to go on besides vague clues like if it’s chicken-like (look for a bird-type pokemon), or really wide (look for a fat one), etc., but after a couple of restarts I managed to get them all right. I can also recruit other pokemon now, usually when they have a sudden change of heart after beating them up in a dungeon, and I’ve got a handful of others now.
Plot-wise, time has stopped in some forest because the “time gear” (?) was stolen, though we can’t go there yet. I was assigned to explore a waterfall that turned out to have a trap in it, met a rival group of “meanies” named Team Skull, and soon we’ll all be off on an expedition to somewhere.
I can’t believe I actually bought a Pokemon game.
In my defense, it’s the only one I’ve ever bought, and it’s not one of the regular games in the series. Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Time is actually more of a roguelike, similar to things like Angband and Nethack more than anything else, and I loves me some Angband.
The story, such as it is, seems to be that I’m a human who’s somehow been turned into a Pokemon and lost his memory, so it’ll probably involve finding out what happened to me. A personality test at the beginning decided that I should be a Charmander, and I chose a Mudkip as my first companion. We’ve joined up with some kind of group of hunters and formed an exploration team of our own, and you get tasks from a job board to hunt down outlaw Pokemon inside dungeons (I think more types open up later on).
Once in the dungeon you move around from room to room, killing other monsters in the way, finding items, and making your way down the floors, much like any other roguelike game, and eventually you find the one you’re hunting, beat it, and return to the guild for your reward. Combat is fairly simple, just hit ‘A’ for your basic attack or open up the menus for the more advanced attacks that Pokemon usually have. You don’t directly control your partner, but you can tweak his ‘IQ’ settings to control his behaviour.
So far I’ve done a handful of these hunting jobs and gotten up to level 11. The story so far is that time is messed up somehow, as the name of the game implies, but things are still pretty vague so far.
MotionPlus: The cynical side of me might think of it as a fix for the remote not being as good as it could have been in the first place, and I didn’t really have a problem with it in the first place, but oh well, more accuracy is still better than nothing. Wii Sports Resort might do a good job of showing how useful it’ll actually be.
Animal Crossing: City Folk: I enjoyed the DS version of Animal Crossing a fair bit, so I’ll almost certainly pick this one up. It doesn’t really look like there’s an awful lot new over the DS version so far though, aside from the setting.
WiiSpeak: Dammit, I’ve already got way too many accessories and cables running around here…
GTA DS: I still have yet to finish the other GTA games, first. I passed on the PSP-based versions of it, so I’ll probably not bother with this one too.
And there was a bunch of other stuff that I’m sure will keep the kids busy, but wasn’t really interesting, and a distinct lack of Mario or Zelda news.
I was out of town for a while, so I only got a little bit of gaming done, almost entirely on the DS even though I had my laptop along with me:
I finished off Professor Layton and the Curious Village, managing to find and solve all 120 main puzzles, though I did need to use the hints on a handful of the later ones, and got too frustrated or impatient with a couple and looked up their solutions. There are still a bunch of extra and downloaded puzzles for me to finish off, though.
I also put some more time into Etrian Odyssey, getting my party from level 6 to level 9, uncovering most of the second level map, and even beating one FOE. It took a bunch of hours just to do that though, including having to grind for cash for resurrections and to replace consumables. It’s still a decent “old-school” RPG in the mechanics, but it takes an awfully long time to make relatively small amounts of progress. I’m not sure if I’ll bother finishing this one off.
And I polished off the odd sudoku and picross puzzle here and there, via the Brain Age and Picross DS games, to kill off some idle moments.
Before continuing on with Heretic, I took a slight detour to finish off another game instead: Yoshi’s Island DS. I hadn’t touched it in quite a while, but I only recently realized that there are only five worlds in it instead of the original’s six worlds, so I was closer to the end than I thought.
I only had to complete five more levels, but it took a bit longer than expected. Either the difficulty ramps up a huge amount in these later levels, or my platforming skills have waned a lot. I’d built up 87 extra lives by this point, but by the time I finished the game, it had fallen down to only 44 left. It felt like I’d spent forever redoing some parts, especially one in 5-7 (called “Superhard Acrobatics!”, appropriately enough) that involved annoyingly-placed piranha plants and dodging fire wheels while on moving platforms.
The final level was interesting in that it had five different paths you could take through it, depending on which baby type you selected. I tried all of them but wasn’t having much luck until I gave Wario’s a few tries, and eventually did it that way, since it was mainly based on puzzles rather than speed or precision. And then, ironically enough, the final boss fight was fairly easy, and I got it the first try.
Now, am I going to go back and get better scores in order to unlock the secret levels and bonus games? Hell no.
While doing a bit of shopping today, I couldn’t help but pick up Professor Layton and the Curious Village (obligatory Penny Arcade comic) for the DS. It’s basically just a ton of logic puzzles loosely tied together by a story, but there are supposed to be some unlockables as well.
I’ve done nine of them so far, but there’s supposed to be around 120 total, plus more released over the net on a weekly basis, so it should keep me busy for a while. It might take up the early morning pre-work time killer role previously occupied by Picross DS.
Being separated from my main game consoles for a while, I pretty much played exclusively on my DS over the holidays (aside from some brief turns at Guitar Hero at a friend’s). It at least gave me a chance to finally catch up on some of the older games I have for it:
Continue reading 'A Very Nintendo Christmas'»
I still had a bit of time to kill before bed, so I figured I’d celebrate the release of Super Mario Galaxy (though I haven’t picked it up yet) by playing a bit of Super Mario Bros 3 via the ol’ GBA cartridge.
I last left off partway through World 3, and it didn’t take long before I remembered why — World 3-4 was a royal pain in the ass for me. Either the flying goomba or the Lakitu just past that would inevitably finish me off; SMB3 was a lot less forgiving about the temporary invulnerability you’d get after taking a hit, so I’d often die even if I was big when I’d take a jump only to hit a thrown spiny and then hit Lakitu himself a second later.
Tonight though, after failing 3-4 a handful of times, I was about to try 3-5 instead as an alternate path, but actually managed to beat 3-4 for once. The rest of the world was much easier, and now my game is saved right at the start of World 4.
There hasn’t been much to report, as I haven’t had much time for games lately aside from a Picross DS puzzle or two here and there (on level 9 Free Mode now). I at least got the shipping box for the 360, so it’s on its way and hopefully the replacement won’t take too long.
Otherwise, I’ve just been keeping up with the regular old news and chit-chat. Beautiful Katamari is out now, but the reaction seems to be a bit mixed. A common complaint that comes up is that this version seems to be a lot harder than the previous two, doesn’t really add much new, and is fairly short for its new higher price point. There are some more levels on the way as DLC, but they’re not available in North America yet. I might pass on this one after all.
Having finished Super Metroid, I don’t really want to start anything new right now since my 360 is close to being returned, and anything new would just get set aside again as soon as it arrives.
Instead, tonight was spent meandering around a bit. I tried to check out Hexen, from the “id megapack” I bought on Steam a while back, but I got stuck between a rotating panel and a wall at one point, and trying to reload the game caused it to crash. I was using the zDoom engine rather than the ‘real’ one, which is probably the real problem, but zDoom adds too many enhancements not to use it.
I downloaded the new Picross DS packs for this week and completed a handful more puzzles, but mainly the easier ones. I’m getting closer to the end of the built-in puzzles though, as I’m up to level 7 (of 10) in Free mode now.
And finally I popped onto WoW and EverQuest briefly just to see if there was anything interesting going on. But there wasn’t. At least not anything obvious; you really have to wander around, inquire a bit, and do some research to find out what’s new, but I started a bit too late in the evening to bother with that.
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