Category Archives: Types

Who Needs London Anyway

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I finally completed Hellgate: London tonight with my Engineer character. I was actually pretty close; I just had to pass five trials, which were the most interesting part of the process as they were set up as a good-vs-evil battle with different rules in each one, usually revolving around capturing and holding control points.

After that it was off to another station, where there were some more side quests that could be run, and then off to the titular hellgate for the final battle. There wasn’t anything particularly special about it though, aside from being a bit more hectic than usual due to dense monster spawns, and the end is clearly a setup for a sequel or expansion pack.

I then played for a bit on Nightmare mode, making it to Covent Garden station again, but the difficulty didn’t really increase that much, and it felt pretty much like a continuation of where the normal mode left off. It supposedly gets much harder in the end though, with the final boss being extremely difficult and/or time-consuming (only recently has someone claimed to have finally killed it solo).

Though I can technically call HG:L done now, it’s very much like Diablo 2 in that it invites a lot of replay through different character builds, different difficulties, loot hunting, etc. But for now I think I’m going to shelve it again until more patches and added content comes out.

Wet Plumbing

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Most of my gaming time today was spent in Super Mario Galaxy, where I’m now up to 31 stars. I’m an obsessive collector, trying to get all the stars from each galaxy before moving on even while plenty of other new galaxies have been unlocked, so it’s taking me a bit longer than normal.

The most notable part of SMG is in just how much sheer variety there is between the different galaxies, and even when you’re redoing the same galaxy for another star, you’re taking a different path that usually requires a different approach. It keeps things fresh, and you’re never bored because you’re doing the same thing over and over again.

There are also comets, which have you redo a previous level but with a new twist on it (e.g., a time limit, lower maximum health, you have to race a clone…), and ‘? block’ galaxies which are much heavier on precision platforming skills. I’ve been able to beat all of them so far, but reportedly some of the late-game comets are pretty challenging.

Boss fights are also interesting in that they all need their own different tactics, but figuring them out is always intuitive. So far I’ve never had the problem like in other games where you can only weaken the boss by performing some weird series of steps that’s completely non-obvious.

The only problem so far is that the camera works just fine in most stages, except water stages. In one galaxy, you have to lure a torpedo over to hit a weight in a cage, except that after you’ve gotten close enough to get the torpedo to fire, you have to turn around and head for that cage, but the camera is slow to turn with you, so you’re swimming blindly under time pressure. I’ve never really liked the water stages in Mario games to begin with, though…

Jumping From Medium To…Medium

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I worked my way through the rest of the tiers in Guitar Hero 2 today, completing the Medium difficulty. I didn’t fail any of the songs, but it was definitely getting tougher near the end, and my overall score (especially in terms of stars and multipliers) was much lower on those. I didn’t do as badly on Free Bird as I expected, but damn, that solo goes on forever…

Next up I think I’ll do the Medium campaign in GH3 before coming back and trying Hard in GH2. And then Hard in GH3, and so on.

And now that I’ve unlocked all of the songs, there’s less pressure to try and move on to the next one, so I can start taking things a bit more leisurely and focus on practicing specific songs for a while. I found that a lot of my trouble was simply not knowing the songs. Knowing the beat because you’ve heard the song before is about the only way I’ve found to keep up on those long, repeated note sequences.

Medium-Sized

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I ended the night with a couple more hours in Guitar Hero 2 and completed two more tiers on Medium, putting me exactly halfway through the campaign by the song counts. The difficulty seems to be increasing a bit, but fairly slowly. I’m still only three or four-starring most songs though, which is a bit discouraging when you hear people talk about how they just bought their first GH game but they were five-starring everything right off the bat so they just skipped straight to Expert… :P

Chord transitions are still throwing me off when they involve the blue fret, and I also have trouble when quickly jumping from green down to blue; my pinky seems to lose its place and I wind up hitting yellow instead. Red/blue chords are also a bit of a problem, as I have a bit of trouble quickly transitioning to them without also subconsciously moving my ring finger too and hitting yellow. One tip I’ve seen is that I should actually rest my index finger on the red fret instead and shift up to hit green, to avoid using the much weaker pinky finger. And it’ll probably help get used to shifting, which I’ll have to do eventually when the orange fret gets introduced anyway.

I also fiddled around with the bonus songs for a bit, and went back and made another attempt at “Push Push (Lady Lightning)” and beat it this time. I failed in the way-too-chaotic-for-me intro the first time around, but fortunately the rest of the song isn’t quite that hard once you get past it. On a lark, I also tried “X-Stream” in Hard mode and was amazed to actually beat it. I must have come close to failing a good half-dozen times though, saved only by a large number of repeated chord and note sections that were a bit easier. I found myself deliberately skipping some notes just to keep in position for the next chord section.

I also tried Jordan on Expert just for yucks, and made it to…4%.

Mmmmm, Mystery Stew…

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Tonight’s WoW session was pretty uneventful. I finished off the Stonetalon quests I had left and avoided the temptation to pick up the new ones that opened, just to clear out some quest log space. Then, I headed off to Desolace, and wound my way around to Shadowprey Village in order to pick up the book for training expert cooking.

With the cap raised, I was then able to jointly work on cooking and fishing a bit more, finally ending up around 215 cooking skill. The recipes are starting to get pretty expensive though, so I might have to avoid buying every one I run across and stick to the ones needed to skill up. The really good foods won’t come until later anyway.

Is London Stable Yet?

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Another patch came out for Hellgate: London, so I gave it a brief whirl again. Unfortunately the most annoying problem for me still isn’t fixed; although I no longer get the “Requirements Not Met” message when deploying my drone, it’s still not equipping its weapons properly half the time, making me have to manually reset them.

It’s more stable now that I’ve turned the graphical options down, so I’m able to make some more progress in the storyline, at least. I set off to the Necropolis, which it turns out isn’t the end of the game, but is still a bit ‘special’ in that it’s one of the longer paths in the game. There’s a couple zones to get to it, and then five levels to the Necropolis itself, whereas most missions only sent you one to three zones away, so it took a while to complete. And then, afterwards, some quest guy sent me back to the third level of the Necropolis, requiring another long journey to and through it…

Completing the Necropolis quests opened up another hub where I’m supposed to complete some ‘trials’ next, so I’m guessing the end is still a ways away.

Ow, My Arm

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My Guitar Hero 3 bundle and copy of Guitar Hero 2 finally arrived today. You know how sometimes people can pick something up and discover they’re a natural at it without any prior exposure or practice?

Well, that’s not me. :P Even the medium difficulty in GH3 is kicking my ass so far. In order to proceed past the second tier, you have to defeat Tom Morello in a ‘boss battle’, and I’m stuck on that right now. I also went and tried out GH2 for a bit and it’s medium difficulty is definitely a bit easier. My main problems right now seem to be with parts that wildly jump between the frets, where I just can’t keep up and get out of sync, and long sections of quickly repeated notes, where I just can’t get the right rhythm.

I left the careers at the second tier in both, but unlocked a few of the bonus songs out of curiosity, including the infamous Jordan. I actually did better on it (88%/4 stars) than I did on Trogdor (80%/3 stars), though again this is just on medium. My highest score so far (around 118k) is actually from one of these bonus songs, specifically the Freezepop one. And I actually managed to get the ‘perfect song’ achievement in GH3, though admittedly from when I was first fooling around at the Easy level…

As for the guitar itself, it works pretty well, with none of the problems some other people have had about the detachable neck being loose and the frets sometimes not working. The only quirk is that I pretty much have to hold it vertically straight up to trigger star power, though that might be intentional.

And, as the title implies, my arms are already sore. I have to get into the habit of holding the frets properly; by default, I put too much pressure when pushing on it and my hand cramps up fairly quickly. I also still have to adjust the straps to hold it properly while standing, as proper rocking out does not involve sitting. And there’s already a slight bruise on my right arm from where it lies against the edge of the base…

Edit: Oh, and you can even follow along on my stats page at the official site.

It’s Okay, They’re Spheres, Not Balls

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Since there was still time to kill, the other big chunk of the evening was spent in Super Mario Galaxy, and although I’m not very far into it yet, it’s definitely a winner.

It continues the 3D platforming as seen in Super Mario 64 and Super Mario Sunshine, but with some important differences. Instead of the typical flat hills or vertical towers you normally expect, most of the action takes place on small planetoids, with the camera following Mario from above, with the occasional trip inside the planetoid where Mario runs around inside like it’s some kind of giant hamster ball. Gravity can vary wildly as you find yourself running up walls and jumping around edges to ‘fall’ on the other side, and it’s a bit disorienting at first, but you quickly get used to it.

There are multiple galaxies you can visit, each made up of a bunch of different planetoids, and each planetoid has a minor task you have to accomplish on it before you can rocket off to the next one in the series. Most of them are your traditional spherical planet, with different types of rocky/grassy/metallic/etc terrain, but there are also things like pirate ships and cylinders containing platforming sections that you can land on.

There’s not much control over which planetoids you visit, though. Unlike Mario 64, SMG is a lot more linear. Instead of having a bunch of different paintings you can choose from, galaxies are unlocked in a series by reaching star counts (so far, at least), and the stars in each galaxy can only be collected in a specific order, whereas in Mario 64 you could accidentally find or deliberately decide to go for a different star than you first selected.

The controls are pretty effective, with the nunchuk controlling movement and ducking, and the remote controlling jumping and attacks. You can defeat enemies both by jumping on them, as usual, or by shaking the remote and causing Mario to spin around and stun enemies. You can also use the remote to control a cursor that you use to collect ‘star bits’, which you can then also shoot back at the screen to stun enemies. There will probably be more advanced gymnastics required later on, and it’s been pretty easy so far, but I’m still fairly close to the start.

My Wii has been somewhat neglected lately, but SMG is the game that’s finally made me glad I picked one up.

Okay, That’s Enough Of The Balls

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As expected, I finally finished Switchball tonight. The last two stages had shorter par times than some of the previous stages, but that didn’t necessarily mean they were any easier, and it took me nearly an hour to finish the last one.

Of that last stage’s hour, probably 40 minutes were spent retrying just the very last checkpoint, which was yet another part where you started a second ball rolling and had to ‘babysit’ it as it rolled along on its own to prevent it from falling off at various points (the second-last stage had a couple parts like this too, but not nearly as hard). A combination of extreme length and tight timing at various points meant that the slightest error would cause you to fail, and so many retries were needed before I could pull off every step perfectly, especially when failing an early step prevents you from even being able to practice the later ones.

It’s done now though, and I’m not even going to try for the medal times, so my ball-rolling days are now at an end for the time being. Unless I pick up Beautiful Katamari…

These Balls Are Tiring

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I took another stab at finishing Switchball tonight, but only managed to make it through four of the remaining six stages before feeling like I’d had enough for the night. The difficulty is fairly high now, depending on things like precisely landing the air ball at multiple spots in a row, parts that make you race to keep up with some other triggered event, positioning crates perfectly and quickly (it’s really easy to get them jammed diagonally into a narrow passage, instead of straight on like you need), and really long sequences without a checkpoint.

The stages are getting really long, too. One had a bronze medal time of over 14 minutes, but with all the checkpoint retries I needed, it wound up taking me nearly 50 minutes to complete it. There’s no way I’m getting any of the medal achievements for this game.

Only two stages left to go now though, so hopefully it’ll only take one more night…