Category Archives: Puzzles

New

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Wow, there’s a whole bunch of new stuff to catch up on.

I picked up Blur for the 360, since it looked interesting and I’m winding down on Forza 3. It’s basically like a Mario Kart-style racer, with powerups you pick up and fire at other racers, but on realistic cars and tracks. You can also use powerups to block incoming attacks instead. So far I’ve found the single-player game a bit frustrating since it seems like so much depends on random luck; I can come in second place one race, and then 18th the next, and I can imagine it getting frustrating trying to hit the specific advancement requirements.

In online multiplayer though, Blur is a blast. It doesn’t even really matter where you eventually wind up placing, with 20 players in total there’s plenty of action going on no matter where you are. There’s a level-based progression system that unlocks new cars and ‘mods’ that affect the rules slightly, and I’m up to level 13 (of 50) so far.

While picking up Blur, I noticed that Picross 3D was out. I played the hell out of the original DS Picross, so I had to pick this one up. It’s the same basic idea, expose the image within a grid by carving out unwanted blocks, but this time it’s a sculpture in a 3D block. The information you use is fairly different though, as you’re only told the total number of blocks to keep in a given row, how many groups the blocks are broken into, and not all rows are numbered. There’s a fairly lengthy tutorial that explains it all though, and I’ve perfected the Easy puzzles and just started in on the Normal difficulty.

And it’s not so new, but a fair bit of stuff has happened in EQ2 as well. I played my illusionist around the Everfrost area for a while last weekend, getting him 5 levels and burning up all the saved-up vitality xp. My mystic cleared out a bunch of the monster-farming quests in his log and then in the weekly group we went and finished off the Golden Efreeti Boots quest. Or the rest of the group did, anyway — I screwed up and missed a turn-in when we were in the Temple of Sol Ro, and then got wiped out by a level 70 dragon while trying to get back to it. I didn’t want to waste their time, so I told them to forget it and I’ll finish it myself at some later point, when everything’s lower-level.

Zzzzz…

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Still not much exciting happening lately, but I did at least eventually get a full set of Brewfest clothing and the second-last achievement for the event. I’m still missing the last one since I never got around to doing the fight with Coren Darkbrew, but there’s always next year. The Darkmoon Faire is starting up and I got the two frog pets from it, but I’m not sure if there’s really anything worthwhile that I can buy with tickets anymore.

Other than that, I picked up a nifty little game called Windosill on Steam. It’s really just a Flash game that’s a series of 10 puzzles, but they’re really well-done and it only cost $3.

Oh Yeah, I Own One Of Those

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I haven’t done much with the 360 lately, but today I took a bit of time to catch up with some of the newer XBLA games, at least.

Splosion Man: You play a character who, well, explodes. That’s all he does, run around and explode. But the explosions propel you around, let you trigger various things, etc., and you use that to make your way to the exit. There are of course various obstacles, timed puzzles, enemies, tricky jumps and triggered sequences, etc., along the way. For example, you might have to wall-jump, er, wall-explode up a shaft into an area where spiked walls move inwards and you have to explode up to trigger a barrel drop that you blow up to lift you up enough to trigger a door switch and…etc. I’ve done the first 11 levels so far, and things are getting pretty tricky.

Trials HD: I have the PC version of Trials 2, but word-of-mouth was that the 360 version was an improvement, so I picked it up as well. One of the biggest improvements is that you can see how well you’re doing relative to your friends, which can be motivating or depressing… I’ve done the Beginner and Easy levels so far, usually placing near the bottom but there are a couple of levels where I managed to get to the top of my list of friends.

Shadow Complex: It’s a semi-modern-day version of Metroid, basically, with the same kind of side-scrolling exploration and upgrade-finding, but with an analog aiming stick. I’ve barely started this one, though.

Deadly Rooms Of Redundancy

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I finished off a few more quests in Howling Fjord in WoW last night, but nothing too exciting. I think I’m close to finishing off the HF area, so maybe I’ll at least get to go somewhere more interesting soon. I’ve also started to make more room in my packs for a second set of equipment, now that the recently patched-in equipment managed makes it easier to switch back and forth between tanking and DPS gear.

But I spent most of my time in another game I just bought, called DROD: The City Beneath. Despite the fantasy-like trappings, it’s actually a turn-based puzzle game, where you have to make sure you fight monsters, flip switches, use potions, etc. at just the right time and in the right order in order to get past each room. I’ve made it through the tutorial and a handful of rooms in the city’s library so far, none of which were very hard, but the game has a reputation for really cranking up the difficulty later on…

I also caved in to another bargain and bought the Alien Shooter collection on Steam. I only had time to try one of the games, Zombie Shooter, and it’s a kind-of-fun three-quarters shooter with RPG-ish upgrade options, kind of like a blend of Crusader and Shadowgrounds.

Dang Zombies, Get Off My Lawn

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I went through the usual motions in EQ yesterday and got another handful of AAs and another rank of the research mastery skill, but what I was really after was some horticulture.

Plants Vs. Zombies is kind of like a tower defense game, though it’s a bit more restrictive in that there are specific lanes that the zombies follow and you have to defend each lane separately by placing plants with various attacks and defenses. And, of course, there are different kinds of zombies with various attacks and weaknesses. Some plants are only usable at night, when you have less ‘sunshine’ to spend, and you can only take a limited set of them into each battle.

So far I’ve made it through the first two chapters, which take place in your front lawn first during the day and then at night, and now I’m in the middle of chapter 3 in the back yard, which adds a pool in the middle and some new plants and zombies to handle it. There are also some minigames at certain points, like zombie bowling, where you launch ‘wall-nut’ plants to try and knock them over as they shuffle towards the house.

It’s fun so far, though it’s a bit more frantic than I expected since you have to react quickly to which zombie types appear in each lane, while collecting falling sunshine drops and trying to develop your ‘economy’ without leaving yourself vulnerable by not building enough attackers in time. It’s trickier than it looks.

I also tried out Puzzle Kingdoms, a more traditional fantasy-based sequel to Puzzle Quest. The focus this time is more strategic though, as you command a group of troops and attack buildings rather than do quests. Combat involves matching by sliding entire rows and columns rather than switching spots, and your goal is to build up attack points for each of your troops that will let them attack and do damage when you’ve finally collected enough.

It’s different enough from the original Puzzle Quest to be interesting, but it feels a bit unfinished. You can do things like garrison troops at buildings you’ve conquered, but there’s no point to it since the enemy never counter-attacks.

The Zs Have It

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I played a bit of EQ tonight, but just enough to use up the daily double xp period. I really need to find a new place to hunt…

Afterward, I played a bit of Zen of Sudoku while waiting for an update, and it’s kind of a mixed bag. The interface for marking potential numbers works well, but when the screen gets full of them, telling them all apart can get a bit difficult. There’s also not much tracking of stats, just a bunch of trophies for hitting certain milestones, and not even basic stuff like timing how long the puzzle took, or saving one for later. It does at least randomly generate them though, so I don’t run out of them like with the DS Brain Age games.

And then I tried out Zeno Clash, a brawler game with with a rather unique art style that was released today. It’s based on the HL2 engine, and you do get some guns, but it’s primarily focused on melee combat with punches, kicks, blocks, throws, etc. I’m only a few fights into it so far, but even on ‘normal’ difficulty (which is actually the lowest it goes) I’m not very good at it and succumb to the temptation to just mash buttons too often. It is nifty, though.

Indiepalooza

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And as mentioned, I spent a bit of today on some of the other smaller games I have lined up:

And Yet It Moves: It’s a platformer, but the twist here is that everything looks like it’s made out of paper (which doesn’t really affect anything), and that you can rotate the world, affecting the gravity of you and everything around you. Puzzles usually involve having to use that rotation to move things out of the way or into certain spots, chasing enemies away by luring others around, jumping onto ledges you wouldn’t be able to get to directly, etc. I only did the first few levels today.

The Maw: You’re an alien and you lead a blob-like creature around as he eats a whole bunch of stuff. But there are puzzles as well and your creature gains certain abilities from eating some enemies and uses them to get through and so on. And it’s always growing as you eat all these enemies, and he gets rather large. Cute, but fairly short and not all that difficult. I finished it in about 5 hours, DLC levels included, and only had to redo one level to get 100% completion.

Braid: I already beat the 360 version, but I picked it up for PC as well just to have an ‘archival’ copy.

Catching Up

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I was out of town for a while, but I still managed to get some gaming in during the trip:

Izuna 2: It’s essentially a roguelike for the DS, similar to Pokemon Mystery Dungeon in the overall ‘feel’ to it but starring a rather excitable young female ninja and her friends instead. It relies heavily on using special items with effects when thrown as you find them, and you’re encouraged to use them often since you have very limited inventory space. Nothing really special so far, but it’s competent enough.

Final Fantasy Tactics: I’d been meaning to get to this one for quite a while now, but I’ve only made it through a handful of battles so far. I don’t know if I’ve screwed up or what, but my characters haven’t really progressed very far, I don’t have any options for improving them yet, and I’m just getting my ass royally kicked in the current battle since the enemies are numerous and much higher level. Kinda stuck for the moment.

Eets: I’ve already played the 360 version, but I also picked up the original PC version a while back. It’s largely the same gameplay, with different levels, but I’ve made it farther into it than I did on the 360. I’ve gotten 100% on the first four areas and at least unlocked all of the others, with new things like the gravity-changing aliens, the marshomech, and appearances by Penny Arcade’s Merch.

Puzzle Quest: Galactrix: Essentially Puzzle Quest in space, but with a new hex grid instead of the old Bejeweled-style grid. The hex grid makes things a bit tougher since I haven’t gotten the hang of seeing how the board will change with each move yet. Hacking leapgates is annoying due to the time limit on them, but I’ve managed to do a handful so far and I’m up to level 8.

Sins Of A Solar Empire: I started off a couple of games teamed up with an AI so that I wasn’t completely on my own. For an RTS that allegedly plays at a slower pace, I still found myself falling behind on various things like choosing research and keeping construction drones busy. I haven’t finished a game yet since I keep feeling like I screwed up too early on and need to start over, so I still have to come up with a decent starting strategy.

EverQuest: I finally got net access at my mother’s place, so I spent a bit of time in EQ as well, mainly making sure my daily xp bonus period didn’t get wasted. All I really did was pick up some more AAs via Halls of Honor again, though, finally maxing out Hastened Gathering and Innate Run Speed, and starting to pick up Doppelganger and Persistent Casting. Hopefully the latter will let me use better hastes on my charmed pets and still be able to get the stuns and recharms off reliably.

I’m getting really tired of HoH, so I’ll probably just bank a handful of more AAs for future use and start concentrating on exploring and leveling again. I also need to start working on the 10th Anniversary quests before they go away…

Non-Sticky Goo

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I finished off the last two chapters of World of Goo tonight, and as expected, chapter 4 had a rather ‘virtual’ twist to things, adding a bunch of new goo types and things like blocks and slabs. The epilogue chapter was fairly short, consisting of only three real puzzles, but they were much harder than the others. I didn’t have to use any more skips, but I did have to consult some hints on a few of these later levels.

All in all it was a rather interesting, well-done puzzle game with a lot of style. I don’t think I’ll be going back to try and get the ‘OCD’ ratings on each of the levels though; I barely scraped by on most of them as it is…

Fun With Balls

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Continuing my trek through unfinished games, I got back to World of Goo today and made it through the end of Chapter 3.

So far I’ve only skipped one level, “Tower of Goo” back in the first chapter. You have to build a really tall tower in that one, and I’ve failed every attempt so far. If I take it slow and stable, I wind up using too many goo balls and don’t have enough to meet the level completion quota. If I take it quickly, it winds up swaying and collapsing before I reach the pipe. Oh well, at least the game lets you skip a handful of levels if you get stuck.

Chapters 2 and 3 introduced more new goo types, of course, with a particular emphasis on fire and explosions in Chapter 3 through flammable goos and bombs. The ending, culminating in the launch of “Product Z” in the game’s story, ought to make the next chapter interesting…