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| Yeah, she's terrifying. |
My new game for this week was Ninja Gaiden: Dragon Sword for
the Nintendo DS. I wondered how many other franchises were brought to the
system with a suffix that abbreviates to DS, as one of my other games is
Resident Evil: Deadly Silence. Still, at least Dragon Sword makes sense in the
context of Ninja Gaiden, as that is the weapon that the player character, Ryu
Hayabusa, is using. It’s an odd game in many ways, not least because you hold
the DS vertically and control the character almost entirely with the stylus.
Hold the stylus down in a location, Hayabusa will go there. Tap a location or an
enemy, and he will throw a shuriken. Swipe across an enemy, and he will slash
them with his sword. There are a number of different combinations of swipes
that will do different techniques that are more difficult to do but more
powerful if you manage it. The only control mapped to any of the buttons is
block; you can press any button for this.
I played it for a while, and even though the combat can get
repetitive, doing it with the stylus is enough of a novelty that it remains
fun. The trickier move combos are satisfying to pull off; some semblance of
physical effort is required so you feel like you’ve earned it when the move is
executed. The boss battles are good as well: It’s not enough to mash the
controls; you need to learn their attack patterns and wait for your
opportunities. I’m enjoying the game so far and I’m looking forward to playing
more of it!
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| Someone needs to buy more drinks machines... |
I continued playing Theme Hospital after getting stuck on
the tenth level. I had to re-start it; the vomit virus around the hospital was
getting out of hand and the rapid succession of epidemics was haemorrhaging all
my money. I beat the level by making sure I had enough Handymen (who keep the
hospital clean and stop viruses from happening) to keep the area clean, and
spamming GP’s offices and receptions around the hospital. These are the busiest
areas because the patients visit the GP regularly, so I arranged it so that the
patients were spread out and that there were no more than six people in a queue
at any given time. That worked for the tenth level; I now find myself on the
eleventh, where I tried to create an efficiently-running hospital in the same
manner, only to spend a lot more money than I had and got fired due to an
increasing amount of debt, as a rather on-the-nose metaphor for recent changes
in UK health policy.
Incidentally, that Epidemics mechanic is a pain in the bum.
The idea is that some of your patients have an illness that is contagious and
could spread. When you get the memo, you have two options: Either declare the
epidemic, take a fine and a reputation hit, or try to cover it up by curing all
the relevant patients in a given amount of time. There is a cash bonus if you
manage this, but if you fail, your hospital is either fined or all your current
patients are evacuated. The trouble is your time is instantly over if any of
the patients go outside – even if it’s to access the other buildings in the hospital.
I’ll have to plan it so that the patients can get through the entire diagnostic
process and be cured before they have the opportunity to go outside – this will
take some doing!
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| An impressive concept, if nothing else. |
Finally, Kirsty and I had a go at 3D Pawn, the game with the
name that sounds ever-so-slightly suspect when you say it out loud. It’s a
magnetic cube with a 3x3 grid on each side, with nine pawns of a light and dark
colour on opposite sides. The pawns move like pawns in chess, except you can
move sideways. The object of the game is to get one pawn onto your opponent’s
side of the cube without being immediately captured. Not an in-depth
experience, but a nice ‘travel’ game to be played in bed or in the back of a
car. Which also sounds suspect when combined with 3D pawn…
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