Last Week's Games: Legions, Final Fantasy VII, Crazy Taxi, Painting Chaos Cultists

A busy, but enjoyable week…

I don't think it's true that he can't be stunned anymore...

I downloaded The Horus Heresy: Legions on to my phone, and after syncing my account with the account I created on my computer, I could play the game anywhere I was in range of a router (I don’t have a huge data plan.) This has made things a lot more straightforward in terms of logging in every day and getting a few games in. Apart from that, the most significant development for me in terms of progress is that I managed to save up enough gems to buy a new Warlord: Ezekyle Abbadon for the Sons of Horus. This was none too soon, as I found I was losing a lot of games simply because the three Warlords I had prior (Loken, Tarvitz and Eherlen) just didn’t have enough staying power to compete with a lot of the decks being thrown at me. Abbadon’s ability is pretty basic (3 damage to an enemy troop) but his slightly higher defence means I can last a bit longer and I’ve been winning a few more games. Of course, knowing that he later becomes Abbadon the Despoiler in 40K lore helps provide the additional context; I didn’t read all of the Horus Heresy books (about the first 11 out of currently 52) and I’m not always sure who some of the Warlords are!

An odd choice of photo I grant you, but it's just to remind
myself that I'm going to have to do breed one at some point.

I kept on with Final Fantasy VII as well. I got to the part where Cloud has explained his past and Sephiroth to the others in Kalm, and I now need to find a Chocobo so that I can cross the marshlands. I spent some time grinding for Gil (money) more than anything else so that I could buy all the weapons and different materia; it’s nice to have the time to do that! This is through a combination of playing it on a handheld console, and also not playing it on PC which, the first time I tried, made illegal operation messages come up every so often.

Get out the way you pillock, I'll flatten you!

Having my head tied up in numbers with Legions, and going through a long-form RPG in Final Fantasy, I found myself wanting a little light relief so I had a go with Crazy Taxi, a game I’ve talked about before having downloaded it for free off Xbox Live: Games with Gold. I had been aiming for the achievement points, which for a large part includes getting all the ranks on Arcade and Original mode (the only difference between the two that I can see is the somewhat different maps.) This is quite difficult to do using Arcade rules, because you’re on a timer that is quite tight and only increases when you make successful passenger runs. But getting the achievements is a lot more straightforward when you have the option to set a certain number of minutes of game time – at that point it’s all about prioritising the customers based on how much time you have (The green ones have a smaller catchment detector but pay more for a longer journey.) Less straightforward are the Crazy Box challenges, which involve Crazy Dash and Crazy Drift manoeuvres which don’t lend themselves too well to playing the game with the controller. I’ll keep at it but I don’t want the game to become more work than fun!

Not the best photo, but the light's not that easy to manage.

Finally, I finished painting a set of models I’d started earlier in the year – my Chaos Cultists. I painted the vast majority of them in Warhammer: Dudley last Monday, and completed them today – the first models I’ve painted in my flat. It’s not my best work; I’ve painted more accurately than this in the past but they are cultists and will get shot to pieces anyway so I’m not going to worry about it. The next stage is to paint a Dark Apostle, which I don’t really know where I’m going with at this point – he’s the Chaos equivalent of the Space Marine Chaplain, which would tend to be in black whatever the chapter, but I have seen certain versions of the model painted to fit the legion he’s attached to. As my legion is Word Bearers and the difference is quite stark, I want to make sure I get it right!

Last Week's Games: Crazy Taxi, Reigns, Mordheim: City of the Damned, Guitar Hero, New Super Mario Bros

Pretty crazy...

I started this week by downloading Crazy Taxi off Xbox Live’s Games with Gold. This is a game that has been talked about fondly for many years but as far as I can remember, I never actually played. I didn’t own the Dreamcast, and while a version of it did come out for the PlayStation 2, within six months of buying one I was bought Grand Theft Auto 3 for Christmas, in which the same essential experience can be created by stealing a taxi and starting the taxi mission. I initially thought it was going to be another pick-up-and-play game, which was fine by me, but I sat playing it for two hours so I definitely enjoyed it! I’m not very good at it though; the advanced driving techniques performed by the somewhat clunky gear-shift mechanic elude me at this point, and I haven’t yet managed more than a “C” rank. I’ll probably keep trying, though!

I also had a quick go with Reigns, a whimsical decision-making game about being the king, and trying to remain so as long as possible before you die in some way. I didn’t get too far in the game before being pulled apart by various people in the church. I’m not quite clued up on how all the mechanics of the game work yet, as in what decision is likely to affect what outcome – but it looks like this isn’t a game you “beat” in the usual sense. More likely, you’ll be unlocking all the possible characters, all the deaths, all the events etc. I’ll probably have to look at a guide or something to get to the last few, but it looks like a game that would work great on mobile; a filler for a spare ten minutes.

Of course I returned to Mordheim: City of the Damned, and continued my campaign as the Red Death Possessed warband. At the moment I seem to be doing well against most of the other factions except the Sisters of Sigmar, whose morale and resilience are at odds with my somewhat low level of damage output and not quite having the right spells to deal with it. The first campaign mission is ready to go but having attempted a playthrough as Chaos before I know that the opponent for this is the Sisters, so I’m making sure my warband s is ready to go before I do this – even though this is usually how I get bogged down in the game and find progress very difficult.

Not sure which game this shot comes from,
could be any of them...

And then for some reason I had an urge to dig up my old Guitar Hero controller and try the first Guitar Hero game. I’ve never been especially very good at these games because I find that when I watch the scroll bar going up for a while, my vision starts to do the same so five or six songs is usually quite enough. Somehow in spite of this I managed to get through the entire game on Easy mode and earn a 5-star rating on all the available songs.  I had a go on medium difficulty, but I found myself thinking that if I’m going to work that hard to get through a game, I might think about doing some more practice on the real thing so I can play some more songs!

Someone want to tell me how to
open up that bottom path?

Finally, I continued playing New Super Mario Bros. I beat the first world, and got up to the first save point in the second before going to bed. One thing I’m noticing about the later Super Mario games is how well it accommodates varying levels of play; the levels aren’t that much of a challenge to get through and you could potentially get through the whole game by running to the right and jumping at the right time. But some of the content is gated off by a certain number of collectables you have to pick up, in this case the large coins. It gives an incentive to take your time, explore the levels and really get the most out of the game. I found it was a similar situation when I covered Super Mario 3D World last year; it’s a sign of good game design!