Last Week's Games: New Super Mario Bros, Diggy's Adventure, Hey, That's My Fish!

This week, I’ve been very pushed for time with work, gigs with the bands, playing video games took something of a back seat for me! But I managed to get some games in.

This happened quite a bit...

The first one was, to my surprise, New Super Mario Bros on the DS. I happened across someone who had the same game and we had a go with the multiplayer mode; Mario vs Luigi. In this, you have to collect five stars before your opponent does, using power ups and platforming to hamper your opponent any way you can. There’s a lot of fun to potentially have with this mode, however I should point out that the person I was playing against is very young and there was something of a disparity in skill level, so we didn’t play for very long!

The Dark Angels...

I continued my eternal crusade on, er, Eternal Crusade in those evenings where I had a bit of time. I’m still enjoying it, and I’m becoming a lot more familiar with the different classes now. I’m still absolutely hopeless at it, typically finishing somewhere in the bottom third of the leader board, and against players who have been playing since launch I haven’t got a chance. I’m also starting to notice the fact that there’s not really that many maps. It could do with a few more, to vary things up a bit! But on those times where I manage to sneak up behind someone and one-shot kill him, or capture a control point, or take out three guys at once (the latter happens at very infrequent intervals!) it’s really good fun, and I think this will see me through a long time yet.

With a chin to rival
Buzz Lightyear...

My new game for this week was Diggy’s Adventure on my Kindle Fire. This is a game where you have to make your way through a top-down cave by digging through collapsible squares of sand, gravel and the like. Each dig takes a certain amount of energy, and if you run out, you either need to manage your resources to make it last longer, or buy some more in micro payments! It’s competently-designed, doesn’t take itself too seriously (either that or the developer’s writing team had the week off!) and was a nice enough way to fill half an hour. But there’s not much challenge in the game that I’ve been able to see, apart from a couple of lever puzzles that are easy enough to work out. I guess later on there’d be an element of resource management in there, where you dig just far enough to achieve your objective and come back and clear the level later (the game rewards you for clearing the entire level.) There’s nothing wrong with Diggy’s quest, but like with most mobile games, I’m not sure how long it will keep me engaged.

Damn that robber!

I went in to Warlords and Wizards again and had another game of Settlers of Catan, where it got very competitive! We had to call the game early due to time allowance, but it was a pleasure to play again and I’m looking forward to the UK Championship at the UK Games Expo! I’m not expecting to do very well, but it will be interesting to play some different games with some different people. I also continued painting some Chaos Space Marines, I’ve nearly finished them now which will bring me up to 20.

Brutal but fun!

Finally, I had a few games of Hey! That’s My Fish with my Mom and my girlfriend Kirsty. It’s a really nice game to play because it doesn’t take itself too seriously, the rules take about a moment to work out (apart from working out what order to place the penguins in, I didn’t need to refer to the rules even once,) it’s really good fun and surprisingly tactical. I won the first two games and my Mom won the third. We helped her out with a move at one point near the end which turned out to be the deciding point, but as long as everybody is having a good time, it doesn’t really matter who wins or loses. I know that sounds like a very wishy-washy thing to say but it is absolutely true!

Last Week's Games: Rayman Origins, Dark Souls, New Super Mario Bros and Puzzle Quest: Marvel Super Heroes



A kid's game it may be, but there's
something Lovecraftian about these villains...

After the rather intense experience of playing Max Payne 3 all the way through in a single weekend, I felt I needed something light to lose myself in for a while, so I tried Rayman Origins. Rayman is a franchise that I thing I should have given more time to than I ever really did; it came at a point where 3D graphics were becoming the standard, and a 2D platformer was not what I was expecting of the 5^th console generation. It was my loss, really, because Rayman was a very good game, one I currently own for the Playstation and hope to return to at some point. I haven’t played any of the games in between, but Rayman Origins is a very competently-designed action platformer. It’s addressed some of the issues presented by the first game – the difficulty appears to be reduced, you have unlimited lives etc – and this makes for a very fun game. You run and jump across some beautifully-drawn and colourful words, trying to free the Electoons (Little pink blobs,) punching bad guys, and capturing Lums (the game’s equivalent of coins.) Occasionally there’s a shoot-em-up style mini-game with a mosquito which breaks up the action nicely. I’m enjoying my time with it so far, I’ve got to the second ‘World,’ and I mean to carry on. As the achievements are all earned in-game and none of them are tied up in online multiplayer as far as I can see, this is one of the few games I have a hope of 100% completing; it’ll be an interesting journey if nothing else! 

Strewth...

It will be worth remembering how much fun I’m having with Rayman, because the other game I’ve been playing this week is Dark Souls. I’ve started this game a few times and never got very far; all the rumours about the games difficulty are absolutely true. You play as an undead fighting your way through the land of Lordran, to… actually I’m not sure what you’re trying to achieve, other than avoiding spending eternity locked in the Undead Asylum you escape from at the beginning. You fight your way through other undead and demons, each and every one of which wants to see you dead. Which is for the best, really, because you’ll be obliging them on multiple occasions before you’ll get anywhere. Dark Souls has a very technical combat system, and you have to work out the function of each of your moves. A light attack does some damage, a strong attack does more damage and can breaks defence, which is its primary purpose. You can do a jumping attack for the same purpose and to close some distance, while a front kick will knock enemies back; great if you’re fighting near a sheer drop. If you have a shield you can block, and also parry attacks. The latter is almost mandatory for getting through the game, but requires precise timing to pull off. I’ve been playing it a lot over the last week and had to look at a Wiki to find out what I was doing wrong; quite a bit as it turns out. Also it was far from the first time I’ve tried to play through this game and this time I found the lower section of the Undead Burg I’d missed completely for the first time! I think I might have to restart again and follow the Wiki. Is that cheating? Possibly, but even armed with that information, Dark Souls is a very hard game.

Oddly compelling...

When it was convenient for me to be playing on handhelds, I kept on at New Super Mario Bros for the Nintendo DS. I’m enjoying it, but I like being able to put this one down now and again. For some reason, playing through this one knowing I’m almost certainly going to have to do so again to unlock everything isn’t filling me with a determination to do so. On my Kindle Fire, I’ve been playing Puzzle Quest: Marvel Super Heroes. I’ve been enjoying that; it’s a Match-3 but with an element of strategy to it. Can I beat it without spending any money? I hope so, but it’s a bit of a grind!

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!

Last Week's Games: New Super Mario Bros, Mordheim: City of the Damned, 911 Operator

Since I’ve been trying to play a new game every week this year, I tend to play the new game for the week on Mondays. I found that while I was playing through Far Cry 2, I was so heavily invested in that game it became difficult to justify playing a new one for its own sake. So these days I give myself some time to play a new game on one of my days off, so that my obligation is out of the way and I’ve got time to do whatever I want later in the week, whether it’s playing the new game if it’s engaged me enough, or continue with whatever game I was trying to beat before. I haven’t been so invested in a long-form game since Far Cry 2, I enjoyed Theme Hospital of course but most of that had been done roughly a year before.

I'm enjoying the shell power up.

So my new game for this week was New Super Mario Bros for the Nintendo DS, as this is a great pick-up-and-play game. It’s always interesting to experience the new gameplay mechanics that run across the different Super Mario games – new for me anyway, as up until Super Mario 3D World, I hadn’t play a Super Mario game for any significant amount of time since Super Mario World for the SNES. I had a lot of fun with the Blue Shell, even when I accidentally used it and ran in to something that killed me. The giant mushroom is fun as well, though I suspect that as you can destroy Warp Pipes with them, you’re closing off secret areas that could contain the giant coins you’re supposed to be picking up. I’ve not got very far in the game yet, but the point of my DS is that I can play it for a little while when it’s convenient for me to play a handheld system, so I’m not expecting to make rapid progress through this one. It’s there when I need it!

I did mine in Red, funnily enough...

I also had a go at one of my favourite games: Mordheim: City of the Damned. I downloaded it for my laptop a few years ago and, after a bit of faffing around with the graphics card, found the strategy experience hugely enjoyable. I’ve definitely put more hours in to this than any other PC game I own! Unfortunately the game is a little buggy, and some game-breaking bugs coupled with an ironman saving system has meant that I haven’t beaten it yet. I might do this time though. I’ve started a Possessed warband called The Red Death; we’ll see how it pans out.

Assigning units, taking calls... the life of a 911 Operator!

As you’ll see from the Pickups and Trades blog I’m putting out on the last Wednesday of every month I’ve gone a little mad with downloading games off Steam, and with the school holidays on at the moment, I thought I’d take the little more time that afforded me to play one or two of them. I started with 911 Operator. This was a game I think I heard about over the releases section of the Co-Optional Podcast, and I’m enjoying games that are doing things a little bit differently. From what I heard, I was expecting an L.A. Noire style negotiating style of gameplay as you desperately tried to sort out what was wrong before it was too late. That’s in there, certainly, but a lot of it is an “assign your units” point and click strategy game. You assign police, fire fighters and paramedics to various vehicles with different strengths and weaknesses, and purchase equipment for them. You then go into deployment mode, where you assign those units to various emergencies that crop up over the cities in the game.

I’m in Miami at the moment, and brilliantly there’s a team of veteran cops in a sports car apparently referencing Miami Vice, an 80s cop show I’ve never actually seen. They can usually get to an emergency quicker than any squad car, but you need to assign another car to the emergency if they need to take any criminals in. It’s a great game so far and I’m enjoying playing it, I’m looking forward to seeing how it all plays out.