Game Diary: 27/02/2014

Pokemon Silver (Gameboy)

I'm still grinding, I'm still filling up the Pokedex, I'm still nowhere near ready to face Red. I did something silly today, I bid on several Pokemon games on ebay and accidentally won 2 copies of Ruby, oops. It's not all bad I know someone I can give it to as a birthday gift or something. Now I own both ruby and sapphire, there is nothing I can't get on those games (excluding the entire national Pokedex and event Pokemon).

Animal Crossing (Gamecube)

I'm building up a big collection of Gyroids in my basement, in a way it's kind of creepy how I have a basement full of them. I need to stop playing this at night, I'm not finding any insects or new fish.

P.N.03 (Gamecube)

Oh god this is hardcore. I love this game but hard mode is testing me, I spend 15 minutes getting wasted over and over before I get in "the zone" and start clearing trial missions. The trial missions are solid at high levels we are talking about your cover getting blown up while enemies shoot at the sides while missiles and lasers come at you from the front, there is no way you can get past that on skill and reaction alone, you have to be able to predict in this game, you have to stay two steps ahead at all times.
I can't stand the big flying robots that move really fast and take loads of damage, they can surround you and because they get so close you can't hit them if your special attacks. To be fair to P.N.03 though once you are in the zone you feel awesome, it is one of those games that make you feel like you are good at games.

Game Diary: 25/02/2014-26/02/2014

I legitimately forgot to do this yesterday, not that you missed anything because I played the exact same things I played on Monday.

Pokemon Silver (Gameboy)

So I hit all of my goals, I beat the last few gyms, I caught that Snorlax, I did some side quests, I caught Ho-Oh and now I'm grinding my team up while using Exp.Share on my weaker Pokemon to fill the Pokedex up because truth be told I was part of the original Pokemon generation and I've decided before I die I will complete at least one full pokedex, if I can fill just Gen 1 (which is possible to do) then I'll be happy, if I can get the full 251 on the original Gameboy games then even better, if I can fill the 3rd gen Pokedex then I'll probably never want to play Pokemon again because there are some pokemon that can only be caught in Pokemon Colosseum and Pokemon XD and I really do not like those games, I can't stand them, I beat Colosseum but I could never make myself go thought it again.

Anyway my team is looking pretty good now:

Typhlosion Lv61 - Learned Flamethrower which is good because Typhlosion's physical attack isn't very high.

Nidoking Lv59 - This is the boss Pokemon of my team, he can take out most of the elite 4 thanks to his moveset of Ice, Fire & Thunder Punch + Surf, awesome Pokemon.

Pidgeot Lv50 - Training this on Mt.Silver is a pain in the arse because the wild Pokemon aren't weak to his attacks.

Gyarados Lv48 - His move set is pretty limited, if I could teach it earthquake I would but I already used the TM.

Heracross Lv48 - He won't be very good until he learns Mega Horn.

Don't really have a 5th Pokemon right now, you need flash to get through Mt.Silver anyway so I might not bother.

Animal Corssing (Gamecube)

It's now officially Spring in Animal Crossing, which is good because I've been saying for ages that I want Spring to come so I can catch new things, I haven't seen a single insect yet but they probably only appear in the day. Fish wise I found something called a Stringfish, apparently it's really rare so I put it straight in the museum because I don't need any more bells, I already have over 700,000 in the bank.

Guilty Gear XX Accent Core (Wii)

It's Wednesday so I went down to the Video Game Student Union just because I had nothing better to do, I didn't play this for 3 hours non-stop like I did last week. Don't know what it is about that CRT at the Student Union building, it's bloody massive and it's ideal for this king of game but you can't make out the background music very well, I could just blame all the people going nuts over Divekick but I think it is the TV speakers that are the problem, why am I writing a critique of a Phillips CRT?

FIFA Football 2003 (Gamecube)

Don't know why but I keep coming back to this all the time, I can't be bothered with newer stuff I just play this all the time, I don't know why but I love it. Not much to say really, I decided to pop this on and continue with my Club Championship season as Arsenal, I'm not an Arsenal fan or anything I just kind of respect them. I think one of the things I like about FIFA 2003 is because it is an old football game is that it represents a different era of Football, this was before Rooney and C.Ronaldo and Man City being a top team. Anyway I like the idea of Club Championship, it's the Euro Super League, it's that thing people used to talk about years ago where they'd be sitting down bullshitting about football and discussing what would happen if Europes top clubs went and made their own league.

Anyway how am I doing on Club Championship? I'm doing alright, beat Roma 4-2 and then drew 3-3 with Juventus, eithers it's me being not very good or the game having rubber band AI but whenever I batter a team I find it impossible to win the following game, I was battering Juventus 3-1 before they came back and got the 3-3, yeah my defending is a bit dodgy but it always happens, I'll be tring to control the match only for them to nick the ball and dash through the midfield and defense like it's fucking nothing (before I forget, for those who are curious I'm playing on professional difficulty).

It's not all bad, I'm only 5 points off the top of the table.

P.N.03 (Gamecube)

I can't be arsed with the trial missions, the game is already hard enough I'm not playing the trail missions over and over for the sake of a costume with no ass coverage. Mission 4 is a bit hectic, it's only 6 screens but in those 6 screens you get bombarded by bullet sponge flying enemies, tank's and ATV's, it's almost a purely skill based stage at times.

Game Diary: 24/02/2014

Pokemon Silver (Gameboy)

So some of you may of heard of Twitch Plays Pokemon, it's the latest craze to sweep the internet. Twitch Plays Pokemon is a Pokemon live stream where the viewers control the game by typing commands into the Twitch Chat IRC. Twitch Plays Pokemon has been on going for just under two weeks now and in those 2 weeks it has been viewed over 26 million times and has at its peak been played by 100,000 people.

Seeing all this has inspired me to pick up Pokemon Silver again after dropping off months ago. Pokemon Silver is far and away my favourite all time Pokemon game, I no longer have my original childhood copy because the internal battery died, years later I now know better and have replaced the batteries on all 2nd generation Pokemon cartridges I have come into ownership of.

This isn't a new game thankfully, this is a continuation of the save I last had where I had just beaten the Pokemon League.

I've made quite a lot of progress in one day, I've traveled to Kanto, raised up two new party members in Heracross and Pidgeot and I now have five Kanto gym badges.

Current Team:

Typhlosion Lv55 - I pretty much beat the Elite 4 on his own, I haven't used him much since.

Red Gyarados Lv47 - Pretty sure everyone who ever plays this game uses this Pokemon, he's just too useful.

Heracross Lv43 - She was an absolute bitch to catch but her power makes her a key party member.

Pidgeot Lv43 - The essential bird Pokemon. I pretty much wasted the Kanto grass and poison gyms with him.

Nidorino Lv30 - Currently building him up before I evolve him into a Nidoking, it's going to take a lot of work before this team can beat Pokemon Trainer Red.

Corsola Lv24 - HM Slave, I need it for Surf.

Goals for tomorrow: Catch the Snorlax, get through the Diglett cave,  beat the last 3 gyms and do as many side quests as possible in my quest to build my team up.

Animal Crossing (Gamecube)

My second lighthouse week is over and the Mayor rewarded me with chocolate. Lame. I decided my house needed sorting because it was full of crap, it was like a damn brikabrak so I sold half of my furniture. It's funny how after I stopped playing I went and completely sorted out my room and you know what? It has never looked tidier.

Game Diary: 18/02/2014-23/02/2014

I have been super busy this week and will continue to busy for another week, it hasn't been complete doom, I have found some free time between the work, my root canal being pushed back 3 weeks was a blessing really, I have more free time and my toothache has disappeared anyway so I probably just need a filling change.

Guilty Gear X2 #Reload (PC)

The great thing about fighting games is no matter how tight your time can become you can always find 30 minutes in your day to play one of these. That said I'm going to be playing this a lot less now but even if I do stop playing X2 #Reload I'll always remember the good times, well I'm sure I'll go back to it for the story mode and extras.

Guilty Gear XX Accent Core (Wii)

So I ordered something nice off ebay last week. I am now the owner of two Hori official Gamecube Arcade Sticks, one regular edition and one Soul Calibur II Edition. These sticks are really good quality, I don't own any high-end £70 sticks or anything so I can only compare them to what I know. The layout of the Gamecube sticks are better than the layout of the Hori EX2 I use for my Xbox 360 and PC, the stick is more over to the right so there is space to rest your hand, it's very comfortable. The buttons are better than the buttons on the Hori Ex2, they almost feel like the expensive buttons on the modded Madcatz sticks I saw at the charity marathon a few weeks back. The stick itself seems to be the weakest part of the Hori Gamecube stick, the stick uses a square gate on its micro-switches and I think it is slightly inferior to the gate on the Hori Ex2, then again it could just be because I'm use to using the Ex2 on a desk (I hold the GC Hori on my lap).

Anyway Guilty Gear XX Accent Core, I had to go into Game and buy this again because I accidentally left my copy of Accent Core Plus at home last time I visited. Accent Core is by all means an update and like all fighter updates part of the experience is getting used to changes in the game. I've tried out my regulars and though I'm 7 years behind I'm going to go ahead and list some things:

1) Jam got nerfed, you used to be able to chain some of her special moves together, you can't do that any more (her EX version might be able to but I wouldn't know).

2) Ky has been buffed, some of his special moves have had attacks added that you can do on top of the first, Ky can now do aerial heavy lighting blasts, really useful upgrade.

3) Robo-Ky has been given a new Overdrive and his rapid-punch Overdrive has been changed so you can tap slash to do it for infinity, on the downside he now moves away from the other character when he does it which makes then self-destruct combo harder to pull-off.

4) Bridget and Baiken have had their attacks expanded a bit.

I finally tried out the EX versions of the characters for the first time, it's given me a reason to keep playing, the characters are basically overpowered versions of themselves with completely new movelists.

I finally beat I-No on the arcade mode which makes me feel good! Ky's new moves really helped, now I just need to beat the game without losing a round so I can fight Order Sol. I've been maining Baiken in this version because I find her so much fun to play as, that reminds me the character voices has either been rerecorded or given new voice actors, Baiken's #Reload voice was much deeper.

I went back to the Student Union games club this week because they needed to borrow my copy of Super Smash Bros Melee and my full character unlock memory card, I ran into a friend who I haven't seen in months so it paid off. While I was there I played this for 3 hours straight pretty much blanking out anyone who came up to me to ask questions like "Is Testament this games Akuma?", Guilty Gear is kind of a big deal for me. 

I still can't decide whether or not I'm going to try and save up for a PS4 so I can get the best version of Guilty Gear Xrd when it comes out, I said I was not going to rush into buying new video game systems (I could have easily bought a 3DS, PS3 or PSVita by now) but Xrd is really tempting me.

Salty Bet (saltybet.com)

This isn't technically a video game but I've been using it so much during my work breaks that I'm putting it on here. For those who aren't in the know Salty Bet is the name of an online video stream that hosts random fighting game matches that are played through Mugen, Mugen is an open source program that allows people to make their own fighting game characters and have them fight each other. Salty Bet is the result of years upon years of terrible, god awful, badly made Mugen characters. On the Salty Bet site you can bet "salty bucks" on AI matches between 2 random Mugen characters, that is all there really is to it. The real fun in salty bet is seeing how stupid the characters can become and how competitive matches can become, the best matches are often the ones where the underdog characters wins despite the odds against them. Also I should make mention of the music selection which is awesome and has introduced me to some great pieces of music.

Words cannot really do Salty Bet justice, give it a try and try not to get lost in all of the Salty Bet/Fighting Game related memes, in fact I'll list some right now.

Real = Good Character, Real Fight normally means good competitive match.

Fake = Bad version of a character, the opposite of real.

Mexi(can) = Mexi refers to anything that is too powerful, Mexibeam = One Hit Kill Beam for example. Term originated from overpowered Dragon Ball Z characters that were hacked from Portugal/Brazil exclusive DBZ games.

Potato = Useless character, bad AI. Potato has become it's own Tier.

Clutch = Extremely close low health match finish.

Animal Crossing (Gamecube)

I haven't played this all week but I promised the Mayor that I would turn on the lighthouse every night this week so I sunk to the ultimate low, I cheated, I changed the date on my Wii and played the entire week in one sitting. I am now one fossil away from the entire collection. Tom Nook finally got in something I really wanted, I am now a proud owner of the Gamecube G, now I just need the N64 N. I planted a money tree in my town and though the tree has grown the money seems to have disappeared which is weird, that or I just lost the tree, speaking of trees all the plants in my town have turned green meaning Spring is very near.

One last thing, I finally met K.K. Slider after 3 months of play.

Game Diary: 17/02/2014

Guilty Gear X2 #Reload (PC)

Good news! Remember when I ranted about how Blazblue would die with Games for Windows Live and would therefore be lost forever? Well Blazblue has now been ported to stream so we no longer have to worry about that happening. Anyway another day, another quick blast on the arcade mode, so on Guilty Gear I basically have 5 characters I rotate between, they are Ky, Robo-Ky, Jam, Bridget and Baiken, today was a Baiken day.
I like playing as Baiken because she works both as an aggression character and a defense character, I find he incredibly easy to play as an aerial character and pretty much spam dust when playing as her and I like how one of her attacks can link straight into her supers.

Yu-Gi-Oh! BAM (ios)

I don't know why I am still playing this other than because I have fell victim to the skinner box trap and have become obsessed with collecting stars because the rest of the game is closed off and all I can do is play previous chapters over and over to get stars. I now have over 100 stars and I'm not getting anything out of it, I guess I could pay for the rest of the games content but I think by the time I have to pay I would have become fed up with the game anyway.

Animal Crossing (Gamecube)

I played for all of 15 minutes, in that time I turned on the light house, found 7 dig spots and mailed 8 fossils at the post office. For 15 minutes I did pretty good.

Game Diary: 12/02/2014-16/02/2014

A lot of these recent updates have been slower with several days worth of play time condensed into one entry, good news is you (yes you, the reader) won't have to put up with that again until next weekend.

Super Princess Peach (DS)

So that's it, I'm completely finished with this game now, there is nothing more for me to do with it. I've unlocked and beaten every level, I've defeated all the bosses twice, I've played the mini games, the only thing I haven't done with unlock all the music and jigsaw puzzles but having to play every stage twice for a few items is just padding in its purest form. I'm not a fan of excessive padding but I understand why it is done, Super Princess Peach wasn't just designed as a game, it was designed to be a product that was being sold in shops for £30. I feel this mentality handicaps a lot of games but I can understand the importance of trying to make £30 last.

Overall Super Princess Peach is a great game but you probably know that by now.

Guilty Gear X2 #Reload (PC)

I haven't touched this in a while so I decided it was time to jump back on for a quick go. I love the diversity of the characters in the Guilty Gear games, granted it is a super unbalanced when it comes to the ratio of small characters to big characters (only 1 big guy in a 20+ character roster) but the characters themselves are what makes them good, not their play style.

I love playing as Robo-Ky just because I find his mannerisms and animations hilarious, I don't even need to use words to justify it.

Shame he isn't in Guilty Gear Xrd!

Speaking of Guilty Gear, bad news everyone, Guilty Gear X2 has been taken down from GOG.com due to a licencing dispute, I hope it gets resolved because this game is too good to ignore.

Yu-Gi-Oh! GX: Spirit Caller (DS)

I completed this ages ago but I sometimes go back to it when I am looking to kill time. My save file times in at 75 hours, I own 80% of all Yu-Gi-Oh! cards that existed in 2006 (I think there are over 6000 different cards now) and I'm still finding new things in this game by chance. Konami have released a handful of Yu-Gi-Oh! games on the DS and having played two others (World Championship 2008 and 2009) I can say with confidence that this is easily the best one.

Yu-Gi-Oh! BAM (ios)

To be honest I am not that big of a mobile game fan nor am I a big follower of games that use free to play models (though that said I am very excited about playing Phantasy Star Online 2 when that is finally released). Yu-Gi-Oh! BAM for what it is worth is one of the better free to play games I have played, it does place a lot of restrictions on people who decided to play for free (such as cutting the story mode off half way, restricting what cards you can get and giving you limited play time) but even with those restrictions you still get a lot of content, I haven't paid a penny towards the game and I have a deck so powerful that it feels almost borderline broken in comparison to what the games AI have to use.

It's a completely different type of game to the actual Yu-Gi-Oh! card game but as a stand alone restricted free to play title it is pretty damn decent.

Animal Crossing (Gamecube)

I got a mailbox full of valentines cards from my neighbors and reading them a pattern quickly emerged, they all think I'm anti-social, well that's okay because I wasn't going to wear those t-shirts anyway. The mayor has decided it is time for him to take another holiday meaning I'm once again going to have to turn the light house on everyday until the 23rd, oh joy. 

P.N.03 (Gamecube)

Now here is a cult game if there ever was one, most other people I've seen talk about this game have called it rubbish and accused it of being a TNA game with no redeeming qualities. Being a big fan of this game I will obviously defend it with the same tired arguments: 1) They don't get it, 2) They never gave it a chance, 3) It's bad because they don't like it.

Cop-out arguments out of the way I'll tell you exactly what P.N.03 is like, it's a game that only exists to challenge the person playing it. Forget the story, forget the ass wiggling, forget about the fact the game can be beaten in less than an hour on easy (which didn't do the games original £40 price tag justice), none of that is what P.N.03 is about.

This = Not Important

P.N.03 exists purely to test the player, those trial missions you can play in between story missions? That is the real P.N.03, a difficult, repetitive, muscle memory operated action game that will keep killing you until you learn how to play it right. The whole purpose is to train you, the player to a level where you can clear the story without ever getting stuck. I've seen the game compared to Space Invaders and there is some truth to it, you can get by using walls for cover but the real skill is being able to clear open rooms of enemies without being hit while waves of bullets quickly fly at you. It's a marmite game in many ways but those people the game clicks with often love it, it wasn't until I bought the game a second time that it well and truly clicked with me.

For what it is worth even if you dislike the game no arguments can be made about the quality of the soundtrack, the music was so good that it was reused in Resident Evil 4.

Super Smash Bros Melee (Gamecube)

So I have finally completed the regular game with all 24 characters, I would attempt the same thing with the All Star Mode but to be honest it is actually quite hard, it isn't that I'm bad at Melee or anything but you only get one life so if you make a single big mistake and it is all over, I'm going to need some practice before I can beat it on normal.

Burnout 2: Point of Impact (Gamecube)

I have now beaten all the normal cups and have unlocked the custom series, this was a menial task for me in a way because all I am really doing is trying to get back all the data I lost when my old Gamecube memory card broke and corrupted, sadly I'm not quite as good as I once was at this. The more I play Burnout 2 the more I think how big a shame it was Burnout 3 was never ported to the Gamecube, as a home system it was really lacking in good car racing games, realistically your only real alternatives are R: Racing (which people only bought for the Pac-Man Vs. bonus disk) and the Need for Speed series (and those aren't that great either).

Game Diary: 09/02/2014-11/02/2014

I have toothache and will have to get a root canal, next week can not come fast enough, until then I will be living on warm milk, toast and sweet sweet Bonjela.

Just Hook It To My Veins!

So as you may have guessed I have been away for a bit so I haven't been updating the page, but I'm back now and I can harp on about games people played years ago, games such as...

Super Princess Peach (DS)

So my journey through this is game almost over and I enjoyed every minute of it. Super Princess Peach is a bit overlooked which is a shame because it should be played by more people, it's easy but it tries to make up for it by offering end game content like new, more difficult levels and new items. Some of this is padding (you have to fight the bosses again to unlock stages) but as a total package Princess Peach is something of a DS essential in my eyes, it does so many different things and it never gets old.

Also I am a very big fan of the games soundtrack, here are some examples:

Giddy Sky 1

Fury Volcano 1

Subrella

Tetris (Game Boy)

Everyone knows how this plays out, you are sat at home, your bored, you want a simple distraction, you play Tetris for a little bit, you lose, you put the game away again for another time.

Mario Golf (Game Boy Color)

I'm not a golf person but this is really, really good. Mario Golf on Game Boy Color is a bit of a forgotten classic, no gimmicks just straight up fine tuned golf. It may be old but I can't think of any handheld golf games that have come since that can claim to be better.

Hyper Street Fighter II (PS2)

Every time I play any version of Street Fighter II I am quickly reminded of how totally useless I am at it. So I have this PS1 arcade stick by Asciiware and the joystick is totally useless, the microswitch mechanism is really spaced and the stick has a lot of travel on it before the inputs are detected, it just not a very good stick at all, it's really bad for Street Fighter. The buttons are decent though.