Gaming notes (charlesr)

[charlesr]

Went back to Skate for a bit. After a few weeks off playing other stuff, I thought I was going to be really rusty, but I was instantly back up and trickstyling my way around the city. Also had a go on Amped3 which I was sure I was going to love, but after Skate, the gameplay seems very wooden. The background story stuff is hilarious though - fantastic presentation. Shame cos I liked the first two, but I presume I'd think the same of them if I went back. Oh well.

Up all night playing CoD4 with friends. Knife battle on "shipment", a tiny level. It was like Benny Hill, with everyone running around in a snake line chasing each other. So often you wonder where everyone is and you turn round to see knife coming straight at you along with a line of people getting knifed to death behind that. Absolutely hilarious. Might have to ban running next time though cos fingers were hurting by the end... Also had some fantastic public games where our party was severely out-ranked but we still held our own. Never won, but didn't get murdered. Learn a lot doing this too, in terms of team tactics and team weapon spread.

[hudson]

What game types do you prefer in CoD4? I'm hooked on 'Search and Destroy'.

[charlesr]

I love Domination. The whole setup with 3 bases and two teams is perfect. I try and go round all the games though. Has anyone tried the new Mercenary Team Deathmatch? It says "no parties". Does that mean no parties can select it, or that parties will be split up during the match for balancing purposes?

[Senna]

No parties I think means the latter, that teams are assigned to be equally balanced out in terms of skill and ranking.

[charlesr]

Megaton. GBA Donkey Kong: King of Swing is top stuff.

It reminds me of driving a remote control car. When it's coming back towards you the controls are the other way around. Like when donkey is coming back down the screen upside down.

Once you've mastered the controls in this, it gives a real sense of being a gaming god. I knew I was already* but nice to have it reaffirmed. For those that don't know, you just use the shoulder buttons which map to his hands. When tap each one, it grabs. If there's something there to grab, he swings around it until you let go and flies off at a tangent ready for the next grab. So timing is everything. A real game of skill. And the Japanese is easy to ignore. No barrier.

*ahem

[charlesr]

Since we've canned the blogs, I've moved all the temporary forum blogs to this forum. If anyone wants to continue or start up their own, might as well go for it here. I'm going to say a few words every now and then in this thread.

[ItsThere]

Excellent. Where is me?

[VR46]

Think last post in yours was January this year, so, as ever, threads are in date order of the last post.

Searching with the title of your blog will be the easiest way of finding your threads people.

[ItsThere]

Cheers - will dig out and spew more random thoughts on to the forum

[charlesr]

So, what's being going on this week.

First up, the predictable but still shocking results of the "Is you first [current gen console] still alive without repair?" polls. So far the 360 has around a 75% failure rate on the first console. This does not take into account all the failures on subsequently repaired or replaced units.... Pretty scary and certainly not being picked up on in the mainstream press.

Things to think about are that as a group of gamers, I'd guess most of us are pretty obsessive about looking after our kit, so what's the failure rate going to be for the masses who don't care? Although this could be offset by perhaps vastly increased usage. I don't use mine that much, but it still died though... UPS picked it up yesterday. Fingers crossed that MS repair it (it's a US machine).

I was a little surprised to see that some PS3s had died and even Wiis - even more weird considering the amount people actually use their Wiis.

Having said that, my Wii is getting hammered again, now that I've changed it (firmware) from a JPN unit to a US unit and installed the region free apps Gecko (Wii games) and GC Loader (GC games). After the 3.3 update killed Freeloader I was stuck for a while. I was in the middle of playing Ghost Squad, so fired that up again yesterday. I'd forgotten loads of stuff, so I'll have to relearn it. Looking forward to that.

I also downloaded a few odds and sods on the Wii for the first time.

The Opera browser - well, it's way better than surfing on the Dreamcast for sure, but movement is a still a bit sensitive - I'll have to play with the settings. I reckon I'll use this for shopping from the sofa since amazon seemed easy to navigate.

Hudson fishtank - don't know why I got this. I really don't. But my little boy loves watching the fish so money well spent. Cleaning out real fishtanks (and my pond) is really dull

And finally, 1080° N64. I'm a sucker for this game. It's endlessly playable. I have the original on the N64. It plays superbly on the Wavebird. Ideally I'd love to get rid of my N64 and replace all the games on the Wii, but unfortunately not all my games are available (yet? ever?). Still, at least the region apps have made the GC fairly redundant, so that's boxed up now. I did try the N64 emulator on the Xbox, but it's not perfect so that's not a viable option either.

My N64 has the 4 wire RGB mod and the 4th wire to boost the signal is making interference, especially on light screens (like 1080 - lots of white), but it's still noticeable on darker games like Sin and Punishment. I'm going to try snipping it to see what the darker screen is like. If that's no good, then it's on to try the rather more tricky chip pin lifting/cable modding er mod that papercut did on his.

With any luck, my 360 will back in time to play Pure. So in the meantime, I'll mostly be playing Ghost Squad and trying some old shooters. Anyone got any recommendations from this list?

01.4D Warriors
02.Blaster
03.Choplifter
04.Defender
05.Donkey Kong 3
06.Galaga
07.Galaxian
08.Gorf
09.Gyruss
10.Vanguard
11.Zaxxon
12.1942
13.1943
14.1943 - Kai
15.Aero Fighters
16.Asteroids
17.Battle Zone
18.Black Widow
19.Blasteroids
20.Cabal
21.Centipede
22.Disk of Tron
23.Exed Exes
24.Gemini Wing
25.Gradius
26.Gravitar
27.Hellfire
28.Legendary Wings
29.Lifeforce
30.Prehistoric Isle in 1930
31.Salamander
32.Section Z
33.Sidearms
34.Silkworm
35.Slap Fight
36.Star Wars
37.Tempest
38.Terra Cresta
39.Tiger Heli
40.Truxton
41.Twin Cobra
42.Twinbee
43.Vulgus
44.Zero Wing
45.1941
46.Area 88/U.N. Sqaudron
47.Carrier Air Wing
48.Three Wonders/Wonder 3
49.Varth

[ItsThere]

Number 48. Three wonders. Capcom side scroller which is part shooter, part brawler and maybe aprt something else. I love that game.

It comes with a puzzle game as well iirc. Highly recommended.