But first, a little word on Mercenaries 2: World In Flames. For some reason this caught my eye late in the development cycle, and I anxiously awaited the demo to hit Live Marketplace. I duly downloaded all 1.2GB of it, and was frankly unimpressed. But the need for retail therapy after a shitty week at work was strong, and so another purchase was made - forcing my GamerScore percentage to plummet back into the 80s. Luckily, the game dishes the first 300-odd points of GS out like candy early on.

Merccenaries 2 really feels like the bastard child of Crackdown and Just Cause. It’s got about 80% of the fun of the former, and the expansive backdrops & OCD of the latter. It’s not going to trouble my Game-of-the-Year thoughts, but it’s entertaining and mindless enough to distract - and, right now, that’s all I’m looking for in a game. More on Mercs 2 later.

My other recent purchase was the re-release of Duke Nukem 3D on XBLA. Now I’m not a massive fan of Duke by any means - this purchase was solely driven by guilt. Allow me to meander in my explanation…

Back in my formative years, growing up in country South Australia, there wasn’t really the opportunity to pop down the shop to buy some new games for the fledgling technology that was the C64. In fact, I’d had my C64 for several years before a small computer shop opened in a town ten kilometres from home. Thus, in between family trips to The Big Smoke of Adelaide, the only opportunity to try some new software was via the area’s high school. We all know the drill; tape (and later disk) trading was rife, and the more enterprising amongst us learnt to diddle the $01 register with machine code so we could copy Mr Ridge’s treasured Choplifter cartridge.

And that pretty much set the tone, set the foundation for how I thought about software for a long while. Yes, I still used to get original copies of games for birthdays & Christmas, but they were gladly shared around the schoolyard. When I got to Uni, and opted to swim against the tide and invest in a Mac Plus, I paid for my copy of Word 4 only because I didn’t have any Mac friends to nick it off. Eventually I graduated and, once I started contracting, I took the rough “tools of the trade” rules seriously and - through gritted teeth - started purchasing all my software legit. The last thing I wanted was a software audit on my pokey business.

But it wasn’t until I joined YakYak that I started thinking about piracy seriously. On that forum, and eventually in real life, I met childhood heroes - people I’d read (and read of) in awe in Zzap, Commodore Format, and all the other UK gaming magazines that took way too long to reach our shores (unless I wanted to shell our $8 for an import copy). These people wrote and produced and created games I loved.

And some of them painted a very bleak picture of the movement of money in the games industry, even when considering “hit” titles. Surely these people are living fat off the massive profits from these successes?

No, apparently.

The responsible part of my brain started tweeting away. “Support those that do the things you love,” or somesuch.

Eleven years ago I’d acquired a dodgy copy of Duke Nukem 3D from a chap in my office, and I’d played it a bit before storing it in my dodgy disc drawer. Recently, all the dodgy discs got chucked, but I still felt a twinge of guilt for all those hours I obtained from them.

So I bought Nukem 3D on XBLA. My guilt for that title has gone. And I’m looking down the barrel of a bunch of shitty ranked multiplayer Achievements and another game that’ll stay on The List for ages.

…This seemed like a much more coherent idea when I originally thought of it. I’ve got to stop trying to write these posts last thing on a Sunday night :}

There’s been no updates the last couple of weeksmonths because of a number of reasons - the first of which is actually a really good excuse. My old web host, MD Web Hosting, decided it’d be a lovely and completely non-impactful idea to change the web server that moobaa.com was hosted on. That’s all fine and good, but they only decided to do this six days after the old server crashed. That’s six days without e-mail, websites, everything. Then, when they eventually responded to my clearly foolish request for web hosting (gasp!) the replacement server - although admittedly much quicker - was also bereft of any cgi-bin support - hence, my blog-powering MovableType installation was… um… dead.

So - off to a new host, then. Ilisys, for those who care, recommended by a friend and sealed by the “carbon neutral” flyer. Support has been excellent, and everything else feels great - though it’s a real flashback dropping back to a Linux host. And, since I was changing hosting providers and OSes, I took the opportunity to re-visit my choice of blogging platform - and bugger me if WordPress hasn’t grown a massive set of balls since I last looked at it. It’s now approximately ten times easier to install than my old MovableType platform, and doesn’t suffer from the annoying “publish” stage that MT did… The flipside of this is, of course, that pages are dynamically served, but for the audience numbers I’ve got (single-digits for both my blogs, I’m sure) it shouldn’t be an issue.

So - welcome to the new look (though the Theme should be changing as I tweak), and for those of you who rely on RSS please note the new RSS feed location (though, hopefully, the old one should continue working).

Anyway… onto the gaming.

To cut a (very) long story short, the past couple of months has been a real mix. It started off brilliantly; I got completely sucked back into Excite Truck, despite the nastiness of the outstanding tasks: Super Challenges are a real pain in the arse. A bit of concerted effort saw the last Ring Challenge in Fiji fall; a handy hint is that strategic crashing can make all the difference. The Smash Challenges also fell relatively quickly - luck and aggression in equal doses seem to be the recipe there. But the final two Gate Challenges had me stomping and swearing. A lot. Especially when a “perfect” run in Canada saw my score two points shy of the S-Rank target. The China Challenge just continually kicked my arse; I rarely finished the course, and never within cooee of the target score.

Firing up the Wii at half-time whilst watching the footy, I thought I’d give both tracks a quick bash - for “practise”. And bugger me dead if I didn’t completely nail both courses, one after the other, in a feat of driving the likes of which I’ll never achieve again. Yes, all Challenge S-Ranks were snaffled, I’ve got some pretty stars on the Excite Truck title screen, and a bunch of fun racing yielded all the trophies on offer. Excite Truck is off The List.

A quick tinker turned into a 20-hour, week-spanning 100% Psychonauts run, which re-affirmed the sheer bliss that is this game. I’d be quite satisfied if Schafer’s gem was the epitome of gaming - the graphics are superb (try running up to the camp Lodge at night), the sound is perfect, and the gameplay is divine. On my second time through the game, even the final couple of levels (which I’d initially considered ridiculously unbalanced) posed no problems, and the OC-collect-em-up was a delight. Totally worth it - if you’ve got a 360, download it on XBLA Originals; buy the PC version on Steam, and the Xbox & PS2 versions are available at the Double Fine store (which also sells a truckload of other Psychonauts goodies, including some great hoodies - you’ll see me strutting around in the burgundy - and an adorable Mr Pokeylope one-piece baby thingy for the smaller gamers out there).

Mutant Storm Reloaded kept the high-score bug well fed, until I got seriously - seriously - waylaid by Mutant Storm Empire. Not only did I hammer out the OCD-tastic “All Beastie Combos” Achievement, but - through the application of plenty of blood, sweat, and swearing - I nabbed the “Black Belt Grandmaster”, too. Bloody proud of that, I am; even though it pales into insignificance compared to the difficulty of its predecessor, it’s still no cakewalk. The high-score chasing on Empire also sees me in the Top 40 worldwide for Tally Mode, and Top 80 for Adventure Mode - not bad for a rubbishy player such as myself.

I also played Ikaruga and, in doing so, knocked major chunks off my completion percentage that I’m only now recovering. Dear lord, I am supremely poor at that game. I managed to cherry-pick a few Achievements (namely the easy beat-the-boss events), but I’ll be arsed if I’ll ever be able to nut out the A-ranks…

Killer7 is also off The List now, thanks to a blast through Normal and Hard skill levels, followed by the quite awesomely tricky Killer 8 (Bloodbath) mode. The Hopper 7 joke level was a lovely cherry-on-top, a tongue-in-cheek wrap-up to a stunning game. More to come on that.

After my previous rants and raves about the shitty statements by XBLA management, they ever-so-cleverly managed to win me (and millions of others) over with their superlative Summer of Arcade - which managed to get two (and maybe three) purchases out of me. Geometry Wars 2 kicked off proceedings, improving on the original XBLA title in nearly every way and proving to be more fun than a very fun thing indeed - except for the “Wax Off” and “Treaty” Achievements, those were fucking annoying. Braid followed, and deserves each and every superlative given to it - the initial time-controlling platform hijinks, however intoxicating, gave way to fiendish level design and cerebral delight. The final level was stunning - despite the learned lack-of-peril, I felt a genuine sense of panic and dread as flame chased Tim across the screen… Gorgeous plot twist? Epilogue which strays dangerously close to self-indulgence? Oh yes - it all makes the overall package feel complete, and if this is indicative of higher price-point games, then bring ‘em on.

Week three of the Summer of Arcade brought Bionic Commando Rearmed, the demo of which impressed the hell out of me - that’s a “Buy” somewhere down the road. Despite the gorgeous pre-release screenshots, Galaga Legions was singularly unimpressive… A sentiment repeated a week later with the much-anticipated Castle Crashers, which seemed to be a stunningly well-produced button-masher. And I’m not overly fond of button mashers.

But now I seem to be in a Texas Hold’Em rut, trying to eke out the final Achievements to get this freebie blight off The List. A bit of concerted effort - and learning to curb my instinct to go All In when I get a card 10-or-above - has yielded a few cheevos, but there’s a long grind to $1,000,000 ahead - I’m currently at $369,000.

A few drunken games of Space Giraffe, the odd cack-handed wobble at Geometry Wars, a disappointing poke around Burnout Paradise’s Cagney update, and a heart-racingly brilliant flogging of Burnout Paradise’s Bikes update rounds out an eventful couple of months. A few games conquered, a few games acquired, a few games pending. And a lot to write about.

The weekend saw an old friend escape from family duties for a half-day of gaming; these are always a good laugh, the best being when we explored a whole heap of dodgy Dreamcast games in gobsmacked disbelief. This time, though, we started with Excite Truck (I snaffled one of my six remaining Challenge S-Ranks), before belting through a potted history of my 360 goodies - Bullet Witch, Ninety-Nine Nights, Space Giraffe, E4, Mutant Storm Empire all got a bit of airtime before we settled on Lego Star Wars II. We played through the whole game, ate lots of junk food, he left happy.

After seeing him out, however, I sank back into the lounge chair. This was only the second time the 360 had been connected to the TV (rather than the Dell monitor in my office) and, despite the non-widescreen aspect ratio (yep, I’ve still got a clunky CRT TV!), something really felt different playing 360 games in a laid-back setting. Inspired by a bit of Mutant Storm Empire earlier in the day, I fired up Mutant Storm Reloaded and started poking around Tally Mode, looking at the Leaderboards, comparing scores to friends.

And then the Highscore Bug bit me.

Into the wee small hours of the morning I played, upping the scores of various levels in Tally Mode, all the while keeping one eye on the Leaderboards. I managed to clamber about five thousand places before retiring to bed, only to pick up where I left off the following morning. Upping the first third of the game’s levels to Purple Belt or better dragged me safely inside the Top 4000; plenty of room for improvement there.

The Bug was still there, so I returned to Mutant Storm Empire. It’s a lovely evolution of the twin-stick shooter, and shares the Tally Mode of its predecessor - more Leaderboard clambering, and I managed to Black Belt World 1, too.

Finally, I fired up Ikaruga for the first time since its release on XBLA. I’d bought it as soon as it was available, but not played it - I didn’t want to dent my Gamerscore percentage. Today, though, I bit the bullet and plunged in for a couple of hours, snaffling the Dot Eater Achievement first go (my first Achievement for months!) and grabbing a couple of other boss-beating cheevos. Fantastic game, but lordy those A-Ranks are going to be tough.

Again, though, I got sucked into Leaderboard watching - committing myself to beating certain Friends scores. That scoreboard pressure is unfamiliar to me - it’ll be interesting to see whether that develops at all, especially in the knowledge that some of my XBL chums are hard-core gaming ninjas.

A little more Burnout Paradise and Halo 3 with friends didn’t offer enough variety to tickle my palate, so I had a peek at The List to grab a few outstanding targets to tinker with. The winners were Killer7 and Super Monkey Ball. The former is still a delight, and - despite my love for No More Heroes - really highlights the maturity of Suda51’s previous work in comparison. I’m just playing through Normal Mode again (to re-familiarise myself with the level structures) before tackling the harder difficulty modes.

Super Monkey Ball, on the other hand, has led to me questioning the extent to which I can satisfy my OCD tendencies. It’s a fantastic game, of course, and both me and the ex had big grins on our faces as we started belting through the main game levels (she’s not one for the included party- or mini-games); but after she disappeared, I started considering my Completion Target for the game. It’s pretty reasonable, I thought: have all main-game levels unlocked in Practise Mode. But here’s the problem: it’s really, really, really hard to unlock all of SMB’s levels.

The progress on my most recent save-file indicated that I’d happily unlocked all of Beginner, Advanced, and Expert modes, along with Beginner Extra and Advanced Extra. That merely left Expert Extra, Master, and Master Extra for completion. Piece of piss… couple of hours tops, eh?

Um… no.

After about six hours of concerted effort I couldn’t replicate the unlocking of Advanced Extra, and Expert truly does seem like a monumental effort - four hours of unlimited continues only saw me at level 43 (of 50), and the idea of being able to complete Expert without using a continue (to unlock the Extra levels), and then completing both Expert and Expert Extra without using a continue (to unlock Master) just seems like a Herculean task.

And so, faced with my gaming mortality in Super Monkey Ball, coming off a fortnight of depression with Rub Rabbits and AstroPop, I started asking myself the question: Have I bitten off more than I can chew?

My compulsion is to fully explore each game, witness all the assets that a production has to offer - which I think is an appropriate goal, and respectful to the artists responsible for creating these games. And, certainly, the presence of Achievements on the 360 creates a tangible definition for “Completion” - though, again, the need to experience the game in full can often override the simple 100% GamerScore “completion” (Ninety-Nine Nights remains on the list purely because I haven’t collected all the in-game items yet; Rez HD is still there because I owe it to Miz to 100%-shot-down every level). But let’s look at some games from other platforms that are still on The List, along with the requirements for Completion that are sketched beside them in my head:

• Wii Sports and Wii Play: get all Pro rankings, all Gold medals (not Platinum).
• Time Splitters 2: finish all skill levels, Gold Medals in all Challenges / Arcade Leagues.
• Outrun 2: unlock all cards, all Missions.
• Halo 2 and Halo 3: finish singleplayer campaign on Legendary.
• F-Zero GX: witness every driver interview, complete story mode.
• FreQuency and Amplitude: unlock every song, every skill level.
• Katamari Damacy and We Love Katamari: collect all items.
• Cybermorph and Zero 5: 100% completion (without cheating!).

Just looking at that mini-list, the Katamari and Wii games are the only ones there I’d feel at all confident about satisfying - and even then, the Wii Boxing medals are looking a bit dodgy.

In fact, a quick skate down The List reveals that - by my current optimistic estimates - I’ll probably only ever Complete 36 out of the remaining 66 games. Bloody hell, just typing that makes me darkly shudder with depression. But then I think about those other thirty games… There’s no way I’ll beat Meta-Ridley in Metroid Prime on Hard. There’s no way I’ll steer every driver to a series win in F-Zero GX, let alone dent story mode. There’s no way I’ll hit Round 100 on Robotron, or Black-Belt Grandmaster Mutant Storm Reloaded. Neither of the GameCube’s Monkey Balls will be mastered. Bujingai will likely never advance past the two-thirds point on the penultimate skill level; Tempest 2000’s Beastly Mode will see me off, and Tempest 3000 will melt my brain long before the final level. And there’s no way I’ll manage to A-rank all of Ikaruga - and that’s on The List twice.

But I’m pretty sure I’ll have fun trying.

And a little part of me is anxiously looking at all the new games coming out, arguing and baiting their attractiveness with the part of my brain that says “you’ve still got sixty-six games left to finish, Monkey-Boy”. And yes, I’d love to be playing the same things that my friends are playing - those friends with their shiny next-gen games and new thrills and greener grass.

But then I remember the fucking massive thrill I got when I saw that Papillon end-game in P.N.03, or how I wept with joy seeing that extra couple of seconds footage at the end of Halo’s Legendary, or the fist-pumping thrill of getting that final Ridge Racer 6 achievement, or the glorious flood of relief when I found that final Agility Orb in Crackdown.

And I fire up the Wii again, giggle inside at the sheer insanity of a monkey in a ball, and pick up the controller.

I’d acquired the preview-demo-ish Metroid Prime: First Hunt as a freebie when I’d bought Zookeeper and the (rather excellent) Project Rub (that’s Feel The Magic XX/XY to you US readers… who am I kidding, I’ve seen the Google Analytics drill for this blog - there’s one US visitor. Who visited once. And lives in Alaska). Normally, I’d be happy, but perturbed by scoring freebie games (The List is long enough thankyouverymuch; see 7 Blades for another example), but I figured that MP:FH was only a demo, so it wouldn’t be on The List for long.

And then I played it.

Now, I’ve played a bit of the Metroid Prime series: the original game was great (notwithstanding the stupidly difficult final three bosses), but Metroid Prime 2: Echoes rubbed me the wrong way (and remains one of a precious few games that I’ve ever sold). But first impressions of the DS version of the franchise left the following impressions, listed in chronological order:

1. Wow, those graphics are pretty tasty for such a meagre machine; and…
2. This plays like shit.

I really didn’t get on with the default control scheme at all; it felt gluggy and dissociative and unpleasant. And, having done my research and deciding that Completion of this title was to top all three scoreboards and unlock the included bonus movie, my scores barely rated a mention. I put the MP:FH cart away, fuming that the “freebie” would have a higher psychological cost than I’d bargained for.

Fast forward two years, and I’ve had a shit day at the office. I decide to fire up MP:FH… and something’s changed. I’m at One with the default controls, ripping through the demo levels and easily topping the tables, continuing to play for ages after viewing the nice bonus movie. So that’s another game off The List, my third this calendar month.

And so I returned to The Rub Rabbits. A disappointing sequel to Project Rub (that’s Feel The Magic XX/XY to you US readers… who am I kiddi - oh wait, I’ve already done that bit), Rabbits is plagued by a couple of completely shittily unfair mini-games. Those who have played it know the ones I mean - Roshambo (a rock/paper/scissors game that offers a one-in-twentyseven chance of actually completing it in Memories mode) and Stampede (whose internal timing logic is inexplicable). In fact, Memories mode is generally a pain in the arse, essentially requiring you to get through Normal, Hard & Hell difficulties without failure for each of the mini-games. At the start of the week, six (of thirty-eight) mini-games were outstanding; by the end of the week, I’d ploughed through Poke (inexplicably untouched), Wish (a test of nerves), Lovebomber and Disc (a war of attrition), and managed to guess my way through the randomness of Roshambo (which led to one of those celebratory exaltations that scare the neighbours). Unfortunately, that leaves the final little snippet required to cross the game off The List: Stampede.

Stampede consists of two stages: the Easy stage, where you simply tap the oncoming bulls whilst avoiding gentlemen(!), and the Hard stage, where you have to tap hearts placed on the screen within a fixed amount of time. And when the hearts form the shape of a larger heart, that time limit seems unfeasibly small. In fact, I think I’ve only ever managed to successfully clear that stage about a dozen times (in a squillion attempts)… no big deal on Normal or Hard, where a failure simply takes one of your three “lives”, but it was a major stumbling block on Hell, in which you had a single attempt to clear two such hearts. After many many many concerted efforts, I managed to squeeze past the Hell challenge - but clearing Memories mode, of course, requires you to successfully clear the heart-of-hearts six time in one game, with no room for failure.

And, quite frankly, that’s too fucking hard.

I’ve nailed everything else in The Rub Rabbits, and even spent a few hours grinding 99,999 points to unlock additional costumes et al; but getting even one - let alone six - of those hearts was nigh-on impossible. Obviously I’ve managed two-in-a-row once (well, thrice actually), and that clearly demonstrates that it’s doable… but still, this task feels out of reach.

I enlisted the help of the (now ex-) SO, who had managed to act as my wing-man during my EDF 2017 assault. I figured that two styli would be able to click twice as many hearts as one, making the job that much easier. Alas, I soon discovered that the DS is not a multi-touch device; if two styli touch at the same time, one will go unrecognised. The plan was shot down; I’d have to either pull six sterling performances in a row from out of nowhere, or…

…cheat.

I have to admit, I’ve got a bit of a flexible attitude towards cheating a game. Exploiting dodgy AI or poor programming is always fair game, but in this case I was contemplating getting a CycloDS to utilise its real-time save function, bludgeoning my way through the Stampede. And, in my own mind, I was comfortable with that - after all, I was still performing the task, wasn’t I?

But then I thought I’d try one of the many DS emulators out there. I’ve already ripped my own DS games & saves for use with my R4 cart (using the quite fantastic NDS_BACKUP utility with my old Passcard3/Slot 2 M3 combo… sadly, Rudolph’s NDS_BACKUP site seems to be AWOL at the moment), so I fired up iDeaS on my PC to discover that it only managed to play The Rub Rabbits at about 14 fps. Given the frame-locked nature of the game, this made it really easy - if time consuming - to push through Stampede, completing Memories mode (with 20,000 bonus points and an extra unlockable costume) and finishing the game.

Except it doesn’t feel right. Even though I’ve got a nice save file which I could dump back to my Rub Rabbits ROM, there’s an icky taste in my mouth. I can’t, in good faith, cross that bastard game off The List.

Yet.

Since then, I’ve gone back to the ROM and have continued to explore Stampede. Looking for that oh-so-obvious thing I’ve overlooked that’s impeding my progress. Nothing’s forthcoming, but I’ve successfully beaten the heart-of-hearts twice more. Out of a squillion attempts.

Sigh.

Furthering a week where I seemed to be tackling games I’m not especially fond of, I decided to fire up Astropop again. Two achievements outstanding, one of which is the notoriously difficult 9-minutes-in-Survival-Mode challenge. I managed 6 minutes. Hmmmm. A dozen restarts later and I’ve just broken through the 7-minute barrier, but it seems terribly variable - some attempts barely make the 5-minute mark. So it looks like I’ll need to bribe Lady Luck into being my co-pilot. Again.

I wonder if she’s any good at The Rub Rabbits.

Which is odd, because the first play-through only took ten or fifteen hours.

From the opening orchestral strains, it’s clear that Zelda is a massive influence. The bulk of the score could charitably be called an homage to the Ocarina and Wind Waker soundtracks; the more cynical gamer might use a phrase featuring the word “rip”. Regardless, it fits the cartoony adventure of Zack & Wiki well.

The characters aren’t anything special - there’s little background proffered for the young pirate Zack, the miniskirt-wearing Captain Rose shifts little from her initial spoilt-bitch persona, and Wiki - a magical flying monkey who can instantly transform into a hand-bell - just annoys with his overly optimistic and sugar-sweet cutesy comments. They’re all beautifully depicted using vibrantly coloured cel-shading, which makes the experience of playing Zack & Wiki more akin to interacting with a cartoon.

Ah yes, the gameplay. Let’s cut to the chase: Zack & Wiki is a point-and-click adventure, similar to the SCUMM games of old. There’s very few reflex- (or “skill”-) oriented parts of the game, allowing you to explore the small levels, experiment with various object interactions, and generally just have fun with the experience.

That’s right - fun. It’s an really enjoyable experience, with the small levels and limited inventory facilitating the type of “problem-solving” that often trips other games of this type up - ie, the try-every-object-everywhere approach. The penultimate level took me upwards of four hours and three concerted efforts to solve; I can go back and knock the bugger off in 15 minutes now, however.

And that’s the biggest flaw in this game: the replayability, or lack thereof. Sure, the Obsessive/Compulsive in me gleaned another forty hours out of the title (and the time just flew by, performing gleeful 100% treasure hunts a-plenty); but, outside of maxing your highscore (which, once you’ve sussed the puzzles, is almost a step-by-step proposition) and acquiring all the collectibles (of which there are tons) there’s little to draw you back. And, whilst that’s an unavoidable failing of the fundamental structure of the game, it’s still a shame - Zack & Wiki is thoroughly enjoyable while it lasts, a fantastic reminder that sometimes it’s better to have a muddled think about a problem than go in with guns blazing.

(And, having just bashed out all of the above… Yahtzee says it so much better.)

I spent most of the week hammering WarioWare: Smooth Moves - unlocking all the microgames, collecting all the Pose Cards, and generally just exploring the extent of the game. The Pose Cards were interesting; it appears that, far from being “randomly” awarded, certain cards are awarded for getting through Level 1, 2, and 3 Boss Battles - for example, the last four Cards seem to be gained by getting past (not necessarily defeating) the Level 3 Orbulon Boss. Regardless, everything’s unlocked, everything’s been played - Smooth Moves is off The List. A bright start to the month - especially taking into account the grinningly good fun to be found in the Block Star and Pyoro S minigames :)

I also managed to finish (not complete) Psychonauts. Fantastic game, marred by some stupid design choices resulting in some immensely frustrating sections in the final couple of levels. Lots of work to do to 100% that one though, and another play-through is required. And imagine my surprise when, after sitting through the credits (on my PAL copy that I felt privileged to find by proxy in a secondhand bin), I saw reference to the Double Fine Shop, where Psychonauts is still available in all flavours.

Lastly, I also started playing the game that WarioWare came free with - Zack & Wiki: Franchise with a Long Subtitle. And it’s great fun - point and click adventure goodness, gorgeous graphics, somewhat annoying character vocalisations, and some wonderfully realised levels. Nothings too big to get lost in, and it all feels lovely so far (I’ve just moved onto the second Treasure Map). Really looking forward to the rest of this :)

As a bit of an aside, I also had a look at a couple of PC-based free-or-shareware games this week. Execution is a really… ummm… interesting idea. Well worth the tiny download, but don’t read any of the comments in the forum thread beforehand. Make sure you play it twice to experience the full game… it’s a really nice bit of headspace gameplay. A spectacular little Japanese shmup with some awesome object counts - and massive CPU & GPU requirements - is Exception; go here to download a demo, and here for some english-language instructions if you wish to purchase. And, last but not least, I snaffled a demo of Go Beryllium! - but can’t provide a link, because I’ve completely forgotten where it came from. You’ll just have to make do with a video :)

I still haven’t turned on my 360 lately. I’m harbouring resentment towards Microsoft because of the XBLA mangling mentioned last week. Normally, I would’ve forgotten about things by now, but there was an interview with Aaron Greenberg on Major Nelson’s last podcast, and there was something about his smug (self-) rationalisation of the XBLA de-listing that really, really, really pissed me off. Sony-E3-2006 levels of pissed-offedness. And, given my Wii-focus the last couple of weeks, I’m more than happy to start supporting WiiWare instead.

Until WiiWare management start doing something stupid, too.

One thing I forgot to mention last week was the acquisition of Wii Fit. Even though I’m a tubby bugger (or, as Wii Fit so delicately stated, “Obese”), this wasn’t bought through some desperate need to get into shape through the power of video games; no, it was because the Namco We Ski game (which is supposed to leverage the balance board) looked bloody fantastic. Luckily, Wii Fit’s own skiing games are also great fun; haven’t really done much else with it, though.

The big news of the week, however, is the announcement from Microsoft that they’re going to de-list games on XBLA, thus making them unavailable for further sales (though they may be downloaded again by those who have already purchased them, if necessary); GamerscoreBlog has the nitty gritty, as well as a decent selection of outraged comments. The shitstorm continues over at Wired. This strikes me as being an astonishingly short-sighted and misguided decision, which removes the Long Tail opportunities availed by online distribution. Given the monies paid to Microsoft (in terms of certification costs, as well as royalty rates on XBLA sales), the least they could do is provide perpetual support for sales! Instead, Microsoft seem to be pretending that the issue with being “unable to find” games is due to too many games on the service - a problem which I think PSN would love to have.

If it’s difficult to find games on XBLA, then surely Microsoft should clean up the interface, no? At least, that’s what the majority of commenters around the interweb seem to think (although, to be honest, I’m surprised at the number of people who think that de-listing is a good idea… mind you, they use brick-and-mortar stores to support their arguments). But what’s the chance that Microsoft will listen to the complainers?

As I mentioned on the GamerscoreBlog comments, the poignant thing for me is that Space Giraffe - one of my favourite games from last year - only missed out on one of the criteria for de-listing… by three percent on MetaCritic. A quick peek at other MetaCritic “failures” indicate that Robotron is in danger of de-listing - depending, of course, on the (rather arbitrary) 6% conversion rate, of which many questions remain unanswered (eg, the influence of automatic downloads). Harrumph.

This was yet another week of No More Heroes. I’m attempting the same feats (that I performed with the PAL version) on the US version but, in my progress, I discovered that I didn’t truly 100% my earlier run-through. Sacrilege! The US run is progressing smoothly, though, and I’m half-way through Bitter mode with all the O/C collecting done.

A tiny bit of Psychonauts - two very annoying snippets very near the end of the game - is all that stopped this from being an all-Wii week. An old friend dropped by, allowing me the opportunity to revisit some earlier Wii goodies - most notably Super Mario Galaxy and Excite Truck. The latter was especially good, allowing for oodles of two-player hilarity. The “Bungee Buddies” mini-game in Wario Ware also garnered a stupid number of laughs :)

Next week? Away on work. Shitpigs.

Wrong. The only thing that got abused during my travels was my liver, haemochromatosis be damned. Although I did fire up the DS to check out Colors!, and awesome little homebrew paint program. If you’ve got a modded DS (or an appropriate passcard), I highly recommend checking it out - the use of the touch screen (with support for variable pressures) is sublime.

Returning home, I launched straight back into Psychonauts. After having poked around the Web and finding that it posed about ten hours of play for most players, I figured I was getting pretty near the end - but some ambling levels (the Napoleonic board game had me bemused for at least two hours alone), coupled with the onset of a few Frustrating Levels, saw me racking northwards of fifteen hours up so far. I’m still loving the writing, but I’m now engaged in levels that are approaching Annoying… bugger-your-progress-start-from-the-beginning-again types of gameplay had me drawing a deep breath, carefully placing the controller on the floor, and turning the Xbox off. It can wait.

No matter, because my copy of the US version of No More Heroes arrived from Play-Asia (along with the NMH Soundtrack and a luscious white Gamecube controller to match the Wii). The main difference between the PAL (European) version of NMH and the US version is blood. Oceans of blood. And dismemberments. After getting used to the dissolution into black ash that accompanies all deaths in the PAL version, the overt showers of blood, decapitated heads, and cleaved torsos certainly are… ummm… eye-catching. At times, there’s almost too much onscreen - plumes of blood from exploding bodies and spurts from the newly severed add up to frames which are mostly red. Dark Side mode is gorgeous now: the darkened screen providing a muted backdrop to brilliant red blood fountains. And the post-boss cut-scenes… Gore-a-rama! YouTube has plenty of comparison videos, but they’re very spoilerific, so I’ll not link to them here.

Of course, I’ve decided to play through the whole game (on every skill level, natch) again. And I’m loving it, even if I’d clearly forgotten how tedious t-shirt collecting is. But all the collecting has been done, and I’m onto my second playthrough; it feels mostly the same, but the red additions shift the tongue in the cheek a little.

(And yes, those links above are affiliate links into Play-Asia. If you click through to those items and purchase (or use this generic link to Play-Asia), I’ll get pennies - pennies! - and a warm glowing feeling. Thanks :)

Next week: …more of the same.

Here in The Moobaarn, the pangs of being GTA4-free hit - as expected - as the gaming world settled in for their 100-hours-of-content earlier in the week. I almost wavered, considered that I may purchase the game after all… until I saw the (lauded!) “Girls of GTA4” video on IGN. To say that I was offended would be wrong; it takes a bit to offend me. But I did find it distasteful, and it quelled any desire that might have been rising (fnarr, fnarr) to blow my wad (hoot hoot) on GTA4. As a young colleague said when I struggled to articulate my thoughts: “You’re not fourteen. It’s not for you.”

Instead, Psychonauts blasted its way into my life, courtesy of a mate in the UK snaffling it from a second-hand bin. After being completely overwhelmed - in a good way - by Tim Schafer’s Grim Fandango, Psychonauts has long been on the To Buy section of The List; even though it’s available on Xbox Live’s Originals section, I snaffled it for the original Xbox - hey, I thought, I’ll just dump it to the hard-drive and play it on the TV by the couch, rather than in my office (where the 360’s set up).

Except the bloody game won’t dump to the HDD properly, will it! It fails to copy all the FMVs, which appear to be on a separate section of the DVD. Sigh… at least the load times aren’t too bad.

Anyway…

Psychonauts is brilliant. Truly, truly wonderful. Not without its faults, to be sure (some of the platforming antics are… ummm… a little testing. Of patience, not skill). But in terms of a wonderfully realised, beautifully presented world - and its inhabitants - it is beyond reproach. How ironic I should find something so wonderful in a four-year-old game the week the new high-water mark is set.

The thing is, I’d be happy with more games like Psychonauts. I’m about a third through, and it’s feeling like it’s going to be a perfectly weighted, two-play-through game. That’s all I want, and I’m going to have fun doing it.

Ahem.

This week’s a quiet one - in Perth on business. The DS might see some lovin’ for the first time in months.

WarioWare: Smooth Moves also got another hour or so. Unlocked some goodies, and thankfully got through the Elephant Houses (if you’ve played it, you’ll know what I mean). Short, and still very much like a block of Lindt Hazelnut chocolate - deliciously sweet and oh-so-nutty.

But, once again, No More Heroes ruled the week. Monday night, after an astoundingly shithouse day at work, I collapsed in front of the TV and got absolutely flogged by the final (final) boss. A second attempt saw me nail the sidestep technique with incredible regularity, and I handed the lesson back to him… And with that, I conquered the Bitter difficulty level. My OCD wouldn’t let the game go that easily, though - and so I played through the game again on all difficulty levels. More details on that effort are forthcoming, but a second run through those bosses on Bitter reminded me what a wonderful game this is. There’s rhythms to the prolonged battles, yes, but they rise far above the mechanical patterns of other games - they feel like they demand your cognitive involvement, not just an exercise in your muscle memory.

I must say, I’m not looking forward to the next week. It seems the entire gaming world is going to be pre-occupied with GTA4 and, sad to say, I’m going to feel quite lonely by not joining them. Now, ordinarily the idea of a sandbox-world would have me giddy - witness Crackdown - but with GTA4’s purported 100 hours of content, I’m apprehensive… scared, even. I’ve got more than enough gaming on my plate to contemplate adding that much work to it; not to mention that the hype surrounding this release just puts me right off.

As press embargoes lift and perfect Tens get bandied about by all and sundry, I worry a little that maybe - just maybe - I’m missing one of the Games Of My Life, one of the True Greats. But, in the absence of any other sane judgement, I consider the list of Edge Tens:

• Super Mario 64: I’ve only ever played this through emulation, but enjoyed the experience so much using a ROM downloaded from a dodgy Russian site that I sought out an original cartridge so I could feel like I was playing it “legitimately”. Fair Use, and all that. Never got very far, and it’s been on my “To Buy” list for the Wii Shopping Channel.
• Gran Turismo: Never played it.
• The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time: Gorgeous. Bloody shooting gallery sections are keeping me from knocking it (and it’s Master Quest cousin) off The List, though.
• Halo: Quite brilliant.
• Half-Life 2: Never played it, and not especially concerned about it. The original Half-Life was only “interesting”, at best, plagued by XP bugs and a woeful final level.
• Halo 3: Loved this, but wouldn’t rate it that high… though Edge’s reasoning (that the multiplayer experience was ground-breaking) was sound.
• The Orange Box: Never played any of it. Watched videos of Portal; looked “interesting”. Loved the character design in Team Fortress 2 but, given my inclination (or lack thereof) to online multiplayer, that was never going to swing me.
• Super Mario Galaxy: Played it. Loved it. Was actually gutted that I couldn’t link to my piece on Galaxy because… ummm… I apparently haven’t written it.

So - me and the Edge Tens have a spotty history that swings between “yay” and “meh”, with a few sidetrips to “wha?”

And with that in mind, I’ll try to sit on my hands for the next week… fortnight… month, while everyone and their dog gets over their GTA4 fever. I’ve got my own sickness to think about, thankyouverymuch.

Another bout of intercontinental Burnout Paradise led to the completion of all the 2- to 6-player Challenges. 49 to go, split across the 7- and 8-player groups. At this rate, they’ll be finished by Christmas (what with the entire planet choosing to focus on GTA4 for the foreseeable future).

No More Heroes continues to delight. The bosses on the Bitter difficulty level are a real step up, and the beauty of the game - for me - is that it’s teaching me new tricks as I progress. Even now, stuck as I am on the ridiculously lively final (final) boss, I’ve learnt two new tricks that thankfully will drop the ETA for defeating that bastard to under an hour. As long as the one-hit-kill doesn’t get me first.

Toys’R'Us had a cool offer this week that saw me pick up Zack & Wiki for the Wii, and get WarioWare: Smooth Moves thrown in for nix. A quick blast through WarioWare saw me “finish” the “story mode” within a handful of hours. Nutty, colourfully bold, giggle-inducing fun.

Next week: the end of NMH. That’s all I care about at this stage.

I had all of one attempt at another A-Rank in Kameo - I’m attempting the Snow Temple, I’d completely forgotten what utter shitpigs the ice trolls with shields are. I was attempting to get one A-Rank a week through April, but I’ve lost all inspiration now… burnt out, maybe?

It’s a shit segueway… but Burnout Paradise is still awesome online with mates. Up to 298 Challenges complete, now, with most of the stragglers in the 7- and 8-player categories.

I paid for Ikaruga. I played it on one of my demo accounts (so as not to taint my glorious completion percentage… in the short term). I gasped at the glorious rotated screen options. Oh yes, this is so totally what I wanted from this title… expect a painful blow-by-blow account of Ikaruga Achievement chasing later this year.

And finally… No More Heroes. I have to admit, my first impressions were not good, but I soon got into the groove of things… that groove is now nearing 40 hours, including two Sweet (Easy) playthroughs and a Mild (Normal) playthrough. All the collection sub-quests have been completed (even all 138 t-shirts!), all Gold Medals for side missions have been won, and I’ve started a Bitter (Hard) playthrough.

Oh. My. God.

The sheer joy of the fighting mechanic has now been revealed to me. Now, bear in mind that I normally hate boss battles… or rather, I hate boss battles that I can’t easily beat. Repeating the same strategies over and over and over and over again just shits me to tears; usually I can only give it two attempts in a row before throwing the controller away in disgust, angry at the black mark on The List that the game will likely leave (Bujingai, I’m looking at you).

But…

And I’ve just played Shinobu, the 8th ranked boss in No More Heroes (the third in the game) - and the conflict was fantastic. Utterly, utterly brilliant. Five failed attempts in a row, each getting down to the final pixels of health for us both, before finally breaking through for the win. A great ending, a brilliant fight; I’m loving this game.

Next week? More Bitter, more Burnout. And that’s plenty :)

A brief mention (again) for Burnout Paradise: continuing to hammer through the Challenges. I’ve got about 280 (of 350) done at the moment; I’m aiming to polish the rest off and tackle the inevitable DLC before striking it off The List.

Kameo coughed up a couple of Achievements, too. I managed to nail the Forgotten Forest level not once but twice, netting me both the solo and co-op A-Rank achievements. I followed that up with a monthly-record hammering of the Water Temple level - my first level score over 100 million! - and now I’m musing over the upcoming Snow Temple, rated as second-hardest of the bunch. I never liked that level when I was just playing through the game, so the prospect of protecting those fucking walruses as well as my own multipliers gives me The Fear, quite frankly.

Just as well I picked up No More Heroes for the Wii, then. After promising myself I wouldn’t buy it until after I lopped another Wii game off The List, I caved under the immense pressure of a 10%-off deal with DVDcrave. And so, with 18 hours invested in Suda51’s followup to Killer7, I managed to finish it on Sweet (that is, Easy) mode. And there were bits that delighted, and bits that disappointed; elements of genius, and head-slapping crapulence. This will be a real marmite game I reckon; the overworld is so incredibly clunky that it’s offputting, and the near vertical difficulty leap at the end of the game is a touch nasty, too.

Early levels are fantastic - you can deal massive amounts of death by button-mashing, but the subtlety in the controls expose themselves later on. But it’s style is really quite disturbingly brash - and that’s not a “good” disturbing either. There’s a real lack of coherency; retro plays a big influence, but that clashes with some of the more modern aspects of the production, and Heavenly Star sticks out like a sore fucking thumb. There’s be more written about No More Heroes later, but as of now I’m only half looking forward to playing through it again.

Next week? Kameo: that bastard Snow Temple. Maybe more No More Heroes, on the Mild mode. Maybe Ikaruga on XBLA.