Category: _General

Australia Day

We’re in the midst of a long weekend here, with the 26th being Australia Day. And I fucking love being Australian.

Not in the boorish way that seems to typify over-use of the recent “oi oi oi” chants of Aussies overseas; no, I grew up when Australia had no impact on anything. When we were crap at cricket, rubbish at rugby, soccer was still publicly called wogball and the Olympics were a glum television event; when we were politically inconsequential. Those days had a massive influence on me; the idea of the Little Aussie Battler, the support for the underdog, the respect for the people who just get the job done – and appropriate injections of Tall Poppy Syndrome for those who get too big for their own boots. There’s no braindead chants in my vision of Australia – just a thrill when the battler gets up, and an accepting grunt when the other team excels.

But what’s that all got to do with gaming?

Allow me the luxury of a few more words to explain.

I grew up in a country town, population 2,000. As a male kid, you played cricket or tennis on a Saturday morning; graduating to an adult, you did the same in the afternoon. Social time was Saturday night, at the larger pubs in the area, and Sundays would see the young men work through their hangovers at Apex gatherings & working bees; it just seemed to be the natural progression of things.

One of the Apex regular tasks was the organisation of the Australia Day breakfast, where a huge chunk of the town would dawdle in to the lawns by the side of the Town Hall for a plate of deliciously greasy bacon & eggs, with the eggs later being fried in Australia-shaped holes in slices of bread. Sloppily served with a smile and good cheer, it was always a great morning event; we’d wander around, watch the Young Australian of the Year award, then maybe bugger off to the beach later in the day. And there’s so much of the spirit of those Australia Days that make me proud.

But I haven’t explained anything yet. A few more words…

Between the gorging at breakfast – the smiles, the enthusiastic catch-ups across the rows of trestle tables – and the beach, there was a necessary stop-off at home (Mum made certain we had at least an hour break between eating and swimming). One year, long ago, I wandered via the Main Street, stopping by the newsagent – one of the few shops open on this most sacred of public holidays. And a shiny magazine caught my eye – the Home Electronics Yearbook. I was just entering my “interested in electronics” phase; I bought it in a heartbeat. I flicked through it while I walked along the sea-wall home: it wasn’t an “electronics” magazine at all! Instead, it was a consumer-oriented mag highlighting exciting new products – hi-fi, television, and something new – home computers.

I looked at these machines with wonder, with lust – I couldn’t quite understand what they were, but I knew I wanted one. Within those glossy pages, I compared the unknown features – numbers, really – of the Apple II (expensive!), Atari 800 (surely a gamer’s paradise!) and the VIC-20 (but it’s only got 5 RAMs!). That one magazine, that one Australia Day, somehow triggered a love in computing that would see me get my C64 soon thereafter (64KB! under a third of the high school’s new Apple’s cost!), and hence an introduction to gaming.

Fast forward a few years – I’ve got my C64, I’ve got my 1541 disk drive, and it’s Australia Day again. My oldest friend and I drop by my home between the breakfast and the beach, avoiding the worst of the midday sun. To while away the hours, we fire up the C64 – “any new games?” he queried, looking over my small collection of hookey floppies.

We started playing one game – a game I’d briefly looked at before, but hadn’t bothered trying to figure out. He, on the other hand, was made of sterner stuff, so we started digging, figuring out the rules, discovering the game.

Archon.

We played and played that game. Our intended afternoon at the beach became a quick dip at dusk (not too long, though – the jellyfish get a little feisty on balmy summer nights). I went home and played Archon for hours; my mate returned the next day, we played it a lot more. Once we’d sussed the impact of the red/green squares, figured out the meaning of “power points are proof against magic”, we were set – and then the real fun started. Challenging each other to nutty battles – “knight versus dragon on white!”, “shapeshifter versus phoenix!” – and setting up the most shameful of victories – imprisoning the opposition’s final piece. Endless debates about whether the brute force of the Dragon, combined with the uneven Shapeshifter, favoured the Dark Side over the Light’s powerful Djini and crapulent Phoenix. The hot Sorceress versus the cool Wizard; my preferred Unicorn over the Basilisk; the wimpy Valkyrie, or the annoying Banshee. So much depth, so much fun.

We kept the “traditional” Australia Day bouts of Archon going but, as you’d expect, we started getting older, and after a few years I was tackling the game solo. And so it will be again this year – Australia Day, greasy breakfast with a grin, and two solo games of Archon – one against Light, one against Dark.

I love being Australian, and I love my Australia Day.

Mid-week Snippets!

I do so enjoy the opportunity to post something fun in the middle of the week, far from my usual week-in-review compendiums and all-too-occasional “features”. Just my luck, then, that a couple of things popped up today that deserved mentioning.

First up: Space Giraffe (for the PC) got a worthy review in PC Gamer and, in a blog post celebrating that fact, Yak mentions that Gridrunner+++ (a working title – but so was Space Giraffe) is slated for release on XBLA PC in late April.

Delight!

But that reminds me that I’ve never mentioned its predecessor, Gridrunner++. GR++ can be held largely responsible for my return to gaming after a long, unfocused absence, and also my introduction to the wider social internet. Through this game, I’ve made dozens of really, really good friends, found a welcoming place to crash in every part of the UK, and… well, it was a gateway to a better life. Grandiose responsibility to be laid at a game’s feet, eh? But it is a thoroughly wonderful game, available for both PC and Mac, and totally Minter.

Please – if you’ve not tried it before, head over to the game’s page, and at least try the demo. Then buy it – for $10, you can hardly go wrong.

Secondly, and snarkily: just caught this snippet of a Kaz Hirai interview in the Official PlayStation Magazine over on EuroGamer. I’ll not get snagged by some of the more… “popular” bits, but will call out this quote:

We don’t provide the ‘easy to program for’ console that [developers] want, because ‘easy to program for’ means that anybody will be able to take advantage of pretty much what the hardware can do, so then the question is what do you do for the rest of the nine-and-a-half years?

To which I can only add this: hahahahahahaaaaaa ahahahahahahaaaa. Whee!

MaskParadise

Right.

Tonight, I could take the easy way out: refer to my last post, and simply substitute Burnout Paradise for Ridge Racer 6. After all, it’s been another work-affected week, I met up with pretty much the same group of people for Paradise burning a-plenty (and my 400th Challenge), and played Majora’s Mask… pretty much the same as last week.

But I won’t take the easy way out. Instead, I’m going to write a few more paragraphs about That Which Tortures Me So – Majora’s Mask.

Now, I’ve only just finished the second Temple, after more stumble-heavy to-ing and fro-ing that feels more like a point-and-click adventure than a 3D action RPG-lite. I’ve abandoned my quest for Purity and now have an accessible GameFAQs walkthrough by my side; I’ve been driven to bloody-minded anger by some of the “puzzles” that are being presented, and that second Temple was just fucking infuriating. And that’s the thing that’s most annoying, in a way: the first Temple was a delight, reminding me of the delight that can be found in the Zelda canon. It’s just that, after the second Temple kicks you in the balls, drops you four stories, then says “walk back up here the long way, loser”… well, I get a little discouraged.

And let’s be quite clear here – I’m really not trying to be a difficult contrarian in taking an active dislike to this game. I fully appreciate that some people love and cherish this game (such as oft-commenting Steven O’Dell – thanks for the comments mate, I really appreciate them :)

But I just am not clicking with this Zelda outing. And it could be partly due to the fact that this game simply does not feel polished, does not feel tuned. A simple example would be watching the Goron form of Link play his drums in place of the ocarina; there’s no animation sync to the notes played, so it just looks… well, lame. As for the Songs themselves, they also display a lack of polish – in Ocarina, all the Songs you input were small fragments of larger tunes, giving a feeling of interaction – your initial inputs trigger off a beautiful tune. Majora’s, on the other hand, has principal Songs lasting just your input notes, leading to an unrequited cliffhang. The Song of Soaring is really shitting me off in that regard.

Is Majora’s Mask an ugly duckling? I bloody hope so, I really do – I still hold some belief that the last half is going to bring forth some amazingly heartfelt emotion and deliciously grinducing (that’s grin-inducing, folks) gameplay. But at the moment I’m considering practicing Astropop instead, because this is simply not enjoyable.

MaskRacer

It’s been a very quiet week for gaming, with time (and inclination) diminished due to work-related pressures best described as “panic”. All good fun, supposedly, but it’s a bit of a bitch when do-it-for-the-team commitment impacts my OCD.

A return to Ridge Racer 6 with my UK (and AU)-based chums revealed that the old girl has lost little of her charm. After some quality racing with a field of a dozen, we decided to crank the handicap up to give some of the younger players a chance at the win. And bugger me if the pack doesn’t immediate bunch up, with less than two seconds separating first from last – resulting in tons of swearing and laughs and more swearing. Fantastic stuff – I do love our little semi-yearly stoushes.

The only other game to get a look-in this week was Majora’s Mask. It’s an infuriating game; I plodded painfully along throughout the week, not knowing what exactly it was I was supposed to be doing, gleaning a mask here, a happy Townie there. Eventually, frustration overwhelmed me – I had to head to GamesFAQs where I (thankfully) found a spoiler-free walkthrough… and inching through it (to avoid any spoiler-free spoilers ;) revealed that my frustration stemmed from a very early mis-reading of the game. Well, not so much a mis-reading… more a case of Majora not living up to my Zelda expectations.

See, I’m struggling to remember a back-and-forth quest in any other Zelda game; so, when I’m asked for a potion, and I couldn’t previously buy one at the shop where I’m expected to buy one, I’m hardly likely to return there, am I?

:seethe:

So I’m a little disappointed, to be honest. I’ve finally got to the first dungeon, and cleared it out without too many problems, and that was as enjoyable as I was expecting the rest of the game to be… but then it was followed by an annoying race. Oh, and I managed to defeat that Temple Boss with no idea what I was doing (seriously – I didn’t even know I was hitting him). I’m still feeling unfairly oppressed by the pressure of the time limit, and I’m encountering issues where the game will hang – once after 50 minutes of play – which particularly annoys because of the limited ability to save the game in any meaningful way. But I can see some cleverness (and contradiction) in the structuring of the game in its Groundhog Day cycle, but hopefully I’ll be seeing more of the good stuff, and less of the frustrating bits.

Now all I hope for is an easing of the pressure at work – hey, I need at least a couple of hours gaming a night!

Majora’sOcarinaFlowerParadise

After my flurry of posts over the New Year, I would’ve given myself a break if I’d not managed to get something out this evening; but it’s been a good couple of days off work, I’ve got plenty of gaming in, and I’m feeling like a boast ;)

After snaffling the Biggest Quiver in Ocarina of Time last week, I proudly mentioned this on one of my friendly gaming forums – to which a pal slyly replied “But have you caught the Hylian loach?”

Shit. I’d completely forgotten about the Ocarina fishing component. I knew the Loach was supposed to be a prick to catch, but I figured that I’d get away with just seeing it – something I managed quite quickly. But then I cast my eyes across an Ocarina Guide that mentioned…

Are you THE MASTER? If you are, you can get the following:

100 Golden Skulltulas
36 Heart Pieces
Have four Bottles (fair and square)
Tons of Secret Grottos/Areas
Lots of Golden Rupees
Own a cow
Get 1500+ points on the Horse Archery Game
Caught a 20 pounder
Caught the Hylian Loach
Have all the weapon upgrades
All Masks
Big Goron’s Sword
…and like to torture chickens.

Bastard. It’s almost like he was goading me.

So a-fishing for the Hylian Loach I went. And, I must say, everything you’ve heard about the Loach is true. Four hours of gentle teasing, waiting, quiet chasing, and lip biting before I got the bugger to bite – but then, when he bit, he was landed without too much fuss…

FOUR BLOODY HOURS!
...and all he gave me was 50 fucking rupees.

Another couple of items collected, a slight mis-step (taking Fairies, rather than Blue Potions, into the Ganondorf fight), and Ocarina of Time was struck off The List. And it goes without saying that it’s still a magnificent game – utterly deserving of all the plaudits afforded it over the years and, I’ll posit, better than any other game I’ve played in the last year.

With Ocarina complete, I gently eased myself into Majora’s Mask – and after a handful of hours, I have to say that I’m not overly impressed. I don’t like the repetition (especially that fucking Deku animation when I stray too close to the Deku flower), I don’t like the dark tone, I don’t like the implied time restriction – and right now I’m just feeling a bit out of my depth. There almost seems to be too much information on offer, too much to do – and I don’t feel able to even chip away at it. Here’s hoping there’s a breakthrough soon, lest I reluctantly resort to GameFAQs – something which I’m trying to do less and less these days – but I’m buoyed by the fact that Ocarina also started slowly, and I’ve grumbled about the opening of Twilight Princess before, and they both ended up being corkers.

Whilst the second day of the New Year saw a Zelda game Completed, the third day saw the Completion of a Suda51 game – Flower, Sun and Rain. Whilst the story was great, the gameplay – being little more than an interactive story, requiring you to move from one location to another & click through pages of dialogue, and never presenting the opportunity to fail – left a lot to be desired. Very hard to recommend, unfortunately; thankfully, it didn’t trouble The List for long.

Finally, there was another visit to Burnout Paradise this week, pootling around with friends and snaffling a few more Challenges (385 of 490 complete, now). Fabulous stuff, and a handy reminder of this game’s online strengths.

Next week: more Majora’s. A scheduled return to Ridge Racer 6 with my old racing chums. Given that it’s a return-to-work week, that’ll be plenty :}

My 2009 Gaming Resolutions

You know the thing I hate most about my O/C affliction? It’s that the backlog of The List makes me very conscious of any new purchases (well, most of the time, anyway. Sometimes I just need a little retail therapy). I’ve always got one eye on The List, trying to chip away at stuff, whilst still managing to get a look at all the Shiny New Things my chums are talking about.

Because I love a new game, I really do. Just before Christmas I was getting a pressie for my nephew – fuck The Simpsons Game, he’s getting Super Mario Galaxy – and I picked up the new Prince of Persia game and just stood there, holding it in my hands. I wanted to buy that bugger, I really did… it looks lovely and quite doable and O/C-friendly. But then I reminded myself about the sixty-five other games that I hadn’t yet Completed and asked myself, in an overly rational manner, whether I really needed that new game.

I tried convincing myself that it was a good opportunity to snaffle another 1000 GS on the 360, but I’ve seen that argument before; I quickly countered with “Why don’t you buy Avatar, then?” which quickly shut me up.

Anyway, before I let you all in on way more of my internal dialogue than you care about, the point is that my New Year’s Gaming Resolutions are going to revolve around clearing that backlog and making room for a bit more modernity.

To that end, I resolve…

  • …to Complete at least two Zelda games. I want to play through them all in release chronological order, and (as I indicated last week) I’m getting close to wrapping up a 100% run on Ocarina of Time. But then what – do I go on to Majora’s Mask (which I’ve never played) or follow-up with the Ocarina Master Quest? Decisions, decisions.
  • …to Complete at least two PS2 games. This scares me a little, really – of the eight games there, three are rhythm action games (which I’m notoriously bad at), the Katamaris are O/C collection nightmares, and Bujingai is as hard as nails on the higher skill levels.
  • …to Complete at least four(!) from the PC, Nuon, Dreamcast, and Jaguar groups. Holy shit!
  • …to keep on top of stuff obtained through the year. In 2008, I managed to Complete 11 of 18 new purchases – let’s aim for a similar target of 60%

So now they’re out there. My Resolutions.

What are your Gaming Resolutions for 2009?

2008: The Year in Review

Another year older, another year wiser, right? If I look back to the 2007 Year in Review, this little snippet catches my eye:

There’s far more games than time, and my records show that I’ve still got 63 games incomplete. Maybe I should consider making a New Year’s Resolution regarding the “incomplete” list? Something along the lines of reducing it to around 50? Hah – I’m nowhere near that naïve… a more realistic resolution would be to not let it blow out much further.

I think I used up all my wisdom right where I said “a more realistic resolution would be to not let it blow out much further” – because, at the time of writing, The List only shows 65 games incomplete – hardly a blowout at all! (Of course, this is largely due to a ridiculously productive December, which saw no less than five games get knocked off).

But let’s not focus on the numbers too much (however much they rule my life); let’s have a look at a number of pithy categories in which I can toss the names of the games that have touched me (oo-er) this year. Forgive me for recycling several topics from earlier compilations…

Disappointment of the Year: That Wii Fit hasn’t magically halved my weight. Bastard!

Proudest Achievement of the Year: Easy – Mutant Storm Empire‘s Black Belt Grandmaster. There’s a little bit of ninja in all of us, and World 4 Level 2 made me dig deep and harness that little bugger up good. An honourable mention should be made of No More Heroes and its deliciously difficult Bitter Mode.

Under-Appreciated Game of the Year: Everyone slated Microsoft’s choice of Undertow as compensation for a spotty Xbox LIVE service last Christmas, which is a shame – it was a thoroughly enjoyable shooter that really came into its own when played with online co-op on the hardest difficulty level. But, hands down, No More Heroes takes this award for being the game that everyone seems to be sneakily sliding into their Top Ten lists to appear edgy and cool, but which no-one bought. You bastards.

I’m-Still-Waiting Award: The PS3. Come on, tempt me with a game that I actually want to play! The closest it’s come so far is with PomPom’s Astro Tripper (which, given I’ve played Space Tripper to death, isn’t even that compelling).

Pulling Teeth Award: Bullet Witch‘s Hell Mode. All that effort for One. Fucking. Point? I guess that’s why I call myself O/C. Or maybe I’m just a beggar for punishment.

2008 Blast From The Past Award: Let’s give an award a game prior to this generation, purely because I have been – and will always be – catching up on my gaming history. Psychonauts? Killer7? Let’s go with the former; barely a single criticism can be levelled at Tim Schafer’s previous game, and my appetite is well-and-truly whetted for Brütal Legend.

Where Have You Been All My Life Award: Killer7. Because I can’t bear to let it go unrewarded (see above), and because it’s absolutely, completely, stonkingly brilliant.

Funnest Gaming Moment of the Year: Seven cars sitting at the bottom of the quarry in Burnout Paradise, side by side as at a drive-in movie, waiting for our online compadre to finally nail his barrel-rolls. A cheer goes up – he’s done it! – followed by a yell of “Car Cuddles!” as everyone proceeds to smash into each other, laughs and merriment a-plenty. Ten minutes later, the next Challenge starts :)

Multiplayer of the Year Award: Burnout Paradise – see above. Challenges, or simply smashing the shit out of each other, there was nothing that came close to the online experience of cruising Paradise with seven friends.

Bringing Indy To The Party Award: Braid, or World of Goo? Both displayed impossibly impeccable production values; tiny teams easily upstaged the bigger names. Goo gets this award, since it’s a shining example of what two people can do with a gorgeous demo; having said that, Jonathon Blow‘s contribution to the indy gaming community is far from overlooked.

Gaming Payback of the Year: No More Heroes, Bitter skill level, the third boss encountered – Shinobu. I’ve written about this previously, but this fight turned my gaming world on its head – previously, boss battles had been automatically deemed abhorrent in my little mind. Shinobu changed all that.

Earnest Navel-Gazing Award: Braid, for slipping a story of weight and depth into a brilliant game… even if most of it is hidden from those who brand Braid a “Mario rip-off”.

Best Game Writing of the Year: No More Heroes, hands down. It’s got no plot, and yet the paper-thin characters still manage to feel convincing, and the fast-forward exposition prior to the final boss fight is deliriously good. Proof that a good page trumps bad volumes.

Worst Game Writing of the Year: Mercenaries 2. Because, playing as the hot chick merc, you can pimp yourself as follows:

Chinese Contact: “Ah, welcome back mercenary. I have need of you.”
HCM: “Well you can afford me, let’s not waste time.”

And, as cool as that may seem on paper, it actually leaves you feeling a little icky. So you dress up in a chicken suit, drop a MOAB on a building, then sky-dive out a helicopter. It’s all good, right?

The Gasping Grin Award: World of Goo, end of World 3. I’ve no idea why, but the laughter and evolution of that level left me wrung out, in much the same way that Braid conjured emotion.

The Gasping Gasp Award: Braid, the final level. I’ve never felt a greater cognitive click.

Still Kickin’ Award: Rez HD. Into its eighth year and Rez is still as glorious as ever.

AAA-Title I Missed Award: Ummm, that goes to pretty much all the triple-A and mega-hyped titles released in 2008; pretty much the closest game I got to AAA was Burnout Paradise.

So there you have it, kids. My 2008 in a nutshell. Big props to Braid, Burnout Paradise, No More Heroes, Rez HD, and World of Goo, with belated kisses and cuddles to last-gen’s Killer7 and Psychonauts. These are the games that made the biggest mark on me this year, though honourable mentions should go to a couple of older current-gen games, Excite Truck and Mutant Storm Empire, for continuing to bring the fun.

“That’s a nice capsule summary up there, Pete,” I hear you say. “But I need something more concise. Come on then, you crapulent wordsmith: what was your Game Of The Year?”

…

I think you know ;)

BraidMarbleNukem: OcarinaOfRain

We’re halfway through the traditional end-of-year holidays – no break for me, though, back into work tomorrow. Still, here’s hoping that you all received the games you wanted over the break – and managed to give some gaming love, too. I did my bit, educating my nephew with Super Mario Galaxy for his new Wii :)

I finally Pete-Completed Duke Nukem this week – all secrets, all levels, all Duke-isms. There was one level I wanted to re-visit after having mopped up all the Achievements but, once I restarted it, I became quite aware that I simply didn’t like this game. It’s not fun. The level designs are, for the most part, cheap and full of surprises – the Doom monster closet philosophy. Great sense of humour, though – but that’s not enough to make up for the icky gameplay. Still, it’s been appropriately OC-ed now, so that’s another one off The List – the fifth for the month!

As Duke was wrapped up (and I proudly looked at another 200/200 on MyGamerCard.net) I noticed that the Agoraphobia Expansion Pack had been released for Marble Blast Ultra. Another 200 MS Points to purchase, this doesn’t seem to be as good a deal as the previous Marble Fu Expansion Pack – the new maps are a bit of a pain in the arse, to be honest, but the final Achievement was easy enough to snaffle… once again, MBU doesn’t really trouble The List.

Searching for another XBLA game to work on – and desperately trying to avoid a return to Texas Hold’em (I haven’t built my patience up yet) – I elected to have another look at Braid, just to see what was required for the Speed Run Achievement. Another playthrough reminded me what a stonkingly great game it is, and a peek at some speed-runs on YouTube yielded some great tips… buggered if I know how I finished the game the first time without them! The Speed Run still looks hard-as-nails, though – and the hidden stars look even harder. Long term project, that.

As mentioned before Christmas, I snaffled Suda51’s “latest”, Flower, Sun and Rain. A re-imagining of the 2001 Playstation 2 Japan-only original, it’s… really odd. Essentially a point-and-click adventure, it’s not so much a game as a Groundhog-Day-esque interactive story – you’re never put in a situation that you can’t get out of, so there’s no sense of danger. The writing is fantastic, displaying the darkness of Killer7, the humour of No More Heroes – and there’s plenty of puzzles and collectibles to keep the OC in me happy. Mind you, I’ve already resorted to GameFAQs once – but I felt dirty doing it, especially when I realised that I’d passed over the solution because I didn’t want to think through it, didn’t want to put the effort in. Lesson learned – and the internet will be ignored for the remainder.

FSR has some really odd production values, though – for a 64MB game, there’s some very expansive videos… and horribly angular 3D models. And the controls are thoughtful in places, and fucking annoying in others: the theatrical approach to puzzle solving (when accessing Catherine, your problem-solving computer pal) is brilliant the first time, but horribly button-mashingly infuriating thereafter.

The last bit of action this week saw me resurrect The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. I’ve already finished this magnificent game, but I’d started an OC-friendly 100% run aeons ago on the Gamecube (with the Collector’s Edition disc that included Zelda, Zelda II, Ocarina, and Majora’s Mask). It’s mostly complete, except for a couple of collectibles – the most galling of which is the Biggest Quiver.

Remember how to get that?

Gerudo Fortress, archery on horseback.

Shitpigs.

Now, I’ve heard that this was quite doable on the N64, but the sensitivity of the analogue stick on the Gamecube port is insane. Regardless – as an OC Gamer, it’s something I need to complete, so I fired up my old save and gave it another bash. Another 36 bashes, actually. I scored 1080 points of the 1500 required once, but that’s cold comfort – this is going to be a prickly assignment.

Only a few days left before the end of the year, and the inevitable year-in-review post. I’d better get writing… :}

GooDashDuke

Recently I bitched about the fact that I hadn’t knocked any games off The List lately; and now, a mere fortnight later, December is looking plump with Completion. First came Mercenaries 2, then Mutant Storm Empire, and this week saw the Pete-Completion of World of Goo and Dash of Destruction.

World of Goo has been an absolute delight. I was one of those who jumped through homebrew hoops to get their PAL Wii to chat with the US Shop Channel, purely to allow the purchase of this independent masterpiece. Goo picked up the Indy Game of the Year at last week’s VGAs, and was finally released onto the PAL Shop Channel last Friday – the very day I finally knocked off the last of those nasty, nasty OCD challenges. It’d be a tad fibulous to say that I enjoyed every minute – some of the OCDs are incredibly frustrating (leading me to question whether Goo is actually better suited to mouse-control, rather than Wii-mote) – but the sense of satisfaction from having all the OCD flags pop up is immense. Highly, highly recommended – get thee to the Wii store! …or just buy it for your PC or Mac.

A paragraph ago I mentioned that I’d Completed Dash of Destruction – the Doritos-sponsored advergame – this week. In truth, it took less than 30 minutes to see all it had to offer: a cutesy, but shallow, combination of Rampage and Crazy Taxi. With tongue planted firmly in cheek (constant references to its freely available GamerScore abound), it’s absolutely worth the price of admission – that is, free. Go on, kids, click this link and add it to your download queue… it’s cheerful, fun in its small dose, and costs nothing. And it boosted my Completion Percentage by 0.18%, so that’s nice.

The rest of the weekend has been taken up playing Duke Nukem on XBLA. My Completion target for this one is all levels + all secrets + all Duke-isms, and it’s going pretty smoothly (using the excellent 3D Realms walkthrough for reference). I’ve certainly got much further than I did when I had my dodgy copy of the game on the PC, and – with the exception of wishing the weapons had hotkeys – the controls don’t suffer at all from the conversion.

And that’s my task for the week of Christmas – finish Duke Nukem, and bring The List down to 64. Piece of cake.

CrackGooEmpireNights

Aside from a brief reminiscient blast through Ninety-Nine Nights (to test out the NXE’s dump-to-HDD performance with that title), most of the week was taken up with – you guessed it – World of Goo. I’m having a blast hammering through those OCD ranks on my second profile; only eleven left now, but one of those is the deeply unfair Bulletin Board System. Still, this actually feels like a doable endeavour, so I hope to knock the Goo off The List before the New Year.

The weekend, however, was a different story. At the turning of the page on the calendar for the last four months, I decreed that That Month would hark the Completion of Mutant Storm Empire; all that remained were some very gettable co-op multiplayer Achievements. I had an accomplice who pledged to assist in the endeavour, but every time we made a serious attempt we’d encounter some type of glitch: players getting stuck on walls, cameras zooming off in the distance, and other happenstances that could be used as an excuse for our generally poor play. Given that he was in the UK, and I in Australia, I attributed such glitches (except for the poor play, of course) to network latencies, and decided last week to search for a partner who was a little more local.

I peeked on the Achieve360Points forum, but couldn’t find a partner-seeker who’d already been sated; the Xbox.com forums yielded one potential match who, when contacted, claimed to have never played the game. Odd that it was on his GamerCard, but who am I to stalk? Eventually, though, I found a chap in Wales who enthusiastically agreed to help out and, after two big sessions on the weekend, we managed to get the 10x Multiplier and Millionaire Twins Achievements… thus allowing me to cross Mutant Storm Empire off The List. Cheers Edd! :)

Once that was done, however, I ducked back to help another pal out in his quest for Achievements. Today’s target? The O/C Gamer’s GOTY 2007, Crackdown. And fuck me, it’s still absolutely brilliant. We both cackled with unbridled glee as we romped through the easiest skill level, engaging in massive amounts of mayhem as we went; my Mercenaries muscle memory only helped in that regard as I kept mashing the reload and switch-weapons buttons inappropriately, leading to room-filling explosions rather than the intended close-quarters gunfire. If anything, I left that joyous session nostalgic – pining for the first time I encountered that world, the almost motherly embrace I associate with my growth and progression through the game.

And then I wonder – has anything made me feel like that this year?

The OCD Dilemma…

So I’m playing World Of Goo. As I mentioned earlier, I had 38 OCD ranks to acquire before I’d award myself Completion status. I’ve chewed through a bunch, whittling it down to 25, when I decide to give one of the later Level 4 stages a go. “MOM’s Computer” was its name, and it seemed fair game for an easy OCD ranking.

Unfortunately, it seems that there’s a teensy little bug with World Of Goo that prevents you from attaining OCD status on any but your first attempt.

Which is a bit of a bastard, really. I could start a new profile to ensure a clean sheets of OCDs, but that’s a whole ruck of additional effort… especially since I’d already managed a 9-second run on that evil prick “Hello, World” level.

So what do I do? Do I start the new profile, or carry on regardless?

…

I started the new profile.

Quick Notes…

Lordy! Posting to my own blog two days in a row! Who’d have thunk it.

But events warrant such outlandish action! For one thing, fire up your 360 and pop on over to Live Marketplace and download the latest Marble Blast Ultra map pack; it’s a mere 200 MS Points to buy, contains a bunch of new multiplayer maps (three of which are great, one is a shocker, and another scared me just to look at it). There’s another new Achievement wodged in there too, which is pretty easy to snaffle with a bit of online play. I really like this approach to MBU‘s DLC, and firing it up again today just demonstrated how lovely the gameplay is. Can’t wait for the next map pack.

After goading a mate at work into trying to pick my next Target Game from The List (go on, readers – what game do you think my focus should be on next?), I realised that I hadn’t updated it to contain World of Goo, purchased from the US Wii Shop via a bit of Homebrew Channel hackery. So I’ve rectified that omission and, inspired by typing the word “goo”, decided to fire it up again. And it’s still as brilliant as when I first laid eyes on it (then promptly ignored for a month).

The end of Level 3 is a real treat, right up there with the emotional brainfuckery of Braid – but without the headachey bits. And tonight I managed to finish the game – but I’ve still got 38 (fittingly-named) OCD ranks to snaffled before Completion. I’ll say it again – an absolutely fantastic game, well in contention for Game of the Year.

Speaking of which, at the moment my yearly highlights are Rez HD, Braid, No More Heroes, and World of Goo – with a bit of Burnout Paradise thrown in for good measure. What about you?