Month: April 2008

This week was extraordinarily similar to last week; more Challenges around Paradise City – up to 332 of 350 now, with a lone 8-Player Challenge stopping this from being an all-7-Player affair. The fact that I was disconnected from the Burnout Paradise servers when seven of eight people had completed their part of that final 8P task still raises my hackles. I also managed to spend a lot of time online playing with Random Xbox Live peeps; quite why someone finds it ridiculously (and repetitively) funny to smash the shit out of someone they don’t know over and over and over and over and over and over again is beyond me; not a fun experience for those with a goal in mind.

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.

A really short one this week.

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.

If last week’s entry was brief, this one will be positively fleeting.

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 :)

Short and simple this week.

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.