Bayonetta’s ShadowPortal

This week began as the previous couple did: with the glorious Bayonetta. I’m still utterly smitten with both the lady and her game, and managed to polish off not only a run through the Non-Stop Infinite Climax difficulty, but all the Alfheim Portals as well – leading to all the Achievements associated with the game being unlocked, and my overall GamerScore just sneaking above 92% (23,867 of a possible 25,940). Hurrah!

But that’s not the end of Bayonetta, oh no – there’s a small matter of unlocking the additional characters, and performing complete runs with those, too… and a little obstacle called Angel Slayer, a bonus level unlocked once all the Alfheim levels were completed. To say that Angel Slayer is tricky is an understatement; there’s fifty-one individual “rooms” in the level, and I’ve successfully managed to beat twelve of them.

So there’s a bit of work left to do there, then ;)

After a friend pointed out that Portal: Still Alive was the XBLA deal of the week, I decided to buy it and see what I’d been missing. You see, I’ve played precious little of this much-lauded game: a few quick levels when the demo was first released on XBLA had been my entire experience, even though I knew full well that the game didn’t really get going until the late-teen levels.

So – time to rectify this (supposed) gaping hole in my gaming experience.

…blimey, that last level is pretty special, isn’t it?

To be fair, my experience with Portal is probably a little compromised because of all the hype that preceded it; there was no way it could possibly have matched the frothing exaltations and Game-of-the-Year nominations. Yes, it’s a wonderfully unique experience, but it’s more of an amusé than a banquet, a fact that it seems to accept and revel in. And really, there’s only five levels of content there – but, as I alluded to before, that last level is certainly worth experiencing.

Finally this week was a return to Shadow Complex to complete a 100% items run. It was pretty easy on Hardcore and, when the going got tough in some select boss battles, I simply dropped the difficulty down momentarily – a feature which I hope many more games take advantage of. Dunno how I’m going to manage that ChAIRness internal Achievement, though.

Of course, it’s rapidly approaching that games-free time of year for me – there’s less than a fortnight before the start of the Adelaide Fringe. And I’ve only just finished writing up last year’s events!

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