Game Diary 10/04/2014-15/04/2014

I've been busy all week catching up with two months worth of work I didn't have time for previously. I thought I wouldn't have time for games at all but I'm ahead of schedule.

Guilty Gear XX Accent Core Plus (wii)

I decided I wanted something different out of this so I've started playing as A.B.A, now that I'm playing as a character with a play style I;m not use to I find a lot of my matches int he game are going into round 3 which is alright but it has made me discover a fairly annoying bug in the game, the fucking music does not loop when the song ends, which means if I fight for too long the game will go completely silent until the fight ends. It's pretty irritating because the music is one of my favourite things about Guilty Gear.

Geometry Wars Galaxies (Wii)

I got curious and had a look at the wi-fi high score table for the Retro Evolved. The guy in first managed a score of over 13 billions, every single person below him didn't even manage 2 billion. I can't decide if he cheated or is a master of the game, the wii player base probably isn't very big, I wonder what the world record is on the 360 and PC versions?
Anyway I came to the realization that the classic controller isn't that great for this for one simple reason, the control stick has an octagonal ring around it which makes it hard to have full 360 degree control over your shots. Anyway I have always believed this is the best version of Geometry Wars, it's not HD like the 360 and PC versions but it has like 50 times the content of the original Retro Evolved, amazingly I've had people tell me I'm wrong. I can;t say how this holds up to Geometry Wars 2 because I've never played the full version of that.

Go! Go! Cosmo Cops (DS)

Started played this for real. It's super easy but at least it tries different things and doesn't get boring. It probably won;t take me long to beat this, I do think the developers put together a well designed game and in many ways the game probably would have been better off if it wasn't a retail game (no one buys these kind of games in shops sadly).

Beatmania (PS1)

I'm still shit at it.

Phantasy Star Online Version 2 (Dreamcast)

I finally unlocked the final area, Jesus wept what a difficulty spike. The enemies are incredibly tough and the rooms you fight them in are often cramped which makes it harder to fight them when your main weapon happens to be guns (still better than using swords). The guild missions are pretty hard too because you get partnered up with a NPC on all 3 of them and they all use close range weapons so they get completely murdered by the monsters.

Hydro Thunder (Dreamcast)

I tried to see if I could unlock the hard stages, I couldn't. Hydro Thunder is arcade at the core. The only way you are going to beat it is if you play all the stages over and over until you remember where all the boost refills are located and even then the games AI rubber bands almost at random, I can break my own course record and finish 2 places lower than I did on a previous time.

Yu-Gi-Oh! GX: Spirit Caller (DS)

I completely this game ages ago and I've put a good 70 hours into it but I still pop it on every now and then to try and grind some more experience and level up so I can get more cards. Never going to get to play this online seeing how the servers die in 5 days and I only own a DS Phat.

Yu-Gi-Oh! Ultimate Masters Edition: World Championship Tournament 2006 (GBA)

I'm finally ready to start playing this again. I haven't been playing this much ever since I lost a good 50 hours worth of play time, the fact that the monster that was played when my game corrupted looked like this is completely incidental.

Game Diary: 04/04/2014-09/04/2014

Tekken 5 (PS2)

I don't know why but I found I have this thing with Namco fighting games where I can only go up to a certain point with them. In the case of Soul Calibur I never go past Soul Calibur II. I played Soul Calibur III when it came out and was so very disappointed, the Broken Destiny on PSP didn't do it for me either and from what I've read and seen IV and V weren't much better. With Tekken I have the same sort of thing going on but unlike Soul Calibur I don't see it as something I'm going to give up on. Don't get me wrong I played the hell out of Tekken 6 at launch but in hindsight it was not what I actually wanted from Tekken game nor was it that great. I have heard a lot of great things about Tekken Tag Tournament 2 so I'll look into getting that sometime in the future.

Anyway Tekken 5, there are two reasons I still play this loads. Reason 1) It has the arcade versions of Tekken 1, 2 & 3; Tekken  3 is one of my all time favourite games, I can't do it justice in words, it is just perfect. 2) Tekken 4 wasn't very good and with Tekken 5 it felt like they had gone back and looked at what Tekken 3 so great, in other words I like it because it felt like the real follow up to Tekken 3.

Tekken Tag Tournament (PS2)

It isn't just the gameplay that makes a fighting game for me. My favourite fighting games are ones that have a certain appeal to them, these games I adore I consider to had an "it" factor that propels them to greater heights. Although the European version of Tekken tag Tournament is hamstrung by it's slow ass 50hz speed I still enjoy it immensely because of the factors outside of the gameplay (which is for a 50hz game is still pretty acceptable). My favourite things about Tekken tag are as follows: The music, the visual design and the artistic direction the designers went with. Those are the things that make me love Tekken Tag. It's not just Tekken Tag, Tekken 3, Street Fighter 3: Third Strike, Garou: Mark of the Wolves, Guilty Gear X2, these are all game that hit this sweet spot for me and that is why I love them (also I adore the box art and wish more games had box art like it).

Guilty Gear X (PS2)

Every time I play this it really depresses the hell out of me. 50hz only, poorly optimised and really, really slow. I really like Guilty Gear but I can't be doing with this version of Guilty Gear X, it's too slow and as a result the game just isn't the same and the animations sometimes look really choppy. One day I will have a PS2 that plays NTSC games and I will be able to play this the way it was meant to be played.

Super Smash Bros Melee (Gamecube)

Nothing to say other than I played some friendly matches and need to practice some more. I have to be honest recently news about the new Wii U Smash Brothers has got me kind of looking forward to the game. From what Nintendo have revealed it sounds like they are aiming to make the game more like Melee and give it that speed and competitive game that was oh so missing from Brawl.

Game Diary: 28/03/2014-03/04/2014

If there is one thing I hate it is being sick, you can't get a damn thing done when you are sick. I've pretty much sat on my ass all week while waiting to get better. I just want to be able to go out and do the things I love, like running and weight lifting and shit. I also hate work deadlines because your workload always suddenly becomes bigger.

Cardfighters' Clash: SNK vs. Capcom (Neo Geo Pocket)

I'm currently at that point in the game where my only focus is on building up my card collection, the tournament finals that you get to enter once you have all six coins are tough because the opponents have access to really powerful cards. I've probably said this before but one thing I like about Cardfighters' is how it seems possible to break the game if you get the right cards. I'm currently trying to get 3 copies of Yashiro from King of Fighters, not just is he a strong card but he sends an opponents card back to their hand when he is played, considering that cards can only attack the turn after they are played that is a huge advantage to have and it can win games.

Beatmania, Beatmania 2nd Mix, Beatmania 5th Mix and Beatmania Best Hits (PS1)

I've had this on my list for a while, I have a thing for Konami's music games, if I didn't live on the top floor of an apartment building I'd probably still be playing the Dancing Stage games. I really like what Beatmania is more than I like Beatmania when I think about it. I've never been a big follower of music in general but when it comes to music games I am often all over them (unless they are Guitar Hero or Singstar of something), I think Beatmania appears to that part of me that loves the idea of mixing and being a DJ but at the same time has no knowledge or talent with music, also it appeals to the part of me that is attracted to high skill arcade games that I am rubbish at.

As you can see from the bold writing I have 4 versions of Beatmania, 3 of which happen to be Japan imports, it shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone to find that the PAL version I own happens to be the easiest.

Metal Gear Solid (PS1)

Got bored of playing Beatmania while at the video game league so I shoved this into my PS1 and decided to see how much of it I could burn through in 2 hours. It turns out MGS is much, much shorter than I remember as I am currently on my way to fight Sniper Wolf after getting the Sniper Rifle. To be fair to it Metal Gear Solid is one of those games I need to play every now and then to remind me how good it actually is, it's been over 16 years since this game came out and it still holds up (you could probably make an exception for the graphics). It's a master piece and to be honest I prefer it over the remake and its stupid as fuck missile hopping and back flip sequences.

Red Steel (Wii)

I paid £40 for this back in the day, £40! It's funny thinking about it now, I had a choice, this or Twilight Princess on Gamecube. Christmas 2006 was an odd time thinking about it, the wii had just came out and everyone was buying into what it could do, to put this into perspective, the day I got Red Steel I also got a brand new Xbox for £50 with Halo 2, Forza, PGR2 and Fable. I played Red Steel over Halo 2, that is how much I wanted to believe the Wii was the future. Maybe I'm being a bit harsh on Red Steel there but the game was one of the things that sold people on the console, then they played it. I remember my first time playing Red Steel, I couldn't not get on with the motion controls at all, I used to think the game was difficult but playing it again now I realise, I just wasn't use to it yet, no one was.

Just over sevens years have passed since then and playing it now I can play the game and see it for what it is, an adequate job. Some people will tell you Red Steel is shit, it isn't shit it is just adequate, it was a launch title made for a system featuring a control method that no one was used to, for what it was it was acceptable.

Playing it now I have these thoughts, 1) the game isn't particularly hard, not anymore anyway; 2) the voice acting is terrible, it's bad, it's terribad; 3) this game wishes it was a John Woo film.

I'll give Red Steel some credit, clearly the studio that made it did try, they tried different things and then went on to make Red Steel 2 which did, thankfully, address most of the flaws of the original (though considering how much was changed it might as well be a new series).