Monday Report [June 23-30]

Wii
Super Mario Galaxy

2 Hours

4 more stars. I only have to beat Luigi's Purple Coins. I've tried a couple times now and it keeps kicking my ass. That is a seriously evil level.

Flash Games
You Don't Know Jack, Episode 74
7 Minutes 
No one has quite managed to keep to the rigors of an episodic game release schedule like Jellyvision. They are just so regular.

SEEK (ver.0)

5 minutes

This is another game concept, lab, toy thing from EYEMAZE. If that name doesn't ring any bells, then how about GROW? Yeah, you've probably heard of those games. If not, go play them now! SEEK (ver.0) is another attempt with alternate game styles. This time it's a match-hunting puzzle game. Using some familiar graphics and sounds, it manages to be both very easy to understand and very challenging. Even the time limit is handled well, and adds to the difficulty, as the letter itself moves across the screen to fall and crush one of your hearts.

Meat Space Games
Carcassonne
about 30 minutes (4 players)
Went to a friend's grandparent's cabin this weekend. Took a whole bunch of games. Wound up only playing a couple. This was one. Played with the Inns & Cathedrals and River I expansions. I like the river expansion(s) because I find they lead to a more spread out and even map. I like playing with at least the Inns & Cathedrals because it adds a little complexity to the game without being overbearing. We played this one kinda drunk. I managed to come from behind with farms.

The Good, the Bad, and the Munchkin
about 60 minutes (4 players)
It was a long weekend (for us anyway, because of Canada Day landing on the Tuesday), so I'm including Monday at the lake as part of this update. We played a great game. All of us we at level 9 by the end, with the winner having come from behind. We also were down to a single door card left. This is a rare treat, getting to see most of the deck get played.

Shadowrun

Most of the Weekend

We didn't actually get to play this. Our particular group of friends has been talking about Role-playing together for, well, a long time. We keep getting hung up on the actual starting. We're not sure which system to get, we never actually get one, and we don't know who should GM (none of us has). So my friend Chris finally picked up a source book. I've been picked as GM, which I don't mind. I spent most of the weekend frantically reading through the rules trying to understand character creation, and the basic gameplay elements. Characters are mostly done, and because we are using the free Shadowrun Missions we have the first campaign all set. Mostly. I'm going to pick up my own copy of the source book sometime this week. Hopefully I keep focus.

*Updated, and expanded on July 1, after returning to civilization*

Monday Report [June 16 - 22]

Wii
Super Mario Galaxy
1 hour
2 more hard won stars. I'm ready to be done with this.

Flash Games
You Don't Know Jack, Episodes 72 & 73
7 minutes each
There is a rumour that YDKJ might be coming to the Wii. I can only hope.

Monday Report [June 9-15]

Wii
Super Mario Galaxy
4 hours, total
4 stars on Monday. 2 more on Tuesday. 2 more on Friday. I like it better when the purple coin levels are ones of exploration rather than arbitrary challenges. A few of them have just been 100 coins, scattered about the galaxy. The challenge is to find and get to them all. This pushes to you explore more than you may have before, and use all the tricks the game as taught you up to this point. They are also far less frustrating that some of the arbitrary challenges that you have to face in other levels (usually). The Battlerock's Purple Coins was particularly annoying: collect all the coins while this platform moves you through the level. Do it perfect, or fail.

Xbox 360
I don't actually own one of these. However, I have good friends that do. I was lucky enough this week to get to putz around on theirs, check out and play some favourite arcade games, and even have my choice of full games. Here's what I played:

Frogger 2 (demo)
Whole demo (15 minutes, including distractions)
Guh. I played this mostly because their son (not quite 2) was interested. We gave him the controller for a little while. He's starting to put stick-waggling and button-pressing together with what's going on screen. Mostly he just drowned Frogger. Mostly I wanted to, too. This game is insipid and annoying. It has all the repetitive fun you remember tarted up with a storyline (involving a crash-landed alien), garish graphics, and the most annoying synthesized sound effects you will ever hear. The sound played every time Frogger hops forward will make you want to tear you speakers from the wall. Just don't buy it.

Aces of the Galaxy (demo)
Solo, Easy, 2 Demo Levels
Not a bad little shooter. I managed to survive the two levels the demo allows (on easy) and get a semi-respectable rating. It certainly has shiny graphics, lots of projectiles, and a fair number of abilities and weapons. The timeshift ability is rather interesting and can be used to effectively get you out of a tight spot. It also has a rather banal and poorly written story; I'm not sure why they even bother sometimes. It's not like most of the players care. Oh, and when did Inverted Y-axis not become standard. I had to turn it on before I could play, but maybe I'm just old school. It's not really my kind of game (I suck at aiming at things), but it might be interesting for a while.

Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness, Episode One (demo)
Whole demo
Is it bad that I love that title? Yes, it's pretentious. I'm pretty sure that's the point; the whole damn game is that way. This is actually the second time I've played the demo. I downloaded the PC version the same week it came out. I played it again mostly so I could show my wife, and check out how the combat worked on the controller. It is slightly less broken than on the PC, but not enough to count. There are simply too many button-presses/mouse-clicks to get from a ready attack to actually hitting an enemy. It's frustrating and distracting. The rest of the game is filled with awesome: attention to every minuscule detail, Penny Arcade Humour (which some love, and some can't stand -- I could do without the Fruit F***er), and circumlocution. Bring a dictionary.

Carcassonne
2 Rounds (won 1, lost 1)
I'm a fan of the board game, and will readily get it out to play. It fact, I consider it a great gateway game for those whose passing acquaintance with board games encompass Monopoly, Sorry, and Life. The Live Arcade version of the game has a couple advantages the board game does not: you don't have to manually score anything, and you can play by yourself. However, I still prefer the physical edition. I find that keeping track of complex strategies, including farms and hostile takeovers, is harder to do with the graphic distraction the video version provides. You also can't play 6 players, and they have yet to release some of the more interesting expansions. It's a great adaption of the game, and good for scratching that board game itch, but still not as good as the real thing. Oh, this is also not my first (or, likely, last) time playing the Live Arcade version.

N+
About 5 minutes
This was my second time with the game, the first being about an hour of co-op with my friend the night he bought it. I'm fairly convinced that the game creators secretly hate me. This game is the epitome of hardcore, and I would only recommend it to the most masochistic of players. I simply don't have the patients, control, or coordination to do well at it. I got frustrated with it after a few minutes and moved on.

Mass Effect
1.5 Hours
I've wanted to play this since I first heard about it. I still do, only problem is that I don't own an Xbox 360 (or a PC it won't cripple). Despite the fact that I probably won't get much chance to play it, or truly enjoy it, until I get my own copy I decided to start it anyway. I went through the character creation and played the first mission. There are a few things I'd like to say: Wow, that game looks beautiful! Where the hell is the tutorial? Why do all of the aliens look humanoid? (their females even have boobs!) I continue to suck at aiming and shooting. Inverted Y-axis used to be default, I swear! I really need to get a 360, don't I *sigh*?

I'm sure each of those things could be expanded, but that would require its own post, and a bit more play time that I've given the game.

Flash Games
You Don't Know Jack - Episodes 70 & 71
7 minutes each
Not much to say, just more YDKJ fun. Episode 71 contains a Chocolate Rain meme-tastic question.

Through the Machine
5 minutes
Mouse-movement-avoidance game. Nice features include multiple lives, simple clean graphics, and all the movement is tied to the soundtrack. Play with the speakers on. Of course, you'll only play for a few minutes before you grow annoyed and bored.

Lost Pig
45 minutes
An adorable, and not-too-hard, text adventure. Told from the point of view of Grunk, a hapless orc who has lost his boss's pig. Can he find it? Can he get back to the farm? It's worth a few minutes of your time just because of all the wonderfully creative descriptions. If you get stuck, Jay is Games provides a walkthrough (follow the Review and Comments link at the bottom). Try to get all 7 points.

Monday Report [June 2-8]

This is the first of what will (hopefully) be a weekly feature. It is an accounting and impressions of all the games I played over the previous week. Mostly I'd like to be able to track what I've played, and hopefully I'll be able to include a few good Flash and Freeware games that flit across my screen.

Regulars
You Don't Know Jack, Episodes 68 & 69
Not going to say much about these, probably ever. YDKJ is irreverent, on occasion vulgar, often obscure, and usually hilarious. If you like trivia, then I recommend playing them. They have over a year of weekly episodes, and daily DisOrDats to play. Recently the schedule has been changed, ending the long run of DisOrDats in favour of two weekly 7-question episodes (Monday and Friday). Put it in you RSS reader, and take a 5 minute break when they show up.

Wii
Super Mario Galaxy
I've been slowly bashing my way through SMG since I got it, the week after it came out. I doubt I could add anything about the game that hasn't been said in numerous reviews. I don't really have the determination to play more than a couple of hours at a time, then those play sessions get spread over weeks and months. At any rate, I finished up all the standard stars, prankster comet stars, and bonus stars (including challenge galaxies) this weekend. Saturday saw me get everything but the last 3 bonus stars I was missing. Sunday I got those, played the challenge galaxies, and then wanted to get on with the purple coin challenges. Only I couldn't. So I finally took on the final boss galaxy/center of the universe. I was glad to have my brother on co-star for Sunday's excursions, as it made everything a lot easier. 15 stars to go, and I can put this one to bed I think.

Missing
There are a few Flash games missing from this initial post. Mostly because I thought of doing it on Sunday, after playing my way though the SMG final boss. What I'm going to do as soon as I post this is start a new post and use Blogger in Draft to set it to post next Monday morning. Then I just have to keep it up to date as I play things this week. Here's hoping.

Back in the Game

For all of you that noticed that I dropped off of the radar for a while: I'm not dead. I've just been busy. Back in August I wound up in crunch-time developer mode and had no time to blog, let alone keep up with things. By the end of September I was weeks behind in my current news and furiously trying to catch up. Thanks to a combination of Google Reader and fall cleaning, I've fully caught up. Now I just need to find time to put words to page.

But I'm back, and hoping to blog more as things turn around in the holiday season, and the new year. I've also been gaming more lately. That's a good thing.

So here's a quick look at what I've been playing, and some off the cuff impressions.

Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass
I was hooked in this for about 2-3 week after I got it. It was light, fun, and easy to play in half-hour segments on the bus to or from work. I even dropped the occasional evening on it to scour a dungeon. Then I hit just past the half-way mark and the game became all slog. The dungeons became too large to manage in a lunch break, or on a bus. The side quests became more tedious than fun, and fishing is just boring.

I only have the final (that is, main, repeating, annoying) dungeon and boss to beat. I've been at this point for about 3-4 weeks and haven't had the time or desire to continue. I want to finish this game, but it now just feels like too much work.

Sam & Max, Season 2, Episode 1
The dynamic, deadly duo return in their second episodic series. This time they have to save Christmas. That bodes ill for the holidays. The writing is full on course with this episode, and it is fun, clever, and easily playable in a single evening. This is the only game so far in the last half-year I've been able to finish and enjoy all the way through. I highly recommend playing it (or at least one of the Telltale crew's Freelance Police episodes). You can get them direct or through GameTap.

Overlord
Which leads me to another game I've gotten to play a little bit of. I don't own an X360 yet. I don't have the TV for it, I don't have the money for it, and I so much want one. So when my friend picked up Overlord for it, I was disappointed that I had another game I couldn't play. Until I found out that it's on GameTap. Joy!

The game itself (so far) is a mad romp through every fantasy cliche, except that you get to inflict bodily harm (somewhat indirectly) on the lovable inhabitants of the world. Controlling your horde of minions is rather intuitive, just point them at something you want killed, or broken, or desecrated, and they'll happily take care of it for you. You hardly have to lift a finger. And you get to be evil, or at least malevolent, which is always a nice escape from constantly being the icon of good. I've only had the time to play the first couple of missions, but they've been fun. I'll need to get on my computer more just so I can play this.

Super Mario Galaxy
My wife got me Super Paper Mario for my birthday, back in August. I feel bad because I have barely cracked the case on it. However, getting Galaxy I think makes up for it. Not only is it incredibly fun, but I can play the game with her. It makes the game a lot easier when I don't have to worry about collecting all the star bits myself, or she can hold off some of the dangers while I blunder around. While some levels are a little headache inducing (winding up upside down with stars swirling in the background can be a little much) the creative use of space and classic platforming constantly makes me smile. I'm addicted (at least for now).

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And I think that brings me up to date. I'm also sitting at about 60% done Okami (and have been since July). However, that game sets off my OCD so playing is a study in list and checkmarks. I also recently bought Ico, but have no idea when I'll get to it.

So many games, so little time. Oh, almost forgot about Worms 2 for DS. They fixed everything that was stupid and broken about the first Worms for DS. Apparently they did it by giving the license to someone else and throwing out all the code and design from the first try. Good for them. The game brings back the fun of madly destroying your opponent with overpowered explosives and oddball weapons. There is nothing so totally Worms as dropping a concrete donkey on your enemies. It is worth the money if you can find it. It also has WiFi, so if you have a copy let me know and we can blow each other up some time.