Gaming moments: B

Bangai-O: Missile Fury (Xbox 360)

Having played both Bangai-O and Spirits, I was expecting many missiles.
 The sheer size and number of projectiles when I first launched a MAX
attack stays with me, as well as the slowdown, half of which I’m sure
was fake.

Bayonetta (Xbox 360)

I am hopeless at the game itself – but I will never forget the car’s
radio playing Outrun music in the cutscene after the prologue.

Beyond Good & Evil (Xbox)

The final upgrade to your hovercraft … and suddenly you have a
spaceship.  Having become familiar with the world over a number of
hours, being torn away to pursue the final fight was unsettling.

Bishi Bashi Special (PS)

ATTENTION!  Matt didn’t read the instructions, and failed time and time again.

Brothers: a Tale of Two Sons (PS3)

Calling upon the bravery and spirit of the elder brother to cross the
water. An astounding statement made with no words.

Broken Sword (PS)

Unbelievable slowdown when reaching the desert town. I gave up and
played the PC verion a couple of years later.

Black (Xbox)

Having made it to the end of the game, the last corridor and boss were
just too difficult.  I never completed it and resent the whole thing to
this day. 

Game memories: F

Feel the Magic XX-XY (DS)

Project Rub in the UK, but I got this with my imported US DS ahead of the European launch.  In many ways it was an ideal game to launch the DS with, showing many varied ideas on how the touchscreen could be used.  It didn’t hang together that well, but I remember the black, white and orange colour scheme vividly.

F1 ’97 (PS)

Murray Walker shouting “He’s on the green stuff” over and over again; tracks being messes of pixels a little way down the road.  A great game.

F1 2010 (Xbox 360)

Far too many options and menus to wade through.  Completing a single race in the career mode took ages, since you had to go through practice sessions, qualifying and the race itself.  Ideal for people who love F1, but for me it was just a bit painful.

F1 2011 (3DS)

As with F1 2010 above, but with a third of the framerate.

F355 Challenge Passione Rossa (Dreamcast)

At the time this felt like a massive technical achievement and tales of the arcade machine using three monitors underlined the game’s credentials.  I played it for about fifteen minutes before being totally overwhelmed by the options and realistic gameplay – in other words, I kept spinning off the track, couldn’t work out how to switch to a behind-car view, and had better things to play instead.

Field Commander (PSP)
Like Advance Wars but with little charm, little challenge, and a rubbish online mode.

Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles (Gamecube)
I’ve never completed a proper Final Fantasy game; I’ve never even passed the first hour of one.  This, however, was played loads at virtually every games night we held.  Kieron had a bucket on his head, I was a Selkie.  John was accomplished at ranged combat, we all could heal each other but often didn’t.

Fire Emblem (GBA)
I never completed this.  I remember it getting very stressful due to the fact that if a character died in a mission, they remained dead.  I restarted missions again and again to protect my favourite characters, and as a result it grew stale and too difficult.

Floigan Brothers: Episode One (Dreamcast)
It’s a shame there was no episode two – this was an amusing game which was unlike anything else, as with a lot of Sega’s Dreamcast output.  It was far too short and there was a bit too much collection required as far as I recall.  I got this in Singapore and worked out pretty quickly that it was a pirate version, but bought the proper version on my return from HMV for a fiver.

Ford Racing 3 (Xbox)

I was convinced to buy this by people on RLLMUK praising the second game, the fact it was online (when there were few other online games around), and it was £10 brand new.  I think I played it online three times and offline twice, before being tempted away by other games that were just more fun to play.

F-Zero (SNES, Wii, Wii U)

F-Zero GX (Gamecube)

F-Zero X (N64)

F-Zero: Maximum Velocity (GBA, 3DS)
GX is the best.  The Mode 7 games are a bit pants now, but at the time they seemed great, particularly on the GBA where the handling was much more refined.  Replaying them now, they are just too floaty and the career mode is a bit lightweight with daft difficulty spikes.

Future Tactics: the Uprising (Gamecube)

I bought this in the US and as a result, the hassle needed to load the game meant that I played it little.  A shame, as when I did I remember it being a clever game melding a strategy turn-based game with something that felt more action-based.  I’m now able to play US games on my modded Wii; I may try this again when I find it.

Fighting Vipers (Saturn, Xbox 360)

I continue to be hopeless at fighting games that are more complicated that Street Fighter II, but Fighting Vipers has a pleasing lack of combo, super and extra EX WTF meters.  The fighting feels solid and the idea of being able to knock off armour works well.  I get the feeling that if I played this a bit more I could get quite good at it.  That’s unlikely to happen.

Game memories: B

Blur (Xbox 360)
Possibly my favourite racing game avec weapons, but opinion on that will flip-flop depending on whether I’ve played this, Mario Kart Wii, or Wipeout HD most recently. Blur is magnificent though, really well balanced in both single-player and online multi-player. The weapons and their strength have been honed to perfection, and every race is thrilling from start to finish no matter where you end up.

Burnout (Playstation 2)
One of the first racers that showed that it doesn’t need to just be a race to the finish line. It seems quite tame now, compared to its sequels, but the seeds were sown.

Burnout 2 (Gamecube)
Not just an evolution but a revolution. Adding so much more content, including the crash junctions and other event types, and the handling was refined so your car felt lighter and more manoeuvrable. Some say it was the highlight of the series. I’d argue they can’t have played …

Burnout Revenge (Xbox 360)
Everything that made Burnout 2 great is here, but with a more defined structure, more cars, content, and with takedowns fully implemented. It’s a constant source of fun and mirth.

Burnout Paradise (Xbox 360)
A departure for the series, with multiple routes and hidden events. I’ve not really explored it much so far, but it’s a good game – just not as great as what preceded it.

Bombjack (CPC)
I have fond memories of playing this with my sister. I perfected the lit-bomb runs on the first five screens, and we used to be amazed how colourful and fast it was. We never played the arcade game; I have a feeling that may have spoilt the magic.

Bomberman (DS)
In my eyes, the ultimate version. You will never have ten people and ten Saturn controllers in order to play the full version of Saturn Bomberman, but eight DSs in one room? Easy!

Bonanza Bros (Mega Drive)
Slow, dull, awkward jumps, boring. I always hoped this would be similar to Spy vs Spy, but after finally getting to play it, it wasn’t.

Battletoads (Game Boy)
Difficult, smeary, frustrating, dull.

Brick Breaker (Blackberry)
Awful. Really quite awful, in that that ball bounces off your bat at random angles, the icons you collect are difficult to distinguish, it often stutters or slows down when your email downloads, and the levels are badly laid out. But have a colleague challenge your high score, and this can take weeks of your time.

Bust-a-Groove (PS)
One of the first dancing games I ever saw. It’s not great nowadays, but back then it was futuristic.

Bust-a-Move (PS)
I never got on with Puzzle Bobble. It always seemed a little random as to when the balls would stick to the side of other balls, or just pass them by.

Bayonetta (Xbox 360)
I want to love this more than I do, because it’s good fun, well designed, and is full of amusing touches like the car stereo playing Splash Wave. But I’ve never got very far into it and then it gets left for months until I can no longer remember the controls and have to start again.

Black (Xbox)
I really enjoyed Black – it had a good story, good range of gameplay, good balance to weapons and enemies. All the way up to the final boss bit, when it got stupidly hard with infinitely respawning enemies. I never completed it.

Beyond Good & Evil (Gamecube)
When this first came out, people were desperately searching for a comparison. It’s sort of like Zelda, because you upgrade your craft to give you access to other areas. It’s sort of like Pokémon Snap, because you take photos. It’s actually a unique game which is perfectly short and sweet, with the best ever text-input system and a cast of amazing characters.

Braid (Xbox 360)
I completed it, thought the puzzles were clever, but the story was trying to be intelligent just a bit too hard. It was fantastic for students desperately trying to prove the worth of games, though.

Xbox Live: party like it's 2005

Last night I met up online with Kieron and John. We had a plan.

On April 14, Microsoft is turning off the original Xbox Live servers. After that date, it’ll no longer be possible to play original Xbox games online – unless you go through some sort of unofficial LAN link. It’s the end of countless classic experiences.

Xbox Live was amazing. Online gaming beforehand (at least on consoles) was normally an afterthought, bolted onto a game designed for party play. It was hampered by needing to accommodate for dial-up users, and with a lack of expectation that the console would be permanently connected. That’s not to say that great games didn’t exist – Phantasy Star Online would argue that – but because of the inconvenience, I didn’t play them that often. Chu Chu Rocket and PSO were about as far as I went. With Live, though, game designers started to exploit the medium properly. Project Gotham Racing 2 was the first Xbox game I played online, and I was amazed by how smoothly it worked. Not only could I join a random game and race against people worldwide, I could also talk to them as I did it. Plus the game downloaded leaderboards and my friends’ best times, even when I was playing the single-player game.

Online functionality was increasingly included in games throughout the Xbox’s life. It evolved from additional single-event versus modes, through dedicated party modes, to cooperative modes through the single-player game. Rainbow Six 3: Black Arrow was a highpoint of the last of these.

To capture the past for one last time, we met up armed with our copies of Halo 2, PGR2, and Outrun 2. It was odd not being able to carry on chatting as we moved from game to game. It was annoying to have to sit and wait for updates to be installed for each game as we tried to play it – though bearing in mind that my broadband line now is 40 times faster than the one I had when I first got Live, I’m not going to complain too much. Online gaming’s come on a long way since, with better options and play modes. But none of this mattered for what we played.

Halo 2 is still great. We played custom games amongst ourselves, since we didn’t all have the expansion maps installed and without these we couldn’t join matchmaking. Rockets are great, and much better than their Halo 3 variants. Going back to Halo 2 only served to show how Halo 3 didn’t really evolve the game that much, if anything adding too many options. Having said that, Halo 3 is obviously a direct replacement, and the loss of Halo 2’s online mode won’t mean that there’s nothing similar to play.

That’s the case for all the games we played, really. Project Gotham Racing 4 does effectively make PGR2 online obsolete, though I reckon the range of cars in PGR2 is slightly better. I don’t like the bikes in the later game either. Outrun 2 is obviously replaced by Outrun Online Arcade, though with different courses meaning the game’s not identical. OOA has got one thing in common with the earlier game – there’s never anyone online.

Farewell, original Xbox Live. You’ll be missed. A little.

Halo 3: capturing the elephant

John, Kieron and I played a number of games online last night – Mario Kart DS (which I naturally won), Outrun 2 (which I naturally won), and Halo 3 (cough). Actually, we did pretty well on Halo 3, winning a capture-the-flag event (with me completing three captures, huzzah) and a team slayer and even a big team battle thingie. The last of these was pretty fun, with both teams fighting for control of the elephants – massive mobile fortresses with gun emplacements on.

But the best bit of the evening was Halo 3 coop, playing through Tsavo Highway and taking out wraiths and anti-air guns with all three of us on a warthog which didn’t quite make a jump … Kieron even managed to stay with us most of the time!

Halo 2: Completed!

I was nearer the end than I thought. A stupid brute set off the halo, so I ran around as the Arbiter and killed him, eventually. Captain Keyes grabbed the index, but it was too late – the halo set all the others to be on standby, ready for remote activation. They can be activated from Earth, where the last remaining prophet is.

Cut to Master Chief descending towards Earth, and as I get ready to take control of him, the credits roll. A rather sudden ending to the game …

Halo 2: Petey Piranha's really let himself go

I’ve got hold of another copy of this – my fourth in total – and carried on from where I left off, even seeing the cutscene.

Back to controlling the Arbiter, I was instructed to go and retrieve the ‘index’, which is basically the ignition key for the halo system. This was, of course, hidden within the halo, protected by loads of automatic sentries and big enforcer things. These were both a blessing and a curse, since they destroyed the flood (or the flood destroyed them), and if I waited around I’d only have one set of enemies to contest with. But the enforcers were a pain, covered by a massive shield in front and lots of firepower. In the end I generally destroyed them by activating invisibility, running behind them and throwing sticky grenades at them – though in a couple of cases there were handy rocket launchers laying around.

I was a bit worried with the constant references to “the library” in the in-game dialogue, but luckily there were no long repetitive corridors to fight along … there were lots of big open areas, with the flood controlling vehicles, and some big firefights with allies. Great fun. At one point I got on a big lift thing, and had to run around killing the flood who jumped onto it – mainly by making myself invisible, running up to the group and throwing a grenade into their midst.

In the end, I got to the sacred icon – the index – only to find that Captain Keyes was there first. A cutscene showed her and Sergeant Johnson being captured along with the index, and then a brute came and took them off the Arbiter. It seems that the elites have been demoted – and have been ordered killed. The arbiter falls to his death …

… or not. Previously, I’d seen Master Chief falling through the water after Regret’s temple was destroyed. he was grabbed by a big tentacle thing. The same catches the Arbiter, and reveals how halo will destroy everything in the galaxy – he’s the parasite, the father of the flood. He looks like a big toxic version of Petey Piranha. We need to get hold of the index.

Master Chief is warped into the middle of the prophets’ meeting. Oops. Somehow almost everyone disappears and I ended up having to fight just a few brutes and jackals. The elites are now a third party … as I found out when I got outside and found them in combat with the brutes. Whichever party is left then tries to kill me. Charming.

I went and rescued some captured marines, and then worked through fights between elites and brutes, and even fought two hunters with very little ammo. I’m now on a floating platform with hovering elites killing me constantly. I think I need a break …

Halo 2: possible salvation

Rather than continuing from my last save, I looked at the chapter list – and the chapter following “Regret” is listed … meaning I can carry on from that point (although I’ll probably miss the cutscene). Well, theoretically I can – my disc won’t load it. How frustrating!

Halo 2: a wasted hour

Last night, I continued the single-player game. I fought my way to a lake, and across to a temple, where the prophet sat. After a number of attempts I finally managed to kill him, and saw the cutscene. And then my Xbox 360 told me that the disc was dirty or damaged, and put me back to the dashboard.

I was sure that I’d gone past a number of big checkpoints, but on restarting and electing to play from my last save, it put me back to the sniper valley. Over an hour down the drain.

Good job it’s fun to play.

Halo 2: Kieron is the juggernaut

Both Kieron and John were free this afternoon, so we arranged to play online. Whereas normally we’d have formed a party and gone onto matchmaking, the release of Halo 3 has meant that the number of players has dropped off quite a lot – and John said that he’d had to wait five minutes for a rumble pit game. Team skirmishes weren’t going to happen.

So we played custom games between ourselves all afternoon; something we’ve never really done before. We played three-way capture the flag with rockets. We played oddball with swords. We played 2-on-1 juggernaut, which was great – although Kieron did spend a couple of minutes as the juggernaut just hiding, which lead John and I to wonder if he realised that the point of the game was to kill the others …

Before John turned up, Kieron and I had a couple of games of Halo 3 as well. They’ve changed the reloading controls, and how you pick up guns. I kept on missing out on stuff because of this. Well, that’s my excuse.