PixlBit

After revising my short-play list last night, I got down to some new titles today (Monday that is) starting with the Wii. I had my Game Cube controller ready to go for some Game Cube games too. Then it was back to Xbox 360, football and more Xbox. 

First up, I bought Fantasy Zone II for some amount I forget (I think it was 400 points or $5) on Wii Virtual Console. The Fantasy Zone series is mostly shoot -em-ups that are also called cute-em-ups because they have colorful graphics and the setting is usually a garden or other natural place. I kinda like these types of games ever since I played TwinBee. I played the first Fantasy Zone on some collection I have too. Fantasy Zone II is a fun game, but has some of the similar control scheme to Defender, which annoys me. It's hard to turn and fire quickly since the screen jogs just a bit when you turn. I got used to it a bit though. I bombed a bunch of plants and they revealed warp holes. Then I warped to new screens. You shoot a lot and get coins and cash. Some levels have a store where you can buy upgrades. That was a cool twist. Anyway, these shooters are usually frustrating after a while, so I moved on. 

Up next was Namco Museum Remix on Wii. I didn't like most of these games. You control a Pac-Man in the 3D world that serves as the menu screen with the nunchuck. It's not very precise rolling old Pac-Man around, but I rolled into the arcade area and played all the old Namco arcade games. Favorite of mine this time was Gapius. This was the next evolution of a game like Galaxian. You can freely roam around the screen as enemies attack in the usual formation begun by Space Invaders. Best of all though is you can capture enemy craft and use them to add to your firepower. With three more ships, a four shot spread does quick work of the enemy. But they still manage to slip past your shots and suicide kill you. Very annoying. I tried all the remix games and they were ok. Pac-Motos was my favorite. You are Pac-Man and on a platform. You have to bounce enemies off the edge before it all disappears under you. It gets more complex as you go along. I was ok with that one. 

But it was time to move on to Data East Arcade Classics on Wii. I really love the graphics and animation of Caveman Ninja. This is a side-scrolling beat 'em up where you are a caveman. You fight off all sorts of prehistoric enemies, but best of all is the first boss battle against a T-Rex. But it's incredibly unfair as most coin-op games are. Too bad. I really love the look of it. Heavy Barrel was another favoite. I didn't use the classic controler this time (too lazy) but I got used to the nunchuck and wiimote controls. This is a top town shooter like a Front Line or Ikari Warriors or Commando. . . there's a lot of them. This one's great because you pick up all sorts of different weapons that do a lot of damage. It too kicks your butt after a while though. One I stayed with a lot longer was Magical Drop III. This is a match-three puzzle game like Puzzle Bobble. The gems slowly move down on you and you can grab them and send them back to make matches that make them disappear (or disapperate, a word in Harry Potter that means the same thing, and which I think is funny). What's cool about this is the art style is lovely (you could call it "cute", I seem to be drawn to this art style) and you can choose from several characters to lead through a story mode. I kept going until the puzzle game got to me. I used the nunchuck exclusively. I used the analog stick to move side to side and the C and Z buttons to grab and release gems. It was weird just using my left hand to game. I liked Street Hoop. This game plays exactly like NBA Jam. Even the animations look similar. Then there was Wizard Fire. I called this the arcade Baldur's Gate Dark Alliance while I played it. It's super cool. You choose from four fantasy characters and button mash away. There's special moves for each character and it looks gorgeous in it's isometric point of view. But finally I'd had enough of arcade game BS. They are always so unfair because of the need to make you put more quarters in the machine. I always load up a bunch of continues, but the annoyance of dying to some rediculous thing you can't avoid gets to me after a while. 

So it was going to be a From Software game for the Game Cube, Lost Kingdoms, I was to play next, but I didn't realize I should have a Game Cube memory card as well as the controller. You can't save to the hard drive on the Wii apparently for Game Cube games. I put that aside for next week when I can get my memory card. 

Then back to Xbox 360 and Angry Birds Star Wars. I finished Cloud City and was in the Bounty Hunter missions when I got a bit tired of it. Plus I saw Mark was playing Ticket to Ride, so I had to join in. 

Ticket to Ride is a board game conversion to video game where you are a Railroad Tycoon trying to build the largest railway on the map. There are cards and train pieces and it's all very fun. I kept the game open, set a beacon, and even did a friend request to someone who jumped in randomly months ago, but no one joined us. Two player is cool, but more is even better. Mark usually beats me in this game, but I think we split 50/50 this time. 

That being done I started up Secret of Monkey Island S.E. again. I really got annoyed with it. I was trying to drug the Parahna Poodles. I couldn't find a way to put poison on a piece of meat. So I started doing some of the other quests, but didn't get far since the Poodles are key to several of them. I finally used the hint button and it told me to ask someone for work. I said to myself, "what?" It just seemed so out of left field and that's what really annoys me about puzzle adventure games sometimes. If you have to do bizarre things to get to the answer, I kind of feel it's all sort of random. I didn't want to just try any old thing, I wanted to keep to the story and do things that made sense to me. Well, I'd had enough of esoteric clues to simple problems. Time for football anyway. 

Eagles vs. Giants today. Eagles beat them badly but what an ugly and bizzare game. So many strange mistakes on both sides. I thought it was becoming a circus or a field of unprepared High School teams. But my team won, so nothing to complain about in the end. 

I spent just a few minutes with Secret Monkey Island 2. It's even more graphically improved than the first game and you can move a little more freely around the environments. I was liking it a lot and think I might get deeper into this one next week. 

Finally I booted up The Maw just to log the Midnight Feast part of that one achievement where you have to play the game at six different meal times of the day. Mark got the achievement but he's up at the crack of dawn every day to get the Breakfast and Brunch ones. I'm up at the crack of noon or 11am everyday, so it'll take some unusual day for me to be at his place in the early morning. It'll happen eventually though, I'm sure and I'll have a 100 percent completion of the game. 

See ya! It's 2006 this week, so I'm off to research it for my music playlist.