Category Archives: Platforms

Odds and Ends

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Some other miscellaneous little bits that I only spent a little time on and aren’t worth their own article:

My copy of Fable 2 should arrive on Monday. Amazon.ca actually managed to ship a preorder on time for once, so maybe they’re not completely hopeless after all. Hopefully they’ll keep it up when they ship Fallout 3 next week, too. Normally I wouldn’t bother with preorders, but I wanted to make sure I got the collector’s editions of these two.

The STCC (Swedish Touring Car Championship) game popped up on my Steam list unexpectedly. I’d forgotten that they were going to give it for free to people who’d preordered GTR Evolution because of some pricing mixup. The tracks in it look rather average, but it’s still nice to have some more, and there’s a few new car types too, including a Camaro cup. I just wish I had more time to practice, or I’ll never really get any good at these driving sims.

The PC version of Bully: Scholarship Edition suddenly arrived on Steam as well (its existence was only rumoured), and I figured I may as well give it a try. I never even got around to starting the PS2 version, and this edition adds a handful of new stuff. Setting up the controls is a bit awkward, though: you can’t use the keyboard/mouse and 360 controller simultaneously, switching between them is unintuitive, there’s no mouse control in menus, and there are some weird choices in the default controls like an insanely sluggish camera and using Left-Alt for the yes/confirm key. Otherwise though, the controls should work just like the 360 version, and it looks okay, aside from the occasional low-res texture and blocky model. It’ll have to wait until I’m finished the GTAs before I actually start it though.

I tried the Motorstorm: Pacific Rift demo, but it didn’t really impress me that much. It’s okay, but I’ve still got other games to play for that kind of fast, crazy racing action (Flatout, Burnout Paradise, potentially Midnight Club LA).

And oh dear, there are still plenty of promising games to come. I’m still tempted by Far Cry 2, Saints Row 2, Dead Space, X3: Terran Conflict, Guitar Hero: World Tour…

But I Don’t See Crockett Anywhere

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I wasn’t sure if I wanted to take a break with a different game or not (besides Disgaea 3 that is), but tonight I decided to just charge ahead and started up Grand Theft Auto: Vice City. Already I can see the differences, besides the setting of course: there’s a full overview map with things like the gun store and pay-n-spray labeled, there are all sorts of new types of cars and bikes, the protagonist talks this time, and there are buildings that I can buy (eventually).

The plot kicked off with a botched drug deal, so I now have to recover my reputation and get the stolen drugs and money back. For now though, I figured I’d do some of the side stuff first. The ambulance mission is allegedly a lot easier this time around since it doesn’t roll as easily and you can get people clustered on the beach where they’re easier to reach. After a good half-dozen attempts, I gave up for the night though, hitting level 5 (of 12) at best. I still roll the ambulance too often, especially on the beach where the bumps in the terrain aren’t as obvious. I’ll try again some other time, taking things a bit more slowly.

And I still haven’t even picked up a weapon yet…

Critical Hit On The Cuticle

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I also briefly popped into Disgaea 3 tonight, just long enough to finish off the last two battles in Chapter 1. The last one was a bit odd; we fought the overlord’s hand, since he himself is too big to fit on the screen, so I had to kill off each finger one by one.

And then they all regenerated anyway, making it clear that taking down the overlord isn’t going to be that easy… The hero also admitted that he wasn’t really a hero, he just liked to call himself one, but he’s slowly turning into a demon now.

I’m still not sure how to create new characters, since there’s some classes I don’t have yet, but that might not open up until later on.

One Man Army

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I finished off that GTA3 mission I was stuck on, and it was easier with the tank, but it still took a number of tries as I kept getting hit with bad luck. The first time I almost made it all the way back to the drop-off point, except I slowed down for one tight corner and a police officer out of nowhere ran up and busted me. The second time, I hit a bump on the airport tarmac that was difficult to see in the dark and flipped the tank over. I got it on the third try though, after taking it a bit more carefully.

Then it was on to the final mission. I “failed” the first attempt, since my bulletproof Patriot got blown up and I wanted to keep it, so I restarted it and beat it on the second try. It was just a slog through a whole bunch of Colombians guarding the dam area, and the sniper rifle and rocket launcher let me pick them off without too much danger.

So that’s one GTA down, and just three more to go. Technically there’s still more to do in GTA3, but as I said I’m not going for 100% completion, and there are others to play. I might even have to skip one just to fit them all in, though I’m not sure which one I’d cut yet…

Rocket Launchers And Boats Don’t Mix

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It was back to missions in GTA3 today, and I started working on the ones based on the third island (though most of them actually start on the second). I finished off Donald Love’s missions, after which he mysteriously disappeared, and went back to Asuka’s again. Hers should be the last bits of the storyline, though I still have some optional gang jobs to complete, if I want.

I found the import garage on the third island, and managed to round up all of the cars for it fairly quickly since most of them were fairly common ones. I also happened to run across the rare ice cream truck I needed for the first import mission, and hurried it and the plane back to Portland to finish that one off as well. It was a bit odd “driving” the plane through the city streets…

And for now I’m a bit stuck on the second-last storyline mission, where I have to blow up a plane as it’s landing at the airport. I know what to do and can set it up with no problems, but I always seem to hit a bit of bad luck with something, either missing the plane, getting blown up on the boat, inadvertently raising the wanted level a bit too far and getting run over by the army, falling into the water as I’m trying to get out of the boat, failing to find a good car to hijack to return to the end point… It’s just a matter of trying, but I ran out of time tonight. Maybe I’ll try it with the tank instead, if I can get it over there quickly enough.

Aw, I Thought I Was Done With School

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I also finally started Disgaea 3 in earnest today. I’ve been hesitant to start PS3 games since I still don’t have a proper TV for it, but in this case the graphics are only on par with a PS2 anyway…

It’s much like the first two games, except now it’s in an (evil) school setting, though things are still roughly analogous. Instead of the senate, you have homeroom, etc. The plot involves Mao, the main character, trying to do well at school instead of slacking off like demons are supposed to so that he can gain the power of a hero and defeat his father the Overlord, because that’s what he saw in a comic book. Or something. The plot doesn’t really matter here; it’s just an excuse to set up the series of battles.

I did the tutorials in case there was anything new, and there are a few things: you can now lift and throw things like crates on the battlefield, and there are geoblocks instead of geoprisms, though the behaviour is similar so far. There’s also a new ‘magichange’ ability which turns ally monsters into weapons that humans can use, so monsters might actually be useful this time. (Well, they were before, but mainly for exploiting the leveling system…)

Skills are a bit different in that they’re bought and improved with mana points rather than gained through leveling, and you can also buy ‘evility’ abilities that provide various effects. There’s a classroom where you can adjust the seating plan, and where you put your allies affects the chances of team attacks and (apparently) the ability to learn skills from each other. There are also clubs where you can put your allies into different groups, giving them some more bonuses (kind of like the old mentor system, but less hierarchical).

Back in the missions, I captured a hero (though he wasn’t much of one), stole his title, and made him my slave. Mao then revealed that he’s out to defeat his father because…he smashed Mao’s video game that he had a 4 million hour save file on.

The Army Won’t Miss Just One

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I didn’t do many more missions in GTA3 today, but it was a worthwhile session nonetheless. I got the rest of the hidden packages, giving me nearly all of the weapons at my hideout (except the flamethrower). I helped the crooked cop escape to the airport, which got me a bulletproof Hummer-like truck as a reward. And I found a ‘toy van’ mission, where you send out little RC cars to blow up gang cars, though it was more just for fun than any actual reward.

But best of all, I finally got my hands on a tank. I followed the suggestions in a guide and stirred up trouble in a parking garage near a pay-n-spray, so I could ditch the police as soon as the tanks showed up, and could then hijack one at my leisure. It took a good half-dozen tries though, just due to various little spots of bad luck. I then repeated it but stayed at five stars to get an FBI car, turned both of them in at the crane at the docks, and that completed the emergency vehicles mission. I can now go over there and pick up a tank whenever I want.

I’m sure I’ll find uses for them…

I Gotta Get Me One Of Those Flying Cars

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Getting back to GTA3, I finished off most of the quests on Staunton Island. Only most because there’s one that’s fairly tough, so I’ll take another crack at it later. I wasn’t sent fleeing this time, at least.

Most of the missions weren’t all that notable except for the final one that unlocked the next island, where I had to pick up packages dropped by a plane. Picking them up got me a five-star rating, and I was bumped around like a ping pong ball by FBI cars while trying to get to the spray-n-pay. In one amusing moment, I was slowing down to turn in to where the spray-n-pay is, only to have two FBI cars come flying out of the alleyway and right over me.

Now that the next island is unlocked I can go get the rest of the hidden packages next, but that’ll be another day.

Damn Spammers

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I finished off Darwinia this morning, and it didn’t take as long as expected, though I did know that the Escort mission was going to be short. The remaining enemies were no threat, and although I only had to save 100 Darwinians, I wound up with 505 at the end.

The Temple level was then the final one, where I had to destroy boxes representing the spam emails that had the virus that corrupted the system in the first place. They complicated matters by sending out tendrils that would respawn enemies even on other islands, so that no area was completely safe.

But, it actually turned out to be a fairly easy level. The boxes were all fairly close to beam drop-off points, so I just rushed in some squads and dropped airstrike markers by the boxes, which were enough to destroy them. Presto, level completed in no time. I still went ahead and mopped up the remaining enemies scattered all over the place though, just to make it less anticlimactic.

And so ends Darwinia. Despite the rather easy win, it was still an interesting game in that every level introduced something new and unexpected, so it was never really boring. Beating it unlocked a level editor, but I don’t really have time to fiddle with it.

Purge The Red Heretics

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Tonight I finished off two more levels in Darwinia. In Pattern Buffer, I encountered evil red Darwinians for the first time, and I was not prepared for them as they flooded out of portals in waves. I hadn’t used Armor much in the previous levels, but it was essential here for keeping the red ones away from my spawning areas and mission objectives (they’d try to take back stations that I parked my own green Darwinians at).

And in the Biosphere level I had to take over a whole bunch of Darwinian generators, which started off under the control of the red ones. Armor proved useful here too, but the Darwinians themselves were also key to controlling areas. The generators were on a bunch of different islands, so I’d have to clear out a generator or two with some squads to establish a beachhead, park some Armor near them to keep the other red ones on the island from taking them back, take control of the generators with green ones, generate a bunch of other green ones, and then use squads to cover them as I swarmed the rest of the generators on the island.

I also started the Escort mission, but didn’t have time to finish it. It doesn’t look too tough, though; it’s just a bunch of clearing out, and the only annoying part was a bunch of hard-to-reach seed launchers. I snuck around and eliminated those, and the rest will be trivial. (I suspect that I wasn’t really meant to take out the launchers, so that I would have had to escort the Darwinians through the level while still fending off enemies spawned by the seeds.)

After that I think there’s only one level left, Temple.