‘Twas Brillig*

I haven’t mentioned what I’m playing recently, mainly because it’s all been a bit too obsessive. The main obsession is More Brain Training, but Civ fever has also reasserted itself.

I know I’m doing it wrong, but on the brain training front I’ve been switching on and doing a training task just to play Germ Buster (a stylus controlled version of Dr Mario). I’ve basically finished germ buster on hard - a point is reached where the pills are coming down so fast it seems pointless trying to control them. Now that’s over with I may get back to playing it more normally. The new training games in this version are pretty good, but I wish someone had thought about supplying different high score tables/graphs for the different modes with easy and hard modes - my graph for missing symbols looks ridiculous.

Civ is an odd experience, I love playing the game and can lose hours to it, but I am rubbish. I’ve yet to win a game, consistently coming second and being rated as having the leadership ability of Dan Quayle.

In the last few days I’ve started playing Stranger’s Wrath, a game that’s been in the “to play” pile for nearly two years. Gameplay wise it seems quite good, but I’m not convinced it will hold my attention for too long. What I really want is a good RPG.

Pokémon Diamond is going to be the game of choice on holiday; the eldest two are very excited about this, but I’ve never played any pokémon before - I helped one of them through parts of mystery dungeon, but that’s not the same. I’ve read some good reviews and this may provide my RPG fix - what I really would like is a DS equivalent of Baldur’s Gate, but I haven’t seen anything that fits the bill.

I’m not making much progress at ‘S’ grades in Super Excite mode so I’ve done a few of the challenges - I’ve got one ‘S’ in the gates, one in rings and two in crush (crush is pitifully easy), I’ve only got ‘B’ grades in the remaining challenges.

Amazingly fast super saver delivery from Amazon (ordered Friday, delivered Saturday and I thought there was a postal strike). So far it’s fun, but #1 is much better than me. I’ve had one try at online play (friends code 133249-209549) and, in a three match series, I won one game and lost two.

I spent an evening unlocking races in Super Excite Mode and got to the credits - the new Diamond level is weird and I found it much harder than it looks although there is a power up half way round which helps get through a good short cut. I now have to get all ‘S’ ranks (so far I only have two) to unlock Mirror Mode.

The picture quality is not too great - I’m sure this (the phone I really want) would have been better.

Super Excite Mode - got!

Platinum Canada is all about Tree Runs and Drifts - I got a new record for the longest drift.

I’ve got all the gold ‘S’ grades and all but one of the platinums - there’s just Canada to go and when I last did I only just scraped the 120 stars needed for a ‘B’.

All the silver ‘S’ grades - Check

It wasn’t too difficult - apart from one race (step forward Finland) where, for what seemed like an eternity, I needed 3 more stars.

I’ve got all ‘S’ grades on bronze. The game knows I’ve completed all the races and has upped the target stars to the ‘S’ level which at least means I know how good I need to be to unlock Super Excite. I think I’ve finally got the hang of turbo jumping so my points are stacking up (lots of air and ring stars).

I haven’t written that much recently. So just what is the current state of play? The lure of overtime temporarily KO’d a lot of my gaming activities, but I’ve been playing Civ IV, Dancing Stage Mario Mix (what curtains were invented for!), Resident Evil 4 and I’ve just picked up a copy of More Brain Training (apparently my Brain Age is a disappointing 42 ). Plus the perennial Wario ware and Mario Party sessions with the kids.