I’ve captured a Wolf Rider (which I found much harder than I should have) and a scorpion (which was insultingly easy). I’ve also completed lots of side quests for an ogre named Drong; he is one hungry ogre and so far has eaten spider, “crazy” goblin and ice troll meat and now wants me to get some wyvern meat for him.
I’ve finally defeated Dugog the double headed ogre. I’ve also completed a few quests set by dwarves (including defeating/capturing an Orc Lord), collected some runes and investigated some of the other game features. My wolf has moved up a few levels, learnt some spells and combined runes to make some equipment. It is a nice touch that using runes isn’t “combat bejeweled”, but more like “classic bejeweled” (i.e. a single player random grid) - to learn spells you have to capture enemies and that is done in a puzzle mode (you are presented with a non-random grid and have to figure out how to clear the board).
Aargh! I’m stuck, I’m helping a dwarf get into his city (Dhun-kor), but I’ve got to battle a double-headed ogre (Dugog) first and so far I’m getting nowhere - he can do much more damage than I can. I think I’m going to have to go do some side quests and hope that I can find a nice weapon for sale somewhere.
I bought Puzzle Quest with the intention of playing this while away over Easter. Unfortunately the game arrived after the weekend, but it has sucked me in. It is a simple RPG where battles are won by playing a Bejeweled-like game and, since I like Bejeweled and Zookeeper, I’m not exactly surprised that I’m really enjoying it. The touch screen response is not perfect, but I’m currently happy to overlook its failings.
My character is a druid and has just joined the knights of Siria - I guess it will take a replay to find out what difference those choices really make.
The Christmas gift token from work bought Zelda on the DS and it is really good - fairly easy (the puzzle quotient isn’t exactly high) - but fun. The game makes excellent use of the stylus and it is the first DS game where I have genuinely enjoyed using the stylus for navigation.
I completed the game after a couple of weeks of regular play, although I’m all too aware that somehow I missed out on getting a fishing rod for Link.
Over the summer I played this a lot with the kids, and I really enjoyed it. Unfortunately I got stuck on the Pokémon League and it looked like I wasn’t going to get through without a lot of grindingtraining. Not so! Today I indulged in an old RPG trick and bought a 100 heal potions and 30 revives and got through by the skin of my teeth. Hopefully the remaining game will seem a little more fun.
At the end of the Pokémon League I had found (not caught) 148 Pokémon in the Sinnoh Pokédex, i.e. 2 are missing.
Recently I’ve mostly been playing Pokémon Diamond, so far I’ve got 8 gym badges and need to train up my Pokémon to get through the Pokémon league (and beat #1 in battles - so far he has 240+ hours racked up against my 40+). Progress hasn’t been helped by #2’s DS breaking and my letting him borrow mine until it comes back from the Nintendo Service Centre.
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 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.
I’m finally past Ice Lolly Land - the final stage fluctuation was a problem and then today second attempt I just did it; monkey ball is often like that, a stage appears impassable and suddenly everything clicks.
I’ve now unlocked four more lands Tempest Storm, Meteorite Mayhem, Big Bang Boom and Zero G Station - that makes ten lands in total so this may be near the end, but the last two lands are on a new map screen leaving plenty of room for more. We’ll just have to wait and see, Ice Lolly Land took so much time I’m not convinced I’ll end up finishing four more lands (too many other things).