‘Twas Brillig*

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.

It would seem Luke has got a lot further than me, so I’ve had another go and finished all the Excite mode races - unfortunately I only have two S grades, so no Super Excite mode yet. The game’s fun, but when it comes to racing games I’m still addicted to Project Gotham Rancing 2 (and the original for those moments I just have to race round Trafalgar Square).

Post swimming gaming with Thing 1 and Thing 2.

Yesterday I went into Game and they had banana blitz (for the wii) and touch ‘n’ roll (for the DS) going cheap so I had to have them. Controlling banana blitz is fairly straightforward since a motion sensing remote is kind of an obvious fit to a game where you have to tilt the world. Controlling the DS version is harder (but not impossible).

I’ve completed a couple of worlds in Banana Blitz - the end of world bosses are an annoying addition to the franchise. We also had some multiplayer fun, but it looks like I’m going to have to get some more remotes sometime soon.

#1 + #2 have discovered the joys of bomberman, and #1 keeps beating me. Hey, that’s not right! I’m supposed to be the good games player around here.

My first attempt at the gold circuits, now these are a lot harder. So far I’ve completed two. My main problem is boosting; boosting happens by pressing the d-pad and I have a strong urge to steer with the d-pad which means the trucks keep overheating.

Finished the bronze and silver tracks with mainly ‘B’ grades and one ‘S’ grade - so I’ll have to go back sometime.

Odd, this was £19.99 in gamestation and has had reasonable reviews. I’ve not had time to play it much, but it seems good. I want to use the D-pad to steer and not turn the remote - oh well, I’ll adjust.