Re: Christmas day, Want, Bin

Lister <fache@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

PLAY

Canis Canem Edit (PS2) - pretty good, though it's certainly more of a
GTA: The Early Years than I'd expected, even if it is all catapults
and stink bombs and snowball fights. I don't like the rather clumsy
way they bolted on the Shenmue-style forced day/night routine, the
days seem much shorter than in Shenmue and it can get frustrating at
times, especially given that you're *supposed* to be attending lessons
(at least for a while) in addition to playing the game proper. It's a
nice touch that the actual lessons are boring optional minigames,
which sounds about right. :-)

Generally it is a bit too GTA-does-Shenmue-in-school and suffers
compared to both, and the missions are overly fond of being either
protracted multi-section beat-em-ups (the last mission in chapter 2
springs to mind as one of the worst examples so far) or slightly
tedious pranks reminiscent of THUG2 on a bad day, but it still manages
to be fun despite all that.

Resident Evil 4 (PS2) - finished this off before Christmas. After I
got the CT (for bosses) I thought I'd try a maxed-out TMP, as I've
never really bothered with those in the main game. It's much too weak,
and you don't get enough ammo to use it much, but it made a change
from my predictable Red9/shotgun/rifle approach. :-)

SSX On Tour (GC) - just a very quick go on this so far, in Quick Play;
I was surprised to see Mario/Luigi/Peach immediately available there.
After all the negative comments I've read about this one, so far this
looks better than I'd expected. Even the weird idea of ubers (or
whatever they're called now) being on the C-stick isn't a problem for
long. It's a shame you can't change the button used for a "reset" like
you can in SSX3 though.

WANT

To have a go at Ico (PS2) and (if I can face those pesky spiders
again) Resident Evil 3 (DC). But I think I'll leave those at least
until I've got through CCE, and possibly SSX OT.

Yakuza (PS2) to arrive - Game in reasonable-online-price shock (£10) -
but I really don't know when I'll play it. In some ways it sounds
similar to CCE, so I expect I'll tackle most of the other games I've
got pending first. Given the way the price has been plummeting
recently, this'll probably be going for a fiver by the time I get
around to it. :-)

BIN

Some annoyances in CCE:

- Frustrating stealth bits, which are pretty basic but make you repeat
them from scratch if you screw up.

- Frequent, fairly long loading delays when you enter/exit buildings
or even rooms. It tends to hammer the disc pretty hard the rest of
the time too.

- Heavy distance blurring, which is really off-putting when you're
outside. The kid clearly needs glasses or something.

- A couple of really bizarrely tough lesson minigames (given how easy
the others are). Shop in particular, and also the later levels of
English.

- You can save photos when you unlock the camera, but it only ever
lets you view them in small, dark, horizontally-squished form on the
photo-album screen. They might as well not have bothered.

- Rather basic skateboarding. It does get you around faster which is
handy, and I know it isn't trying to be a Tony Hawk game or
anything, but it wouldn't have killed them to let you do a kickflip
or a grind once in a while.

- The fact that it features a stupid brute called Russell. :-)

An odd little inconsistency I spotted in GTA:SA. If you have maxed-out
health it's actually safer to jump off a building *without* a
parachute, as you'll always survive no matter how far you fall. If you
do have a parachute, you need a lot of height to be able to open it in
time, and if you don't open it you're dead.

-Rus.
.