I almost wrote weekly update, but I don’t want to commit to any sort of schedule. I played some great games this past week though, so I wanted to talk about them.

Finishing Metroid Prime 3 freed up some console time, but I couldn’t not go straight back to Twilight Princess which I had dropped. Just before the Wii online shutdown was announced, I was really looking forward to doing some fishing, and filling out my fish logbook and Hena’s aquarium. Oh, if I’d only known. Good guides were hard to come by but it didn’t take long at all to get all the commoner fish. I’d already slogged through the trial of Rollgoal to get the frog lure, and I wanted to use that to catch the Hylian Loach rather than resorting to the Sinking Lure. It was one of those situations where I just tried and tried, for over half an hour, then the next day had another go and knocked it over on my third try. Catching the Loach fry with the bobber was then really easy once I found out that they can be found reliably in the Kakariko Graveyard. So all in all it was pretty good, except for the initial long fight with that damn Loach.

Having then completed all the sidequest stuff except the Poes (got all the bugs, sword skills, inventory upgrades, etc) I entered the Cave of Ordeals. Got most of the way through then discovered I arbitrarily needed the Double Clawshot. Frustrating, they should let you attempt it with your skillz and not require the items. So I got on with the plot and went to the City in the Sky. Very cool dungeon, nowhere near the level of the Mansion in my personal esteem though. Having just played MP3, it really reminded me of Skytown, Elysia. Not just the floating city thing but the structure, the Spinner mechanisms, the inhabitants wandering around (in this case chicken people instead of clockwork robots). So yeah, now I have the Mirror of Twilight, I guess I’ll see what the Twilight Realm is like.

To my shock, I realised yesterday that I’d forgotten about Rayman for a couple of days. I guess since I reached the fourth level of Awesomeness, unlocking the Extreme Weekly Challenge (and thus having no content left to unlock) my interest dropped off a bit. It’s still awesomely fun, but by now I’ve identified the types of challeneges they set, and which ones I am super into and which ones are not as interesting. I feel I’ve gotten a great deal out of it, hopefully I can keep playing for a while.

Speaking of games I play continuously, I’m very very close to putting Rockman Xover down again. Almost all of my current rotation of cards are maxed out at level 50, and I’m still almost no closer to beating some bosses. They just introduced a new mechanic that would change the whole way you upgrade cards to get better, meaning a lot of wasted effort and more grinding needed. It’s a good excuse to stop, I think, although I may wait until World 7 is released first (probably won’t be able to beat it).

Also, Doodle God stopped being intuitive when I got a massive amount of elements. Now the only way to play is use a hint and try to do that. It’s valid, I think. I had a go with Tentacle Wars on iOS, it’s a variant of Galcon basically. It was addictive and very fun, until it started just getting too hard. Didn’t take me long to hit my ceiling, but I had to delete it after attempting a level multiple times and the result feeling random.

Speaking of iPhone games, just last night me and Everbloom discovered that (Australians take note) the Bureau of Statistics (ABS) had made a city-planning game that used actual census data. So you pick a postcode, then experience what it’s like to plan new buildings and stuff for the suburb based on the demographics and demand, which are pulled from actual population data. It’s a super-well made game. Like, extremely smooth and professional, looks fantastic. Can’t figure out who made it, if it was internally developed or contracted but man, a lot of companies could learn some lessons from this game. Also it’s fun, it’s educational, and it’s narrated by Shaun Micallef! And it’s free! Good stuff. Oh it’s called Run My Town.

Oh yeah and on the weekend I fired up the Super Nintendo that I’d brought up here. It’s exactly as I remember it, sometimes it just doesn’t start, you blow on the cartridge even though that probably does nothing, you hold it in while you turn it on, it takes a couple tries. I had a quick go with Nigel Mansell’s World Championship Racing, just as boring as ever. Checked my save file on DKC2 was still there, but I’d just played it on VC recently. Actually the first thing I did was went straight to Super BC Kid.

Super BC Kid (AKA Super PC Genjin or Super Bonk… seriously three franchise names for three regions? GAH) was the fourth in Hudson’s popular series that had started in the previous generation. Despite being a mascot for the PC Engine, the little caveman had quickly made the jump to cross-platform as well, appearing on the Famicom and Game Boy. This game was one of the several platformers we had, and I just remembered every level layout perfectly. They were a bit smaller than I remembered actually… My superior gaming skillz got me through much quicker than I ever did in childhood—this game has no save or password function. You have to complete it in one sitting. This marathon nature means we very rarely got to the end back then, either because of dying or parent-enforced stoppage. This time it took me about two hours to clock it, although I pretty much avoided all the bonus stages, as they were unnecessary and slowed down the game (I find this a frequent thing in older games, such as all the Mario ones and DKC1).

I had a blast, the nostalgia and wackiness, the old muscle memory, even some bits I would exclaim “I don’t remember this!”. The second-last boss gave me a particularly bad time, had lots of trouble there. The final one is also an appropriately gruelling test of skill, but didn’t feel as unfair as the second-last. I got through the final platforming challenge super-easily though, with spikes emerging from walls you have to climb, which as a child was very frustration-inducing. It was a great time. The setpieces and settings were really bizarre and entertaining, the type of thing that children just accept but adults go “what??”. So that was cool.

Oh yeah and N was updated after a lot of work to version 2.0 by Metanet Software. During Uni I got a ton of mileage out of that game. The player doesn’t work on my current computer as it’s PPC only and now Macs are all Intel, so I played a fair bit of that. So good, pure platforming and so hard but so satisfying. Yesterday after realising I’d been trying the same level for half an hour, I had to quit though. My hands had all cramped up. Can’t wait for N++ to come out so I can buy it and support those guys. I really enjoy those kinds of games: I got all the way through I Wanna Be The Guy (to my shame, I never beat the Guy), I loved Super Meat Boy except that it kept crashing on my computer, so then I loved Meat Boy until I found my save deleted. Rayman Origins hits that same feel sometimes too, which is great because up til then it was something more indie developers did. Mario is certainly nothing like it (stupid Mario).

Well I think that’s it for now. Hopefully I can wrap up Twilight Princess in the next couple of weeks, and I can get started properly on Spirit Tracks. More Rayman, start Yoshi’s Island on my old SNES, more Run My Town. That’s my plan, we’ll see how that goes. Got a friend hopefully visiting this weekend, I’m planning on a Nintendo Land sesh like I did with my bro. Ok, tata.