The Clan of the Cave Bague

“That movie was brilliant.” Coming from Tristan, that’s high praise indeed. Normally a question like ‘did you enjoy that’ will illicit a response of ‘yeah’, if you’re lucky. Unprompted praise is a rare thing indeed.

Then again, Appleseed is pretty special. Not the best Manga in the world, but certainly a damn sight better than most western efforts. At one point, it even produced a gasp of excitement from his nibs, an unprecedented event.

Essentially, Appleseed is techpunk at its most obvious. There’s not a lot of subtlety there, but there’s certainly a lot of explosions, giant mechs, martial arts, gun battles and tears. The holo-recording sequence alone puts it way ahead of the field in the emotion stakes.

It looks like our oldest boy is going to enjoy manga – and the good news is, there’s a helluva lot of it out there.

Well, according to the save screen, I’ve clocked 7 hours 50 minutes on this infuriatingly wierd yet strangely ACE game. I’ve finally managed to gub the big serpenty thing on the top of the forest, way above the annoyingly fluid ’seasons’ forest puzzle. So, I’m, er, back where I started.

I’ve learned that the only way to progress through the game is to spend a lot of time training everyone up on every single item you find. Trouble is, the items wear down in combat and there doesn’t seem to be any way of getting new items other than from chests on the field – I’m missing my item shop.

It is a truly lovely looking game though, especially on my tiny little GBA Micro

Complet0rised! The last day in court seems to have been pretty much real time – it took hours. The story was coming so thick and fast, though, that I was carried onwards with the momentum, meaning the last half of the day was done in one sitting.

I think I got the ‘glum’ ending because I presented the wrong bit of evidence to Edgeworth out in the lobby. Not to worry though. It’s still an ACE game and one of the best I’ve played this year – definitely up there beside Resident Evil 4.

Trouble is, I want a sequel NOW!

Gaaah! Just when I think I’m getting somewhere, the defendant goes and opens her big flappy gob. Just finished day two of the trial – just got one more investigation and one more day in court to go….

My head is hurting with the complexities of the case. I really really wish the developers had given us a notebook.

Right – that’s the end of the second day of investigation. As well as being able to do luminol testing for bloodstains, I can also dust for prints using the touchscreen and blow away the extra powder by….. blowing on the DS. What an ACE console it is So, I have some pretty decisive evidence now, but I’ve no idea how to apply it – the case(s) have become horribly complicated.

Phew! End of day one reached and I’m off investigating again. Spent most of the court session completely floundering. I had a fair idea of what may have happened, but was having problems backing up my suspicions with the available evidence. Took a couple of chances with fairly oblique connections and they seem to have paid off.

Everything has become very very complicated.

Spent a good few hours on the first day in court of trial five. And it’s only just got to lunchtime recess. It has more twists and turns than a twisty-turny thing. The mad lunchbox lady seems to have a never ending supply of ‘conclusive’ evidence that she pops up with every time I think I’m getting somewhere.

Gaaaaaah.

Been having some ‘quick dip in’ sessions over the past couple of days.

Riviera (GBA) – played just long enough to reach an end-of-zone boss and get really hacked off cos I didn’t have any decent weapons and there’s no way of getting any.

Metal Slug (GBA) – it’s rock hard but ACEBEST. Still haven’t made much progress in it cos it takes a long time to get into the zone.

Meteos (DS) – my BRANE is BLEEDING.

Mario & Luigi (DS) – still in shrinkwrap

Pac Pix – harrumph. Still can’t do chapter five. I was moaning about it to Debbie last night and she had a go and promptly aced the level. Not pleased.

Final Fantasy VI (PS1) – I seem to have adopted the Gau the Idiot Boy and moved onto the final of the three ’scenarios’.

King Kong (xbox) – Mehh.

Yu-Gi-Oh (DS) – special mention to this one because, after my brief dip in, it’s likely this one will occupy quite a bit of time after Phoenix Wright. It’s very very complicated – in fact I seem to be almost supernaturally incapable of retaining any of the information contained in the manual. The game itself, though, boils down to arithmetic and it seems to be fun.

Well, the Stalk Market has been going pretty well today! I bought a hundred or so turnips at 106 bells each on christmas today. Imagine my glee to discover that Nook the Crook was buying for 848 bells this morning. So, mortgage one paid off, and a wad of currency to buy more turnips with on Sunday

Quite possibly the best game ever. As I’m off on holiday for a whole two weeks, I’m taking the opportunity to play some non-handheld games that I’ve had a hankering to replay for ages. This was the first Zelda game to appear in 3D and was pretty ground breaking at the time. Even now, thanks to the hideous blurriness of the N64’s composite output, it still looks lovely (because of the hard edges being smoothed out by noise).

So, just at the start – I’ve trawled around the village doing all the tutorial bits, and completed the beginners dungeon at the Deku tree. So, I’ve now dawndered across Hyrule Field and am safely esconced in Hyrule Castle Village, ready for the next bit of excitement to begin. FAB!