The Clan of the Cave Bague

There are so many awesome games on the Wii, DS and VC at the moment, that it’s getting kinda difficult to decide what to play sometimes. Anyhoo, Paper Mario won through tonight and I’ve romped through Dry Dry Ruins and officially ended the chapter. So, Star Spirit GET!

Some of the dialogue in this area was just awesome, most notably Tutankhoopa. There’s just something funny about a game boss ending a little rant with “What’s wrong with you?” Anyway, hammer upgrade got, two levels advanced, and some wierd and wonderful spells given by the wierdo in Dry Dry Outpost.

But it’s not only Paper Mario – oh no. This weekend has seen the playing of the sublime Hotel Dusk on the DS (I just love the “Take on me” art style of this one) which will warrant its own posts once I’m more than five minutes in). Also on the go were Twilight Princes, Wario Ware Smooth Moves, Excite Truck, Eledeeds, and the awesome Resident Evil 4. I’ll get round to individual posts at some point.

Also news worthy is my non-gaming wife having an ACEBEST time with the fiendishly difficult Elite Beat Agents (Ouendan to you) on her shiny pink DS Lite. Non-gaming – sh,yeah

Woohooooo! That’s a noise I say a lot recently. Excite Truck is just a thing of beauty. And it’s very simple. Basically, you have a truck. And it goes very very fast. And you do stupidly high/far/fast jumps. And stunts. And crashes. And stuff. And you still win the race!

So far, I have bronze medals for the first four tracks, despite being unable to see the screen over the top of my grin. One of the best featurettes is that it will also play whatever MP3s you have on the Wii SD card as the soundtrack. For some reason, DragonForce works really really well.

The controls are similarly ace. You hold the Wii remote horizontally. And you steer with it. And you turn it upwards or downwards (alternatively, you can lean your whole body) to adjust your angle of flight (yes, really). And you can hold in or sellotape down the “go” button. And that’s about it. But it’s ACE.

Well, that’s that then! It has been a wonderful journey since 1997, with each subsequent release generating more excitement than the last, but it’s over now. Everything is tied up and explained. There’s room for, if not a sequel, a continuation. Let’s face it, with the richness of the world Ms Rowling has created, it would be a waste not to.

I’m not going to post any spoilers. Suffice to say, I have enjoyed my time with Mr Potter greatly, and if it turns out he hangs up his pointy hat and puts on his slippers for a well earned break, then that’s fine.

I think I must be getting old. This is a bleak, humourless and generally unpleasant movie with no redeeming features whatsoever. Which surprised me a lot, given the fantastic cast.

Essentially, it’s the story of a group of harrassed, bullied and generally timid guys who fall in with a court-martialled ex-squaddie freshly back from Iraq who is having difficulty adjusting to being a civilian. The main theme, if there actually is one, is the journey of one of the characters from a timid, gentle office worker into a smiling bloodthirsty killer with no conscience.

Is the movie trying to tell us that this is what modern society does to people? I beg to differ – that’s what movies like THIS does to people. The writer of this film has spent too long watching the news and not enough time out speaking to people. If the world really was as bleak a place as this film suggests there’d be no hope for any of us. Yeah, there’s a lot of people out there with no respect for human life, but they’re not in the majority yet.

This game is so bad I can’t even be bothered downloading the box art for this post. The 18 certificate should have told me all I needed to know, but I wasn’t prepared for the unpleasant, infantile and ugly morass awaiting me.

I have better things to do with my life than “play” crap like this.

This is beginning to get a little scary. Britain has expelled four Russian diplomats. Now Russia has expelled four British diplomats. That’s how it begins! But before long, there’s NIPPING! and SLAPPING! and CHINESE BURNS!

BBC NEWS | Politics | Russia expels four UK diplomats

Chapter Two. I’m currently rummaging about on the top of a mountain to get to dry dry desert and it’s inhabited by loads of orrible little things. They disguise themselves as pebbles and leap out at you when you don’t expect it. Trouble is, although they only have 2HP they have 2 defence which means the only attack I currently have which does much in the way of damage is a charged attack. This means each one gets two hits in before I can kill it and even if I defend perfectly each time, it’s pretty draining on the old resources. To add insult to injury, there’s a hammer upgrade tantalisingly out of reach right at the start of the level. Grrrrr.

You read it here first, folks.

Grilled Figs and Parma Ham with Balsamic Rocket Salad in Summer Recipes – Tesco.com

OH NOS! ZOMG! He will blow up the airy-o-plane using a DRAWING OF A BOMB!

And what’s a “TERROR BLUEPRINT” anyway? Is it a piece of paper with a REALLY SCARY FACE drawn on it?

EDIT: RedSmartie (the real one, not the fake Canadian loser) has kindly sent me a scanned image of a TERROR BLUEPRINT to share with you all.  Yes, that’s me (more years ago that I care to remember) looking all hairy and winsome and my favourite llamathing (knitted from real llamas, dontchaknow).

BBC NEWS | UK | Man jailed over terror blueprints

I forgot how little of this I’d actually played. Really just the short introductory dungeon. Anyhoo, I had a short go today and managed to EVENTUALLY get into the Goron city and beat the Goron Leader at sumo wrestling. I had a quick peak at the Goron Mines dungeon – just really a quick walk around the first room. I was very impressed by the heat effects in Wind Waker, well they’re even shinier here. I’ll probably have a better idea once I’ve actually played a bit of the dungeon.