Densha de Go!

I thought I’d do a short post about this series of games that I have been playing the past couple of weeks, the Densha de Go! series. For those that don’t know they are a series of train driving games, which originally appeared in the arcades in the mid nineties. The reason I started playing them recently is that my son is really interested in trains, and I remembered I had Densha de Go! 2 for the Dreamcast so I put it on for him and he absolutely loved it. The main problem with the game though was the language barrier and also that the regular Dreamcast controller seemed too complicated for my son.

This lead me to look for a proper controller, so that it would seem more like driving a train to him, and from my scouring of eBay I found that the PlayStation version was easier/cheaper to get a controller for, so I decided to get one, plus some of the PlayStation games. The games I got are Densha de Go!, Densha de Go! 2, Densha de Go! Professional and Densha de Go! Nagoya Railroad. The PlayStation games are much like the Dreamcast version, although obviously they look quite old fashioned with a fair bit of pop up and very rough textures. That said the game is still fun to play, once you know how. I found this tutorial on YouTube which was very useful indeed:

Very useful tutorial for Densha de Go!

The basic premise of the game is to go between stations, without breaking the speed limits but arriving on time and aligning the train correctly on the platform. This sounds pretty boring but it really is addictive and quite a bit harder than it sounds. The best games to start with out of the ones I have seem to be either Densha de Go! Professional or Nagoya Railroad, as both of these have a very useful map which shows upcoming speed limits, stations etc. On the first two games you have to memorise the route which is obviously much more difficult.

There are many other games in the series, and I’d like to maybe try Densha de Go! 3 for the PS2 once I have played the ones I have. There is a very useful forum which has information about the games and controllers, its well worth a look. I hope this has been useful to someone as its and interesting series, it would be nice if Taito would bring the iOS version to Europe, although I understand it would be a big job to translate.

Have a great 2012

This is just a brief post to say happy new year to everyone, I hope 2012 is great for you all. I’m hoping to have a good year and have a number of things I want to achieve, both professionally and for fun. I don’t have any particular resolutions, just the usual stuff like do more exercise, drink less wine etc. On the other hand I do want to make more effort to finish things, both in terms of video games and programming projects.

My wife is already planning to us to have a year of de-cluttering the house, so I’m a bit nervous about what will happen to my games collection, although I am planning to buy more digital content this year as space is a premium. I will hopefully add a new post later today about something I’ve been playing, but in the meantime Happy new year!

November Gaming

I haven’t updated this blog for a while so I thought I’d put something up about what I’ve been doing gaming wise recently. The most major thing is that I bought a 3DS when the price dropped in August, and generally I like it, although I haven’t bought any 3DS specific games yet, I’ve just been playing DS ones. On to what I’ve been playing though:

Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker (DS)

The week that Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker 2 was released in the UK, Tesco reduced the price of the first game to £4.99 online, so I picked it up to get a taste of the series. Essentially its a cross between a regular Dragon Quest game and Pokemon, in that you capture and train monsters, so that you can improve them, and therefore capture more impressive monsters. The game is surprisingly good fun, even if its probably aimed at younger players, the 3D world of Dragon Quest is brightly coloured and the presentation is what you would expect of a Dragon Quest game.

Infinite Space (DS)

I won’t say much about this but its basically a tactical space game from Sega, which has anime style visuals. Kat Bailey from Roleplayers Realm has talked about it a number of times on the podcast, but if I’m totally honest I didn’t find it that interesting, which is surprising as I like tactical games and anime style space opera.

Halo Reach (Xbox 360)

If someone asked me about my favourite games then there would be little or no chance I’d mention the Halo series, but the fact is I have bought and played through them all apart from the first one. Reach has been sat on my shelf for a while and I fancied something fairly mindless so I cracked it open last week, and finished it a couple of nights ago. I enjoyed it, it was good fun and I imagine I might play the fire fight mode every now and then, but if you don’t like Halo then it won’t convert you.

Do-Don-Pachi Resurrection (Xbox 360)

This game was recently released in the UK by Rising Star Games in Europe, and its the latest title in Caves DonPachi series. In short its a fairly typical Cave shmup, with the crazyness turned up to 11. There is an awful lot going on at once, the graphics are great and the sound pounding, if you like this sort of game then you really need to pick it up. Its also worth noting that its apparently region free for North American users.

Tatsujin (Arcade)

Tatsujin or Truxton as its known in the west is an old classic Toaplan shooter. Its quite funny that I was playing this back to back with Do-Don-Pachi Resurrection and its amazing how two shooters can be so totally different. For a start everything feels fairly slow in Tatsujin, at least until you pick up all the speed ups, and there are few bullets on screen. That said it feels significantly more difficult, whereas in DDP the bullet patterns just spread across the screen in Tatsujin they really try to shoot you down with fast direct bullets. I like the game, although prefer the sequel, both are hard going for me, with their long stages, and restart points, but I guess that’s not surprising given Tatsujin translates to expert.

This next month I’ll try and start Xenoblade Chronicles, which has been sat on my shelf for a few weeks.

My new software development blog

I thought that it was finally time to do some blogging about what I have been doing development wise recently and as I had been pretty lax about posting content on my this blog, so I though I’d start a new one, level1developer.wordpress.com. This one new blog will be focused on information related to software development, whereas this one will continue to be about video games and other things I get up to. Hopefull I will get time to update both, we’ll just have to see how it goes.

DDP Resurrection, 3DS and Groove Coaster

This is just a short post as there has been some new about today so I thought I’d post a bit about it.

Rising Star Games New Titles

Rising Star announced 5 new titles today, which is great news as they seem to have an eye for niche but decent titles. Obviously the headliner for me is DoDonPachi Resurrection, which is coming to the 360 later this year. After the great job they did with Deathsmiles this should be well worth picking up. They are also releasing King of Fighters XIII for the PS3, plus for the DS Harvest Moon Grand Bizarre,  Rune Factory 3 and Cradle of Rome by the end of the year. Its great so see a company so passionate about releasing these games and I hope they are successful.

3DS Price Drop

All is not well for Nintendo as the 3DS sales have been lower than expected with reports that only 900k have been sold worldwide. To combat this Nintendo are knocking around 1/3rd off the RRP, which I seem to remember being around £220. The smart money would be on a new price of around £150, which is still a little rich for me, at £125 I would pick one up. I think Nintendo are a victim of the fact that people mainly play mobile games on their phones now, and the games are so cheap that it becomes a bit pointless having a dedicated handheld, especially with £40 games. Don’t get me wrong, I like proper controls rather than touch screens and good quality titles rather than clones or rip-offs of classic games, but I think the titles on IOS in particular are really improving these days. Nintendo really need to get some high profile quality titles out and soon, which I’m sure they plan to do, it will be interesting to see the situation at Christmas.

Groove Coaster Released on IOS

Today Taito released a game called Groove Coaster on IOS. This is from the team that brought you Space Invaders Infinity Gene, one of the best games available on the iPhone and it has a very similar look and feel, in fact the menu’s seem almost exactly the same. Whereas Infinity Gene was a shooter though Groove Coaster is a rhythm action game. The premise is really simple, a line is drawn on the screen with dots that appear at certain intervals. When your icon lands on the dot you tap the screen which makes noises in keeping with the music. The idea is to get chains of correct presses, much like you would in Guitar Hero or any other music game.

The concept is simple, as is that gameplay but what it does well is that its very stylish, the wireframe graphics look great and colourful, plus the music suits the game perfectly, think the kind of thing in Lumines or Rez. Being a Taito game though it also has some Zuntata tracks, so far I’ve seen some from Arkanoid DS and Space Invaders Extreme, plus a DLC track from Darius Burst. Its a great game and is currently only 69p which is a total steal, I think the full price is £1.99 which is still a bargain.

Its funny that this and the 3DS news were on the same day as my first thought on the 3DS news was that I would probably buy one, but then getting the train home and playing Groove Coaster I realised that I do like gaming on my iPhone now, and it is a viable gaming platform. With games like the Cave ones that were released, plus some of the Namco, Sega and even SquareEnix games its a real treasure trove. I really hope more people release games for it, I’d especially like to see Falcom release something on it, maybe a new Sorcerian.

5 Shmups I’d Like to Finish

Continuing on from my last post, here are the 5 shmups I’d like to finish. By finish I mean to 1CC (One Credit Clear) them, although the first loop in any of them would be good enough. Again I’ve only picked games I own.

1. Gradius 2 / Vulcan Venture

Gradius and I go a long way back, I spent a lot of time during the late eighties and early nineties playing it, and the various sequels. From the first time I saw Gradius 2 in a chip shop in Devon I wanted to spend time playing it. The graphical style, music, boss rushes, maoi heads and speed stages all add up to make a great game, but for some reason I’ve never really put any decent time into it. Part of this was probably because the only accessible home version before the Saturn / PS1 era was the PC-Engine Super-CD version, and I only had a cartridge machine at that time. Also by the time the Saturn version came out I was kind of out of the gaming scene, which continued for a few years.

I now have it on both the PS1 and PSP, plus obviously MAME so I feel its about time I went back to it and finally got through it, plus its not even supposed to be that difficult to finish.

2. Kyukyoku Tiger / Twin Cobra

Like Gradius I’ve been playing this game on and off for years. Back in the early nineties I used to play it at the arcades on holiday, and friends had the PC Engine version which I borrowed and put some time into. Now I have the PCB and its still a great game, although fairly difficult. I’ve played it a bit since I got it, but need to practice and memorise the stages to try and make it through the first loop.

3. Battle Bakraid

This was the first vertical shooter PCB I bought when I got my arcade machine, so its pretty sentimental to me, but its also an awesome game, even if the scoring is kind of odd/broken. I’m only looking to clear this in Normal mode, Advanced would be really tough and I’ve done training already which is a cake walk. In fact even Normal isn’t that tough, I can get to the final boss, I just need to practice that bit more to take him down.

4. Batsugun

The second of three Toaplan games in my list, Batsugun is great fun, with its crazy power ups and large amount of bullets, well for a Toaplan game anyway. Again this isn’t supposed to be that difficult so a bit of time with it should get me the 1CC, and if that’s done there is always the Special version with its 2nd loop to try.

5. Tatsujin Ou / Truxton 2

I had a hard time choosing between this and Out Zone, and its far more likely that I will finish Out Zone as I was making good progress with it last summer, whereas Truxton 2 is a brutally difficult game. It has such long stages, with a lot going on, plus seriously evil bosses, at this point I can only get halfway through the second  out of seven stages. Still I’d love to finish it one day as its a fantastic game.

There are many others that could be on this list, some may be surprised I have listed no Cave games. This is mainly because I’m a bit off them at the moment, preferring the older style games, although I would still love a DoDonPachi, Mushihimisama or Dangun Feveron board. I could probably have listed 3 different Toaplan games and still been pretty happy with the list but these are certainly the ones I’m most motivated to work on at the moment.

5 Games I’d Like to Finish

I was inspired by a podcast I was listening to the other day, Gamers Only Older, which is why I’m posting this. I quite like the podcast and regularly listen to it, its just about regular guys who play games even though they have restricted time. Its not as good as some of the others I listen to, 8-4 Play, Retronauts or Roleplayers Realm but its still worth a listen.

In episode 82 which I linked to they discussed the 5 games they all were determined to finish, which got me thinking about what my 5 would be. This is for my own reference really to remind me of what I should be spending my limited free time on rather than buying new games, plus I am cheating by having a separate 5 for Shmups which I will post at a later date, but its my blog so I can cheat if i want! I own all the games in question, it seemed unfair for me to include games I don’t own yet. Also by finishing I mean the main story/quest, not all the stupid side quests and DLC that many games contain.

1. Mass Effect 2

The reason for me being determined to finish this is that I enjoyed the first quite a lot. Unfortunately my copy of it is still sealed, on the shelf, so I have some way to go to finish it. I was going to try and complete Dragon Age first but I decided recently that I can’t be bothered, now I just need a decent block of time to start this.

2. A Dragon Quest Game

I was really late to Dragon Quest, I guess mainly as the games took some time to get to Europe, if I’m not mistaken the first one to make it to the UK was Dragon Quest 4 – The Chapters of the Chosen on the DS. That was also the first one I picked up and the closest I am to finishing, so that’s probably the one I should list. I have been playing IX too, which is great, but I believe its quite a long game so unlikely I’ll find the time to finish it. I’d also like to pick up V – The Hand of the Heavenly Bride if it wasn’t so rare and expensive, its near impossible to find a genuine copy on eBay.

3. A Final Fantasy Game

I have finished Final Fantasy games before, but there are 4 that I can think of that I feel I have unfinished business with:

III – This game isn’t regarded very well, its thought of as being a bit boring and not everyone likes the job system. I quite like it, although its been tough in places, but I’m well over halfway though so ought to continue with it

IV – I’ve started this about 3 times, and never got very far, but i keep hearing how great it is, plus I like the style of it so I need to play through it one day.

VI – This is a bit depressing for me as I got right near the end and then my PS1 memory card corrupted my save. I’d like to start again one day though as I really enjoyed it.

XIII – I’m on chapter 12 so I really ought to find the time to finish this off. In terms of time this would probably be the quickest to do so probably ought to be my choice.

4. An Ys game

I’m sure you can see a pattern here, firstly that all the games so far are RPGs and secondly that I’m so indecisive that I can’t even pin it down to one game in a series, which is probably why I never finish them. For Ys I’d just like to put in enough time to finish either Ys Chronicles or Oath in Felghana, both of which aren’t supposed to be that long. I did get near the end of Ys 1 on the PC Engine many years ago, and its possible to do it in under 6 hours so I really need to make some time to finish it.

5. Portal 2

As someone in middle management or marketing would say, this is ‘picking some low hanging fruit’, in that I’m pretty close to the end, plus its a short game anyway. It would be nice to finish though and I’ve had fun with it so far.

I’ll probably revisit this post at some point and see if i manage to get through any of them before the end of the year, which knowing me is unlikely.

Considering an iPad

This feels pretty dirty but I’m actually considering buying an iPad at the moment. I’m no massive Apple fan, but I do love my iPhone and even though i didn’t get the iPad at first, I thought it was just a big iPod Touch, I’m starting to get it now.

The thing is my laptop is due for replacement. Its over 4 years old now and is really beginning to struggle, in fact I recently bought an SSD for it in a bid to speed it up but for some reason it was incompatible with it and Windows 7. So this lead me to start thinking about a replacement, which in turn led me to think about how I would be using the new machine. When I got down to it though I discovered that really I only use the machine for browsing, listening to music, watching the odd video, and the occasional blog post. I have a number of other machines in my house that do other jobs and after thinking about it I just think that I don’t necessarily need a laptop, a tablet would probably suit me fine at home.

The other big driver for portability is I’m likely to lose my home office within the next couple of years, so the 17 inch plus desktop replacement i would normally buy seems pretty pointless, it won’t be very comfy sitting in the lounge with that on my lap. On the other hand something like an iPad would be perfect for this, plus cost wise its about half the sort of money I would spend on the laptop, leaving me some change to put towards a bike, or arcade PCBs or something.

I’m not totally decided yet though, and I need to clear out some stuff first, so watch my eBay as I’ll have some good games etc going up soon, but if i get one I’m sure I’ll post my thoughts here.

Wii 2/HD, Don’t Cross the Stream!

So there has been a lot of news recently about the possibility that Nintendo will announce a new console at E3 this year, so I thought I’d write down a few of my hopes for the system. These are all just fantasies, based on the rumours about it, but I thought it would be fun. That said if I am right about some of them I will gloat about it, plus if Nintendo, Sony or Microsoft want to hire me for my ideas then I’m game!

1. Physical Media

The first point is I hope it still used physical media. The rumours are that it will use a Blu-ray drive, which is fine by me. The reason I don’t want it to be download only are many but the main reasons are that I like physically owning the game, plus Sony has proved with PSN and the PSP Go, that if the service is download only they will do their best to shaft consumers on price. I’m sure you’ve all seen the new PSP games that were £35 on PSN but you could buy them from Amazon or Play on UMD for £18. I’m sure Nintendo would price things this way too, plus there very rarely seems so be any sales, just look at XBox Live where a handful of games go on sale each week, only for Gold users, and then the following week they are straight back the their original price.

2. Not having to use Physical Media

So this sounds like I’m going to say something contrary from above but I’m not. What I would really like is for you to only have to install a game once, and then not use the disc after that at, you could just play it off the HDD, which could contain your whole library of games.

Going one step further it would be nice if it worked like Steam, where you input a use once code that comes in the game box, which then ties the purchase to your account. If you ever buy a new Wii2, or a second one for your holiday house (I wish!) then you could just log on and re-download the game. This would stop the second hand market, which might upset some people, but I think the benefits outweigh the disadvantages.

3. Online Account

This ones pretty simple really, and ties in with the previous point, but this time there should be an online account for each user, like XBox Live I guess, so its easier to have friends lists, join online games, download content etc.

4. Stream to the Controller

The rumours go that the controller will have a HD touch screen on it, with some people saying its 6 inches or more. If that is the case I would like to see Nintendo do something more with it than just use if as a glorified DS touchscreen, I’d like them to be able to stream content to it.

Imagine if say the controller had Wi-Fi, and you could connect up to the Wii2 over the network to stream media then I think that would be quite useful. You could take the controller out with you and access say downloaded videos or photos stored on the console and stream them over the network.

Taking this idea a step further what would be really cool would be if you could stream the actual Wii2 games from your library, as mentioned above, in a On Live fashion. The work processing the game could be done on your actual console and the game then streamed to the controller, which would allow players to carry on their games in different rooms of the house, or even better out and about it they had Wi-Fi access. I’m sure everyone at some point has been playing a game when their mother/father/wife/husband takes control of the TV and tells you to go away, this could alleviate that problem.

5. Power, Start the Next Gen Now

I think this console needs to be powerful, and a significant jump over the 360 and PS3. Most people are perfectly happy with the current gen, apart from PC gamers who grumble about the consoles holding them back, but to me it does feel about time for the next gen to start. If Nintendo could release a powerful console then they might get more backing from western developers, which would help their software library, plus it would be good to see what else developers could do incorporating the touch screen and the motion sensing.

Others

Other than those I’d like Wii and GameCube backward compatibility, a continuation of the Virtual Console, plus being able to transfer all my purchases from the Wii to it, and I want it to be region free. Obviously I’m preparing to be disappointed with these, Nintendo love region locking, plus only releasing the bare minimum games as late as they can in Europe, so it will be locked. Transferring Virtual Console games won’t happen, or if it does it will involve having to phone some helpdesk and pleading your case.

Finally I don’t want to see anymore 50hz games on European consoles, in this day and age everyone worldwide should get the same content. Its a bit late on the day to complain about the Wii now but join this Facebook group to show your frustration, I’m sure the other 2 people will be pleased you joined!

Return of the Handheld Wars

 

So the PSP2 or NGP as its currently being called was announced today so the handheld console war will be heating up, what with the Nintendo 3DS due in March in the UK. You can read more about the PSP2 here, as I’m not going to cover it in detail, just give some of my thoughts on the upcoming battle.

Handhelds consoles have always been interesting, as depending on your lifestyle they will either be great for you or a total waste of time. If you’re young free and single, with your own pad, drive/walk to work, and don’t travel much then to be honest a handheld is a waste of time, whereas if you are a commuter or a child then they can be a great asset. From my own point of view I do quite a bit of handheld gaming, I spend a few hours of each week on a train, plus being old and married I do have a habit of sitting on the sofa in the evening playing a handheld so I can be (sort of) sociable with my wife, rather than retreating upstairs to play a console.

So why am I mentioning the usage? Well the reason why is because how these new machines will be used will effect how successful they’ll be. Its well documented that the Nintendo DS has been very popular worldwide, whereas the PSP has been very successful in Japan, but not so much in Europe and the US. I’ve written before about my love for the PSP, but it has struggled in Europe due to pricing, lack of software, crap PSN support, piracy and how it was marketed. I always found it so annoying to walk into a shop and find all the UMD games mixed up with the UMD movies, plus it always seemed to be at the back of stores like Game.

Its funny though that both the 3DS and NGP seem less portable than their previous generations, the 3DS has a 3 hour battery life and the NGP is even bigger than the PSP, but I think this is by design. The mobile phone makers have on the move gaming sewn up as everyone has a phone that can play games, and they are likely to have it with them all the time. I believe this has led both Nintendo and Sony to try and offer something different, hence the 3DS going with the 3D display and the NGP going for the bigger screen and powerful hardware. It makes both of these consoles ideal for the sort of gamer like myself, who plays while sat on the sofa at home, where short battery life and size isn’t an issue.

So which will I chose? At the moment I’m not that fussed about either, although I always love it when new hardware comes out and it feels like its been a long time. The 3DS for me is too pricy, as I predicted back in September, plus at the moment there aren’t any games that grab me. I’m not that interested in 3D and the whole region locking issue makes me not want to buy it on principle. I’d rather pick up another DS, like a DSI XL.

The NGP is a different proposition. It sounds great on paper, plus would suit the sort of gaming I do, but its not without issues. As I mentioned before the PSN support for the original PSP in the UK is dire compared to that of Japan, and I can’t see that changing, plus I wouldn’t bet against region locking/IP filtering. There aren’t any games announced that interest me yet either, I feel RPG’s/SRPGs and puzzle games work best on handhelds but all that’s been announced so far are remakes of PS3 games.

Finally I’m worried about the price. Sony are notorious for getting pricing wrong, and I can see them doing something crazy like pricing it against the iPad. If it is in the £300+ range then there is no way I would buy one, heck even the PS3 is still too pricy for me to pick up. We’ll have to wait and see though, knowing Sony if its planned for a Christmas release in Japan then we will probably won’t get it until September 2012!