Meaty Week
January 29, 2007
Current mood : Sick of standing
All is calm in my little oasis of life. All bar these muffled sounds of Halflife 2 and some garbage television show I can hear through my headphones. Umm yeah the last week and a half has been a great week. Lets go from the top eh? Last Friday Chris and myself went to lunch and the movies with my friend Alysha, whom we hadn’t seen for a while. We saw a movie that Chris and I have wanted to watch since we saw the trailer before Casino Royale, that is The Pursuit of Happyness. The movie was a tad disappointing as we’d already seen so much of it previously. Alysha also seemed too preoccupied/uninterested which was a real pity. We should have seen it with John instead. Oh well. 
I rang Matt on the Friday about this Australia day BBQ that we’d been planning for a while, I also sent out a few TXT messages about it. Turns out Alex was planning on having a BBQ on the same day. Which really bugged me as I’d been telling a few weeks before that we were planning to have a BBQ on Australia day. He invited me to his which was a small compensation. Had the rellies over for tea to celebrate Chris and myself getting into Uni. Unfortunately earlier that day my Great Grandma had a stroke and was in hospital. She is currently fine though.
Uhhh…had some work both days of the weekend, on the Monday I went to Matts to figure out the BBQ dilemma. We had a good yarn about it and everything was organized. When I got home I called some people and got them to tag along. Things were actually starting to work out. I also managed to get this BBQ conflict sorted out, Alex told me that he wanted to have his at night time(which I found out later was a lie), therefore he could come to our BBQ and still have his. Great.
The following day Mel came around, we were gonna go out and grab a meal but I figured it was too much effort for such a little outcome. So we went down to the shops and nabbed some chips instead. Man, we must have spent almost the whole day just talking about stuff. Geeze.
Spent the next 2 days writing a review for Yoshi’s Touch and Go as well as majorly whoring out Age of Empires 2. Man, nevermind how old the game is, it so owns. I could just waste the rest of my life on that game. Played like 6hrs straight against Chris, we would have kept playing if he didn’t need to go to work.
On Friday we went to Matt’s place for the BBQ. Everything that we’d planned worked out really nicely. Everyone could come and they suprisingly contributed plenty of food an drink. Infact we had to give back some of the meat.
Chris, John and myself went there an hour early to set up. Fortunately Matt had been doing that before we got there so it only took us 15 minutes. At around about 11am other people started rocking up. At around about 12am we started up the BBQ. Everyone had brought piles of meat, so we cooked most of that. Man we threw so much meat on the BBQ. Phew! Matt and I took either plate of the BBQ.
Matt and I don’t really have ample experience with BBQing, but we managed to cook the meats to perfect timing. We had a good variety of meat as well; Sausages, Honey Sausages, Steak and Kebabs. I was mega proud of our efforts. Unfortunately not everyone was uber keen on eating piles of meat, so we still had a good selection of meat after lunch. I had 2 sausages, a steak, a kebab and salad for lunch. And it tasted lovely.
After lunch we had a few pool/dart games going, people chatting, Matt brought out his guitar and showed that off a little. I also took a few snapshots here and there. I would have spent the whole afternoon eating meat but I was buggered after a beer and that tasty lunch.
Around 4/5ish(I forget now) Mel and Alex had to leave to set up for Alex’s BBQ. After that everyone else slowly started to leave. From there on it was only Myself, Matt, Chris and Andrew left. We played some pool for a few hours, we played the game where you pull a random ball number out of a hat and then everyone shoots balls until you knock someones ball out and they are then out of the game. Last one standing wins. That was great fun.
We also sat around and cleard off the rest of the drinks and chips. We stayed for tea and heated up some of the meat. They had some Futurama on TV so we watched that over tea. When it got late we went inside and Matt showed us some movie trailers and funny pictures. We left and dropped Andrew off home at around 10:15.
All in all it was a great day, we stayed at Matts for over 12hrs, phew. We managed to finish all of the meat and supplies bar a packet of chips. Nice.
Me, Matt and Mel..3 ‘m’s
Only got a couple of hrs sleep that night due. In the morning I had work for 4hrs, yay a weeks work! We had a percentage off thing going for one day only, 15% off all electrical and 30% off everything else. So it was mega busy, made even worse by the common disappearancs of the other elec. staff member. I spose its not too bad, shes a bitch and I’d rather have a huge line up of angry people than work with her. Its like that all the time anyways. At the end of my shift I had a lady waiting for advice on phones, she wanted to speak only to me as she thought that I was the best for it. I reckon that I’ve helped her before. Anyways I stayed back 10 minutes to help her out, she seemed very appreciative. The things I do for customers. 
When I got home I mowed the lawns, went on the net a bit(hadn’t been on for 3 days) and slept a little. I might have played some Ages of Empires with Chris as well.
On Sunday I started mt Fire Emblem Sacred Stones file. OMFG, its brilliant. I love FE!! I reckon that everyone has a game that they dig more than every other, a series that suits them. FE is that series for me. I also started on the GCN FE this week, its not bad. I also went to see my Great Grandma in hospital on the Sunday.
Supposively John wanted to come around on Sunday, but we said no as I was buggered. In the last day or so I’ve started enrolling for Uni. I have figured most of it out. Its bloomin tricking though. I can’t complete my timetable as I have no idea on some electives, so I have been filling in my other details. Had to give them a call today to figre it out. Oh it also turns out that it won’t take 3hrs for me to get to Uni, from the City its only another 30 minutes.
So I figure that I’ve been a little busy. Its about a month till my first Uni lecture. So I wanna have this retro games night and Chris wants to have a LAN as well. I guess there will be a few WGAs and stuff too.
Yeah thats it, be sure to read my review of Yoshi Touch and Go.
DP
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Yoshi Touch and Go Review
January 24, 2007
Ready, Set, Touch and go! Nintendo DS
Graphics 7.4/10
Gameplay 8/10
Sound 7.4/10
Lastability 6/10
Overall 7.3/10
Yoshi Touch and Go is a charming little game based in the Yoshis Island universe. If you’ve ever played any of the Yoshis Island games before then you’ll notice the similar presentation right away. The game looks and sounds like the games of the past. That is 2D sprites and pleasantly cheery tunes.Much like the other games in the series this is a platformer-esque title but what sets it apart from the rest is the different play mechanics and the full touch screen controls. Yoshi(and Baby Mario) constantly walk through the stage, you control Yoshi’s jumping and the environment around him to so that he can keep out of harms way. This is all done via the DS touch screen.You can tap on Yoshi to make him jump and flutter in the air. Tapping anywhere in the environment makes Yoshi throw an egg in that direction. Sliding the stylus around the screen creates temporary cloud platforms which Yoshi can walk over. You can also use these platforms to block of enemies. By drawing circles with the clouds you can create bubbles, if you do this around an enemy they turn into coins and then you can throw the bubble around the screen but preferably at Yoshi. To remove the clouds just blow in the DS microphone. So there’s plenty of variety in how you can play.The levels are also spread across 2 screens, so the top screen displays the sky area and the bottom screen shows the ground area. This works nicely as flying enemies like to dive down and attack you which keeps you on your toes.
Level design is what you’d expect of Nintendo but nothing spectacular. The levels themselves are based around worlds from previous games. This means you’ll be seeing world based enemies as well which makes the game constantly feel fresh. These levels progress at a steady pace and it doesn’t get too hard too quickly.
At the start of each game you don’t actually play as Yoshi(and Baby Mario), you play as Baby Mario falling from the sky. The gameplay here is similar to the main gameplay, except Mario cannot fire eggs and jump. This is all done in a vertical perspective as Baby Mario drops downwards. Fortunately Baby Mario has 3 balloons to help him land safely. Every time you hit an enemy you lose one of these balloons.
Touch and Go has several different play modes, 2 which you need to unlock by getting the high scores in the other modes. To begin with there is Score Attack, where you play for a single level(one Mario and one Yoshi) and try to get the highest score. Marathon where you try to travel as far as you can. Once you finish a level the Yoshis swap over, so its like a medly race. Time attack is where you have to rescue Baby Luigui from the toadies(flying baddies), so you have to move through the level and also try and save Luigui. Challenge mode is a mix time attack and Marathon, you have a set time limit to get as far as you can but scoring points adds to your time. Time attack and challenge mode you need to unlock.
Despite the number of modes available there isn’t a lot to do beyond getting the high scores. This is the biggest letdown as the game is great fun to play but you can beat the high scores after a day or so of playing. I would have like to have seen a full fledged platformer out of this. So picking up this title doesn’t really feel like getting your moneys worth.
Graphically the game looks fine. The sprites are only a small step up above the GBA but still look nice. There’s a bit more depth and shading to them as well which adds a nice touch. The animation is also well done, characters bounce around and everything in the game shows a good amount of character. The sound is what you would expect, typically familiar tunes from the old games and a few new but familiar songs that fit nicely. The sounds effects complements the music nicely, Yoshi and Mario have a few grunts here and there.
Closing Comments
Yoshi Touch and Go is a tidy little game. It makes great use of the DS’ features and is one of the reasons why the DS exists, for fresh new ideas like this. Unfortunately there’s not much beyond getting high scores which makes the game rather short. Despite this its still an enjoyable little romp. Pick it up at a reduced price.
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Supreme Lifestyle
January 19, 2007
Most listened : AAF : Up in the Attic
Most played : Zelda 2
Current mood : Unsure
For almost the past 2 weeks I’ve been thinking about changing my lifestyle. I think that I do too much of everything. I’ve been listing my hobbies and considering what I should change. I also wrote out a list of stuff I wanted.
What I figured out was that I am pretty content with what I have ATM, so I don’t really need to pick up much more anime, music or manga. My computer is close to perfectly tuned to how I like it, so no worries there. So these things can take more of a back seat.
I’ve also decided to stop doing digital design. I currently have enough experience to create what I want. I don’t really want to expand my skills much and its too much effort to put into something thats meant to be ‘a bit of time to myself’.
With these lifestyle cuts I’ve also made some additions and re-proportions. I’ve decided to focus more on games. I need to if I want to clear out some of these games building up. I’ve also pinpointed how I seem to want to keep up to date with the latest gaming news. So I’ve taken that into account.
Because I’m not doing design I’ve decided to make PrimeScape(and dp.com) my major project. So that should be fun. I’m not sure if I’ll work on this new site that Chris wants to do. Its a possibility.
The main reason why I’ve decided to work more on PrimeScape is because I enjoy writing so much. I want to combine that with my great knowledge of games and start writing some more games based articles.
So here’s what the latest list of hobbies:
- Video games
- Learning Chinese
- Blogging
- Photography
These are all concrete, which is great. I’m so pleased that I’ve consolidated the list.
You see, I am more interested in these activities, so focusing on them is a good decision. As I’d only be wasting time on the other stuff that I’m not as passionate about.
Playing games this week has really influenced my decision. I haven’t throughly played games for a long time. And now that I have it reminds me of the old days, which I don’t ever want to forget.
Its also a good thing that I have decided on this lifestyle change as it will be more appropriate for Uni. Video games when I’m relaxing, learning Chinese is study, I’ll get more friends that may read my blog and if there is one I might join a photography club or a games club. It also simplifies what I have to do, so if I get busy I can play less games.
As I have mentioned a few times before I have a natural aptitude for expressing my opinions. Since I know heaps on games, blogging about games is a great idea. Blogging more will help me express myself better which is what I really want to do as I feel that sometimes what I write is a bit too staticy.
This week I’ve also been looking into getting another job which would eventually replace my current one at Harris Scarfes. My resume is almost done. Chris and I have a few ideas of places that we could apply for. We were strongly considering trying out Foodland as our mate Matt got in there, so it’ be good to work with him and the other people that I know that work there.
Oh a final note, Chris and I have decided to buy a PS2. We’ve(I’ve) been considering it for a few years and have decided that it would be worthwhile. Its got the best selection of games from the last generation. Its only inevitable really. Also the games and console are cheap, so we can catch up really quickly. We’ve written a list of games that we’d buy/consider and its pretty long.
Anyways thanks for reading my garble.
DP
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