Xexyz.wordpress.com
Xexyz.wordpress.com
Tim's Gaming Diary – I play games and sometimes write about them
I play games and sometimes write about them
I play games and sometimes write about them
✍️Write rieview ✍️Rezension schreiben 🏷️Get Badge! 🏷️Abzeichen holen! ⚙️Edit entry ⚙️Eintrag bearbeiten 📰News 📰Neuigkeiten
Tags: sometimes
I’ve never completed Vice City, and I don’t know why. Maybe it’s because some of the later missions have a huge difficulty spike, or maybe it’s because the mission structures aren’t quite as well defined as in GTA3. More than once I’ve found myself at a bit of a loss as to what to do […]
2.3.2025 08:45Grand Theft Auto Vice City: the second island[…] call of Vice City is strong, though, and beyond that I have never actually played San Andreas. I started GTA IV many years ago and can remember very little about it other than constantly being nagged to hang out with various […]
28.2.2025 11:34Comment on Grand Theft Auto IV: handbrake oversteer by Grand Theft Auto 3: completed! – Tim's Gaming Diary[…] so this time I found my standard tactics didn’t work so well on a few early levels. First, there were some mountainous levels where my […]
23.2.2025 08:59Comment on Populous: building high by Populous: being unable to flood – Tim's Gaming Diary[…] got further than ever before in Populous the Beginning (including a couple more levels after I posted previously), I find myself strangely unwilling to finish the game. After the last level I played there was a […]
23.2.2025 08:59Comment on Populous the Beginning: innovation in objectives by Populous: being unable to flood – Tim's Gaming DiaryHaving got further than ever before in Populous the Beginning (including a couple more levels after I posted previously), I find myself strangely unwilling to finish the game. After the last level I played there was a cutscene which showed my shaman becoming a god and passing the mask on; the last level feels like […]
23.2.2025 08:53Populous: being unable to flood[…] 2007 I said that maybe one day I’ll turn god mode on – I’m not there yet, but very close. It’s taken a long time to play through this […]
20.2.2025 23:03Comment on RLLMUK's top 100: 30 – 21 by Half-Life: the soldiers have left – Tim's Gaming DiaryI have continued to play through this very slowly, with many, many uses of the quick save function. My hazard suit doesn’t seem to have much of a protective element, especially against soldiers and annoying big aliens with buzzy guns, so I find myself reloading having lost half my health very regularly. There are, thankfully, […]
18.2.2025 22:38Half-Life: the soldiers have leftOn Friday I met John and Kieron online for an evening of gaming. We have a great many games that we have played through, and even a few we have completed, most notably Human Fall Flat multiple times (since they keep adding new levels, so we have to complete it again). We haven’t completed Borderlands […]
12.2.2025 22:03Lonely Mountains Snow Riders: how do you get there?[…] still have never completed Half-Life. I must have played through the opening levels multiple times, enjoying the scene setting and the […]
5.2.2025 12:03Comment on RLLMUK's top 100: 30 – 21 by Half-Life: the soldiers have arrived – Tim's Gaming DiaryI still have never completed Half-Life. I must have played through the opening levels multiple times, enjoying the scene setting and the initial escape from the headcrabs. The game is still quite spooky and panic-inducing at times, with mild jump scares and swarms of enemies appearing; the library in Halo is an obvious comparison, but […]
5.2.2025 12:03Half-Life: the soldiers have arrivedAfter the credits, I loaded my game to find myself back at my house, where my mum offered me a rest, almost as if nothing had happened. The world seemed unchanged, as if my quest had never taken place. Sure, if I went to the gyms I’m sure I’d see my name listed, always below […]
2.2.2025 23:12Pokémon Blue: j’ai Mewtwo[…] battle against my rival. That was the furthest I’d ever managed to get, until I managed to complete Pokémon X. As such I was pretty anxious as I made my way into the first battle arena, and this feeling […]
28.1.2025 19:14Comment on Pokémon X: completed! by Pokémon Blue: completed! – Tim's Gaming Diary[…] Pokémon LeafGreen I managed to defeat the Elite Four, after many attempts, only to be foiled by the final battle against my rival. That was the furthest I’d ever managed to get, until I managed to complete […]
28.1.2025 19:14Comment on Pokémon LeafGreen: elite for nothing by Pokémon Blue: completed! – Tim's Gaming DiaryI maintain that this is the best game of all time. Having passed Bloodlust, I moved onto the next few levels: Middle Ground, Head Hunter, and Unlikely Allies. Having introduced all the mechanics by this point, the game starts to be clever with its objectives. Middle Ground is a level based around the Armageddon spell […]
27.1.2025 14:19Populous the Beginning: innovation in objectivesI went to Vermillion City, stopping in at my house on the way, and found that the gym leader had returned. It was Giovanni! Shock, amaze, horror. I am sure that the surprise would have had slightly more impact if I haven’t so easily defeated him twice already, and his pokémon roster was largely unchanged. […]
24.1.2025 19:06Pokémon Blue: completed!Going South seems to have been the right path, as I came across Cinnabar Island, the location of the seventh gym and also a large science laboratory and ruined house. I spent some time exploring the house, then went to the lab and had my fossil and amber studied and converted into pokémon – Kabuto […]
20.1.2025 17:16Pokémon Blue: j’ai Articuno et Zapdos[…] and as a result you are constantly being invaded. When I completed the level for the first time, I wrote on this blog how it was achieved. Rather than settling my village, I took a small army over to the green tribe […]
17.1.2025 20:40Comment on Populous the Beginning: unexplored territory by Populous the Beginning: an army of balloons – Tim's Gaming DiaryWhen I restarted Populous the Beginning this time I had a sense of foreboding over getting to Bloodlust, which I recall has caused me much anguish in the past. The level is constructed so that your settlement is at the centre of the other three, and as a result you are constantly being invaded. When […]
17.1.2025 20:40Populous the Beginning: an army of balloons[…] to completing that after Twilight Princess), but the side-scrolling iPhone game. As I said back in October, UGVM bought this en masse in tribute to Owen, and I played a fair few levels at the time. […]
16.1.2025 14:03Comment on Owen by Mirror's Edge: completed! – Tim's Gaming DiaryLevel 12, An Easy Target, is the first level in which you have three opponents. This is paving the way for levels such as Bloodlust, where you are constantly attacked from all sides, but in reality the easy target here is the yellow tribe, who starts in the middle of the map with easy access […]
15.1.2025 07:39Populous the Beginning: a four-way rumbleI was quite surprised to see that I didn’t have a category for Atari 2600 games until now, but on reflection that’s because there’s not a huge amount to say about most of them. Playing through the games included on the Atari 50 compilation, most titles require little strategy or thought, instead relying on pure […]
14.1.2025 08:32Adventure: when the bat carries the dragonI hate fog of war. I particularly hate it when the enemy uses it to land loads of boats in quick succession and then set off a volcano in the middle of my base. The joke was on them in the end, though. The top of the volcano provided a great platform for several watch […]
12.1.2025 14:45Populous the Beginning: fog of war[…] new computer, and starting from the beginning of Populous the Beginning, again. This time I could have imported my previous save, and I still might, but with the increased […]
10.1.2025 09:21Comment on Populous the Beginning: an enforced restart by Populous the Beginning: building a bridge, again – Tim's Gaming DiaryA new computer, and starting from the beginning of Populous the Beginning, again. This time I could have imported my previous save, and I still might, but with the increased graphical prowess of the new laptop I thought the game deserved a full showing. This coincided with an update to the game on GOG, which […]
10.1.2025 09:21Populous the Beginning: building a bridge, againIn many ways, Flock reminds me of Flower, the relaxing and peaceful game on the PS3 (and other Sony consoles) where you gently guide the wind and petals to find new blooms. Guiding your character – someone riding a giant bird – is really easy, with the vertical component automatically taken care of and only […]
9.1.2025 10:12Flock: a different type of bird watching[…] Back in 2008, I got frustrated that I had to play some levels with bikes. I got past those at some point and when I started last night I was up to the eighth of ten sets of arcade challenges, with a variety of platinum, gold and silver medals. I managed to complete each of the remaining challenges in set eight on my first go, so was feeling confident moving on to set nine. […]
7.1.2025 16:15Comment on Project Gotham Racing 4: two wheels bad, four wheels good by Project Gotham Racing 4: moving to the silvers – Tim's Gaming Diary[…] More than once every two months? Oops. […]
7.1.2025 16:11Comment on Ico: sit on top of the world by Ico: give your trust to me – Tim's Gaming Diary[…] and I recall feeling a little uncertain when I reached this point in Pokémon LeafGreen. When I last wrote, Pikachu was several levels higher than my other pokémon due to him fighting and defeating every […]
7.1.2025 08:18Comment on Pokémon Blue: wild ZUBAT appeared! by Pokémon Blue: settling to a team – Tim's Gaming Diary[…] interest in Pokémon Yellow, and I recall feeling a little uncertain when I reached this point in Pokémon LeafGreen. When I last wrote, Pikachu was several levels higher than my other pokémon due to him fighting […]
7.1.2025 08:18Comment on Pokémon LeafGreen: back to Kanto by Pokémon Blue: settling to a team – Tim's Gaming DiaryI have a feeling I am now at the point where I lost interest in Pokémon Yellow, and I recall feeling a little uncertain when I reached this point in Pokémon LeafGreen. When I last wrote, Pikachu was several levels higher than my other pokémon due to him fighting and defeating every enemy in the […]
7.1.2025 08:16Pokémon Blue: settling to a teamFor Christmas I received the Atari 50 compilation, which collects a large number of Atari’s most celebrated games together and presents them alongside a museum of stories, videos, and artwork spanning the fifty years of the company. It is a fabulous resource, including a lot of arcade and 2600 classics, which I will no doubt […]
2.1.2025 08:35Club Drive: hardly drivin’After beating the Koopa Brothers, there wasn’t an immediate clue where I should be going next. And so I didn’t really go anywhere. I spent half an hour retracing my steps to see what I was missing. What I was missing, apparently, was that there was a new area opened up to the south of […]
31.12.2024 17:22Paper Mario: endless wanderingI only had a few levels left indeed, and in the end they weren’t that tricky – the most difficult part of the game was timing jumps when making platforms disappear. As I mentioned before, there are various challenge levels to complete, and I will probably give those a go in the near future, but […]
21.12.2024 19:10Box Boy: completed!Box Boy is a simple platform puzzle game, with a simple visual style, and simple sound design. Yet despite its appearances, at times it’s anything but simple to complete. You play as a square. You can make a certain number of other squares come out of you, chained in any direction (although the first one […]
20.12.2024 17:17Box Boy: constant adaptation[…] at past posts, I seem to have a love-hate relationship with the series. I was pretty nonplussed to start with, but have completed all the games and found that Apollo Justice was a great […]
12.12.2024 14:07Comment on Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney: The First Turnabout by Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney: Dual Destinies Demo: style and substance – Tim's Gaming D...[…] I said I might not buy this. That may have been a bit of a rash thing to say, given that it came after playing through the Miles Edgeworth game which was a significant departure from the series – and given that I’ve just played through the demo of the next proper Ace Attorney game which looks absolutely magnificent. […]
12.12.2024 14:07Comment on Miles Edgeworth Ace Attorney Investigations: completed! by Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney: Dual Destinies Demo: style and substance – Tim's Ga...[…] year, I played Peggle. At the time, I vowed to never again play Peggle, due to the unfairness of its randomness and […]
25.11.2024 21:19Comment on Peggle: chasing aces by Mr Driller Drill Spirits: reminiscing – Tim's Gaming Diary[…] missiles but this means that it’s really difficult to target any of the enemy planes. On Afterburner Climax the controls are much more precise, with the aiming reticule being more delicately balanced, and I […]
22.11.2024 18:00Comment on Afterburner Climax: pew pew pew by Aftrerburner Complete: the downside of digital controls – Tim's Gaming Diary[…] not just horizontal side-scrolling shooters that I’m hopeless at. Afterburner Complete is an excellent conversion of the arcade game, and […]
22.11.2024 18:00Comment on Hellfire: colour coding by Aftrerburner Complete: the downside of digital controls – Tim's Gaming Diary[…] I must pull together all the Layton games at some point to open up the hidden doors in them all – and make sure that all the minigames in earlier games are complete, since I can’t remember that far back (and my posts on this blog don’t really help). […]
29.10.2024 14:13Comment on Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box: completed! by Professor Layton and the Miracle Mask: Completed! – Tim's Gaming Diary