Gamer's Diary - Crackdown, Puzzle Quest, GRID

Crackdown: Having beaten the final crime, I set about going after the achievements I mentioned in my last post. I got to the top of the Agency Tower, and I got all my skills to four stars. Then I shelved the game.

I found scaling the tower repeatedly to get the water jump achievement and grinding my skills to max tedious. So I put the game away (for eventual replay - it has lots of fun in it), and found another to put in my playlist: Perfect Dark Zero.

Puzzle Quest: Another hour of grinding roadside encounters, and I'd had enough. I still only have level 23, and need level 26 (25 if my luck is good) to progress on the main quest and some of the side quests. I still had fun with it, but I really wanted to play something else.

GRID: I have reverted to my old racing game tactics. If it looks like I'm going to lose a race, I restart it. Since GRID has no car tuning options (like DiRT and TOCA Race Driver), engineering my way to victory is not an option as it is in series like Gran Turismo, Forza Motorsport, and Need for Speed.

By restarting I was able to win both of the demolition derby races, and claim the gold cup for the event. Next up, the Tuned Pro event.

A comment on GRID's design: while it has licenses as does theGran Turismo franchise, it doesn't have GT's tedious and frustrating license tests to get them. Instead, I get licenses by winning races. I like to play to race, and this satisfies that urge. This has, like Forza, much more fun in it than the artificial skill tests in GT (license tests) and Project Gotham (kudos).

Gamer's Diary - Puzzle Quest

Still grinding. Still fun.

Gamer's Diary - GRID, Puzzle Quest

GRID - I beat the demo derby event, but haven't won both races yet. I have still a little to do there before I move on to the next event.

Puzzle Quest - I keep grinding away. When I reach level 24, I can rejoin the main quest.

Gamer's Diary - Puzzle Quest, Lego Indiana Jones

Puzzle Quest - Still grinding. Still enjoying grinding.

Lego Indiana Jones - J--- and I played through two more levels. It seems that this game has a shorter playing time than the Lego Star Wars games. Perhaps our familiarity with those games has trained us in its conventions, so that we play through the levels faster. No matter; we still have fun with it.

From a game design point of view, the no-die feature succeeds brilliantly at taking the game-over angst out of the game while leaving the fun intact. Make no mistake though; this game holds little attraction for the hardcore, for the kind of player who exults in beating a level of Ninja Gaiden Black after the 73rd attempt. It makes its only two concessions to the hardcore gamer in the studs mechanic (which provides opportunities to buy in-game bling by performing well), and in the statistics and bonuses it provides for completion junkies.

The drop-in drop-out co-op also increases the game's accessibility for kids while making it a vehicle for adult-child bonding.

Gamer's Diary - Puzzle Quest

Puzzle Quest will present over-leveled foes not just in the main quest, but also in some of the side quests. You will have more success in grinding by seeking out roadside encounters.

Gamer's Diary - Puzzle Quest

Another hour of playing Puzzle Quest has confirmed what I suspected. Its puzzle-based battle system makes grinding fun.

Gamer's Diary - Cars, Legos, and Gems, Oh My!

GRID - I completed the goal I had set for myself - three consecutive wins in the Muscle Car Classic event. Having done that, I considered myself ready to participate in other events.

Mistake.

None of what I had learned in the first event prepared me for the next one - a demolition derby. I found myself constantly getting lost on the figure-8 track, bringing up the rear of the pack, and getting pulped by the other drivers. I only finished 11th out of 12 because one of the other drivers crashed out of the race.

Having learned my lesson, in future I will race an event until I win it, then move on to the next. Perfecting performance in one event does nothing to improve overall game prowess.

Lego Indiana Jones - J--- wanted to play with her Webkinz but Mom needed to use the laptop, so I offered to play Lego Indiana Jones with her. We played through the Nepal level, and found that we progressed through the level much faster when we focussed on it rather than loitering and trying to get all the studs and bonuses.

Like the Lego Star Wars games, this one can be played by kids and adults together, with tons of fun to be had by both.

Puzzle Quest - I thought that I had finished playing for the evening, but then my oh-so-lovely cat Bonnie decided at one in the morning that the time had come for me to play with her, and chose to let me know by dragging her favorite feather toy up onto the bed and meowing loudly in my face.

Bonnie's head: pop off or twist off? At that moment, I would have liked to find out.

Unable to return to sleep right away, I fired up the 360 and played Puzzle Quest for a while. I have seen forum posts complaining that enemies seem overly lucky in the game, or that they seem to have advance knowledge of what gems will fall. Playing it, I can see where they might think that, but I think they fail to notice all the times when the player gets similarly lucky.

I noticed while playing that sticking with story line quests results in the game pitting me against enemies that have a significantly higher level and better stats than me. It set me - a level 19 warrior - against a level 24 orc. I lost. Badly.

This means I will have to spend time grinding levels by performing minor quests and fighting road bandits, in order to get strong enough to fight the orc lord's guard. Ordinarily I would find such levelling tedious. But the fun nature of the combat means I will enjoy it instead. So, no biggie.

Gamer's Diary - Pointless Levelling

I found myself too fatigued to enjoy GRID, so I played the less-demanding Puzzle Quest. I beat a two-headed ogre, and discovered that storyline opponents level up with the player. If I have a level of sixteen, my storyline opponent will also have a level of sixteen - or higher. This means that fighting random monsters in order to level up doesn't help.

Gamer's DIary: Puzzle Quest

I spent much of last weekend working, so when I had time for a break, I wanted to play something requiring neither mental effort nor frantic button-mashing, something I could easily pause or quit when it was time to return to work. For that I usually play either Klondike Solitaire (on PC) or Bejeweled 2 (on Xbox Live Arcade or my PDA).

This time I wanted something a little different. So I chose Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords, a game I'd bought on Xbox Live Arcade a few months back and never played again. It got me hooked almost immediately.

When I first read descriptions of the game, I thought winning battles would consist merely of reaching a certain score on a Bejeweled-style board before running out of moves. To my pleasant surprise, I found the puzzle-based combat significantly deeper. Each jewel-match boosts mana or damages the enemy, and the player's character has spells that can have effects on the puzzle grid and the opposing party. One's character can also acquire skills, stats, weapons and items that modify the effects of matching gems or casting spells.

The game's seamless integration of classic RPG elements with Bejeweled-style puzzle solving will provide hours of enjoyment for fans of either genre. I highly recommend trying the demo either on PC or Xbox Live Arcade.