Aara-Date 2005-04-03-Su-04-27-LhT

Aaron's Log

Having recently purchased a copy of Metal Arms that has become my passion ATM, It can be very Frustrating at times which basically means going is slow as I turn it off and walk away.

I love the designs of the robots and all the standard shooting games weapons are there, the Machine gun, the Shotgun, the Sniper Weapon, the Rocket Launcher. And the upgrade system looks good, shame I can't afford or find any upgrades, although for a nice change of pace (For me anyhow) the game uses a progressive Ammo system where what you leave the stage with is what you enter the next stage with. No full load out re-equip behind scenes like Halo 2. Although you never really had a problem with Ammo in Halo 2, just Shotgun, Rocket and Sniper rounds, and occasionally Battle Rifle rounds although the Battle Rifle being considered the new Pistol, not surprising. One of these days I'll write a review for Halo and all the other games I've clocked.

I've also been making a point of going back in Metal Arms and getting all chips and the speed chip, it's a shame you have to restart the whole game or create a new profile to replay it. Although it may allow you to up the difficulty and re-clock it when it's over.

I've kind of been side tracked from the handheld scene mainly due to flat batteries, and my frustration with Super Mario Bros. 2 and my indecisiveness over what Zoids to build in Zoids Legacy. I probably don't need to build any to get further in the game but I want to build a few that I've always loved. Like the Dark Horn, Lightning Saix and something that would be good for standing in the back row with tons of artillery possibly an Iron Kong or Variant. And being me I'm trying to put all the Zoids I have discovered so far into a database, to try and help with thing's like variants.

On the Arcade front I've noticed it may be possible to get to the Ghost Squad Arcade machines now so I can start playing that game again, I just need to get past 1st stage, although the Shotgun is a great weapon is tends to suck in Hostage and accuracy situations. The games difficulty is a bit hard or maybe I'm out of practice with the light gun games, although it's gun is a Sub-Machine gun instead of a pistol.

Back to my currant Arcade favourite Initial D, well my Celica GT Four (24,209 points) has finally lost, to Kawada on Usui, Since after the race I got the "Adjust Cooling System" upgrade my car might be that bit faster I seemed to need to take him, I swear I just didn't have the speed and I was cornering well (for me anyway) .Either way I'm going back to take Myogi in the wet the Celica is unaffected by rain, being all wheel drive this is to be expected. Funny in a game based on a series about Drifting I pick a Grip car. The next upgrade for the Celica is the rear wing at 36,000 points which I think might make the car look a bit faster.

The RX-8 (63,428 points) lost to Maya and Simone (Wow their fast) although I wasn't thinking like I normally do when racing and blew the Gear changes. I've got to put some effort into beating them, that's for sure. At 75,000 points I'll get side skirts which I probably won't notice.

I intend to have 2 or 3 rounds of Initial D tonight depending on Challenges and hopefully a 2 player game of Ghost Squad. Than again there's a chance nobody wants to race me, I only see two possibilities from my friends, one who is learning to drive and one who thinks he drives like Tak from the series.

Aara-Date 2005-03-19-Sa-02-46-DkT

Aaron's Log

I'm hoping this entry will be quicker than most.

I mainly want to talk about Initial D, a few days ago I played against a friend of mine "Starker". In the RX-8 I won on Usui over his Levin GT-APEX, but he beat me on Akagi even though he wasn't meant to challenge me after the first race. I think I could of beat him with Slower Car Boost off. And due to my confusion on how the games Continue system works I accidentally challenged him to a rematch. On the first Akagi race I accidentally saved him from failure when he bought on a corner my line rammed him back into it and cost me my speed. He did better on the second one. I'm starting to think the physics don't work when you hit the other guy, it seems to disadvantage you more than it should.

I now have a 60% Total Victories over five races, although the first two where my nephews and don't count that much. Starker has a 50% streak two wins vs me and one loss and one other loss vs an annoying guy.

Why do I say annoying? Well we told him not to challenge us and he did anyway. He picked the narrowest course he could find and basically blocked the race the whole way through. When Starker made it past he swore, unfortunately Starker stuffed it on the next corner and the guy made it through. What annoys us is it wasn't skill that the guy used and he didn't even use his card. He was trying to kick us off so he could race his friend card-less so his friend could get easy points on his card.

I think that kind of Point making is cheap, and I advocate Time Trials to make Points easy. You know the crowd? They sink $20 in each and one guy takes a 200 meter head start (he's the one with the card) and won't get closer than 150 meters to the other guy?

We played again well Yesterday now, and although we didn't race, Starker did get his own back my sinking close to $20 worth of credits in himself. He conquered Myogi and Usui, he started on Usui surprisingly.

I took Shingo and Toru in my Celica GT-Four (12,000+ Points) both first time, although Shingo worried me because I forgot the Shift Points. The new tyres I got from defeating Kenji really helped. I've truly learnt to drive the AWD now I just take my foot off the Accelerator turn, and plant it again when the car points the way I want. It's much faster than drifting, not sure if I have bad technique or what, probably my sloppy technique.

The RX-8 (50,000+ Points I think I'm two Trials away from a "Reset ECU") lost twice to Kawada, one time some guy trying to leave his marker for next turn got in the way on the first race, I was already losing but I did hit the wall which made the margin much much bigger. The second one I stuffed the First real corner on Usui both times, the second time was worse. I had an 80 meter lead on the first lap, he closed the gap and made it 150 meters ahead of me. Completely blew me away, I closed it by about 20 meters. I'm thinking a time trial or two is needed to practice the corner, I think if I can make it I'll win. When Kawada said he'll show me the power of 400 horses, I wasn't too worried, now I've seen how quick he can open up the lead I think it will be a challenge to beat him.

A Final note on shift points they mean Acceleration. The Celica is good at 5800, 6500, 7000, not sure of when to go to 5th. The RX-8 is 6000, 7250, 7750, 8000, not sure of when to do 6th. I believe the final gear depends on the track. I know the RX-8 is good after 140 Kph for 6th, still not sure of the Celica.

They do make a difference I watched some play a course and although he had more points (more power) he took longer to get to top speed than I did. Not sure of exact seconds but I knew I could beat his time, unless he tried cutting me off the whole race.

Aara-Date 2005-03-13-Su-11-25-DkT

Aaron's Log

What's consuming my attention at the moment is my slow, often interrupted process of re-clocking Super Mario Bros. 2 (GBA) I think it was Super Mario Advance but to me it will always be Mario 2 and my all time favourite. I wasn't a fan of Super Mario Bros. 1 until later in life, as at the time I had limited video game skills (I was six or seven) to get me through it. But I was good at Super Mario Bros. 3 which is close to overtaking SMB2 and can at times. I think SMB3 is one of the better 2 player games around especially from a round by round point of view.

I actually want Nintendo to release a Mario All Stars for the Game Cube, instead of making me buy each game individually which I may eventually accomplish.

Despite the fact I don't list any of my extensive PC library (thirteen years of PC games or more.) I burn for Rome: Total War, mainly because I play it at a friends, the seductive mix of Turn Based and Real Time Strategies is more than I can stand. I intend to buy it when I get the cash or maybe the Total War pack, I never had the processor power when the first games came out. Now that I think about it I missed out on a lot. Than again I hear Rome is the best of the bunch so I may as well take the jewel in the crown. Than again it's competing against C&C Generals and Homeworld 2 both of which I also want for the old Personal Computer. Still all these games are about the same price so it could be anything that get purchased first.

I broke one of my rules today, I used a FAQ while not being totally stuck to find out what the colours of your Organoid mean in Zoids Legacy (GBA) not too much cheating in my opinion. Something that could have been made obvious in the game if not the Manual. I'm currently wondering about a few things in the game, like the possibility I have scored all the parts of a Fusion Zoid. In fact if I wasn't talking to a friend in MSN Chat I'd probably be playing it right now.

Doom 3 is soon to get it's X-Box Australian release which makes me wonder more if I should trust it's PC performance on my machine. I have a critical error of an ATI Video card, and nVidia motherboard, caused by them selling out the Motherboard I wanted and my impatience. Why do I always listen to guy in the store? My PC problems are random crashes which really really kill the mood, the Demo runs fine with high settings which seem to make no difference to the random crashing which is really pushing me towards the X-Box.

And finally on the Arcade note I'll probably get a chance to play at least a round of Initial D tomorrow running errands for my Brother, shame I'm too broke to get a round of Ghost Squad in. In case you didn't guess he lives near one of the few arcades left.

Aara-Date 2005-03-08-Tu-10-52-DkT

Aaron's Log

Aara-Date 2005-03-08-Tu-11-05-DkT

Second Attempt at attempting to do a Journal Entry, Why? Because it never stops loading ads and when each ad loads it bumps the cursor off, in the middle of typing you make a single mistake, bump the cursor and hit backspace and find yourself on the previous page losing everything you've just written.

Aara-Date 2005-03-09-We-12-12-DkT

This Time every sentence I write I back it up to a text document so when I press backspace without thinking I won't lose everything I wrote a third time.

I'm still too broke to buy a Nintendo DS, I've managed to play my friends there too cool to resist for long, I'll need one soon, hopefully titles I'd like more will come out soon.

Well I've grabbed Zoids Legacy (GBA) yesterday (well two days ago now) and it's pretty much everything I wanted from the game. You can build pretty much any Zoid you want, any colour you want (from a range of eight) and stick whatever guns and special "Dealie Whackers" you want on to it, there are ignorable weight limits but your other stats suffer. The Animations in Battle (and you'll be in battle a lot) are very static, but let's face it you want to customise animal shaped mechs and blow up your foes, not watch a cartoon. I should point out the stats are rather confusing at first so keep your manual handy.

On the Arcade front I've defeated Toru (4th Rival, 1st on Usui) in Initial D (V.3) in my RX-8 (~40,000 points) this would be the fifth or sixth attempt probably more, with quite a few practice (Time Trial) runs in the middle. I stuffed it a little on the second lap with a lack of concentration, I won by a mere 11.1 meters but I'll take it as a win and move on. I've also learnt some things I'll write below, and I'll shift the blame of one of my last defeat to the six or seven year old who interfered with the gear stick while I was on the final lap, cost me victory by 20 meters. Who knows now that I've defeated him I should be able to stop obsessing over it, maybe not playing every time I even get near the machine.

Parents don't take very young children to the arcade, they run around, mess with games other people are playing (and no we don't find it cute and harmless, you just cost us Money) and generally get hurt by trying to jump on Dance Dance machines while they are in use by one of those people who play the game with legs everywhere and the upper body totally still and all concentration on the little arrows raining down (or is it up?) the screen.

Still on Initial D I've defeated Kenji (2nd Rival, 2nd on Myogi) in my Celica (8,000+ points) of course I've only driven the Celica twice as the first three guys are pretty easy (I beat them all first go with the RX-8 ), heck the first four are easy it's Usui that's hard. Kenji's Defeat earned me some new wheels so hopefully it won't break so much traction when cornering. For those who are curious I play default settings except I stiffen the wheel up to 6 in both cars, because it suits my style more. The reason I have two cars for the game is because I wanted to try different styles of car, the RX-8 is a non turbo rear wheel drive with forward engine mount or FR and the Celica GT-Four is a Turbo Charged all wheel Drive front mount, or the Sega Rally Celica. I'm thinking of taking up a FF at some time, or maybe just give one a card-less test drive, I'd like to try Left Foot Braking.

Initial D Hints:

#1 The Course is your main opponent, the Rival is there for pressure, ignore him and worry about the corners. Myogi is the only course where the Rival is your opponent.

#2 For a Quick upgrade remember that a Time Trial is worth 1,000 points for the race, and 2,000 for beating the time limit and you get a extra 500 for a personal best that's a total of 3,500 points! Those Courses have two directions, wet and dry surfaces, and some even have snow (although I believe that it's own course). That's at least 14,000 points for finishing under each condition, at the cost of 4 games. Races give you 1,000 points for the race, 2,000 points for the victory and 10 points every meter (EG 12.5 meters = 125 bonus points).

#3 Moving from Myogi to Usui is a huge jump in difficulty so do at least one practice Time Trial counter clockwise.