Satan Sam.co.uk

Makes me very happy.

Finally beat the single player game so I’m all over multiplayer! My friend code is 4253-3807-7863. Leave your code in the comments or email if you want to keep it privates liek.

I know I’m late to the party, but I never had a SNES so completely missed out on some classic games that weren’t remade for the GBA. I just bought Super Metroid for the Wii.

I’ve only played for around an hour so far but it’s very impressive. I’m already thinking about swapping my Tormi joypad keys around to mimic this game (coincidentally Tormi has the same face button actions but rotated 90 degrees right, but with one button used for interacting) so I don’t keep pressing the wrong buttons with Samus!

The music and atmosphere is phenomenal. The level design is slap bang in between natural and designed.

It might just be me, as I’m playing through some games I question the overall level design and wonder to myself “Who put this piece here?”. Metroid seems to get away with it by saying there was an ancient civilisation kicking around, other games don’t offer an explanation. I’ve tried to go for a natural cave style with Tormishire, adding naturally occurring caving elements like sumps and crawl spaces. You have to start a water seed and imagine where the water would cut away soft rock and shape the area over decades or hundreds of years, depending on how old the area is meant to be, areas below will have to be designed around minor waterfalls cutting away to them caverns too. Along with designing this very flexible story and non-linear game – it’s a bit of a nightmare!

There are a series of reservoirs and lakes around here which really help when it comes to seeing the way water can shape huge landscapes – documented in my various photo albums floating around.

The level design is split into a few sections. Caves being one extreme and cities the other, with hybrid mediums like mines and roads. Metroid seems to dart between various landforms without introduction or seams, but it’s all extremely well designed. My challenge is to make something natural but to also keep it well designed as a game play form. Everything is placed for a reason. I shouldn’t have got interested in caving me thinks.

Funny thing is I was first inspired by Narnia, wanting to create vast and confusing, surreal dream like world. But I’ve ended up taking this realistic route now.

I’ll also get playing Super Metroid in the weeks to come. What a fantastic game Nintendo made!

I don’t normally do this – but go buy Mario Galaxy. If you don’t have a Wii then get off the internet, pimp yourself, and buy one. This is possibly the best commercial game I’ve ever played.

That is all.

And little edit- Sorry if you guys have had trouble posting comments here. Turns out my anti-spam thingy went haywire. Found lots of non-spammy comments in there. Should be sorted now! Sorry if I accidentally deleted anyones comments too!

Now these I like! Whilst picking up Excite Truck for a very savvy £19.99 at GameStation I finally found what I was looking for. It wasn’t the Honeyz, it was Nintendo branded sweat bands! God I hope they’re called that… Got a Mario Star one (in the photo it’s keeping my GB Micro warm, with Mario Bros 3 on the inside) and a Hyrule one. Next step is to get into a heavy game of Wii Sports with these. Huzzah!

I’ve been using a fairly nice looking red theme for my M3′s theme recently. But alas, I grew bored of it so I whipped up my own skin. Damn easy to make too, start to finish it took me 45 mins after learning the application and sorting out the graphics. It’s extremely minimalist! So don’t go getting lost or anything. So it’s my very first DS M3 Skin! Simply called Jims Skin.

Download here

To use simply copy the file straight into a folder on your M3 memory card called “BACKING”. Then select it under the options menu.

Should probably make one for my GBA Micro now.