Last Week's Gaming: Pikmin & StreetPass

April is the month of the 3DS. Everyone knows this and it isn't something I just decided to claim for this post. April is the special 3DS month, and that's why I've started my own personal campaign to sit down and play that thing, blissfully and extensively.

I was really excited to collect this flip phone.

I will now report to you my gorgeous 3DS week. Let's check out the shocking stats. Firstly, here's an overview of the steps and game titles I've accumulated over the years:

That's right. A stunning two million steps. This is why I have worn out many shoes in my time. And 156 titles (although keep in mind, this includes stuff like the SETTINGS). But which game have I played most this week, I hear you desperately asking, and how much did I play it?

I have been delighting in, mostly, Hey! Pikmin. This thing has grown on me the more I've played it, and now that I've met flying Pikmin and discovered all many of sparkling trinkets, I have to say I really enjoy this game and its chill puzzles. I've collected about a third of the Sparklium I need to complete the game's major quest, and it feels good. I feel powerful, despite my tiny, ant-like size in the little landscapes of the Pikmin.

I'm excited to finish it and mark another beautiful game COMPLETED. Right now I'm around five hours in, and I feel confident and secure in my Pikmin-wrangling abilities. Who knows what can happen in the next hour of tantalising and scary Pikmin gameplay.

In other news, I received a lovely Kirby drawing in Nintendo Letterbox/Swapnote. A simple treasure. These letters are often cryptic and odd, or sometimes just a dull request to add the sender on Discord (a thing I will certainly not be doing), but my favourites are inevitably little fun drawings like this. I always wonder about the person on the other end of the Kirby. Big "hi" to you, Kirby sender.

I also delved back into StreetPass Mii Plaza and stunned myself by finally finishing StreetPass Slot Racer (which, I now learn, is called Slot Car Rivals outside of Europe - the localisation is dizzying). I am not the greatest in terms of reaction times, so this game was perhaps the most challenging of the bunch for me, but I did it. I beat that thing. And it feels amazing.

I also obtained the country of Croatia. Finally. There is much to celebrate.

My Volleyball Weekend

To prevent this from becoming a pure Java games blog, let me tell you about my Saturday. A beautiful, insane friend with a scream bubbling up inside her at all times works at a place where one can play volleyball. There is a bar there, which I don't totally understand, but a group of us went over there to yes, play volleyball and drink two yummy cocktails. I was ambivalent about the volleyball, but I did join in and cement my position as the worst player of the bunch. I was, for the most part, afraid of the ball.

I finally knew what it must feel like to be Hinata.

This is the first hurdle of any hard-balled game. Getting used to letting that thing hit your body. I didn't totally manage it by the time we were done, but I did inch closer and closer to being able to take the hit. For some reason, I let out an uncontrollable cartoon scream the first several times the ball and I made contact. But eventually, the ball could hit my forearm. What it couldn't do was make it over the net, but that's a step for another time.

Volleyballs look just like this.

It isn't easy getting used to the physical reality of a sport like that. The confidence and force you need just does not come naturally. Nevertheless, it was fun. I was committed for the entire time, but a vodka cocktail does impact the experience.

It did make me think about the lack of exercise I've been getting lately. I stopped lifting weights at the end of last year because a repetitive strain injury made it really weird, and I've been too lazy to walk or run or cycle instead. But maybe I should make a committment to doing regular cardio again, because it feels nice to have improved stamina and breath control. It feels satisfying.

I've never been a big sports person, but looking back on my school experience of sport, there are things I remember really fondly. Like the football tournament I competed in at first school, the only inter-school sports thing I ever did. I was eight or so, and something about football at that age was natural and easy. I wasn't bad at it. But I never really played after that. Mixed games stopped making sense as we got older and the boys got more staunchly competitive. For a brief period, football was really fun, but then something about it felt too serious. It was, and is, after all, the primo avenue for English pride, a thing I found sort of ghoulish and repulsive as a kid, largely because I resented the expectation that I was supposed to support England and be really into England winning. I just didn't really get the attachment to a national team. I understand it more now, but I think it just came across as way too dead serious for me growing up.

Me kicking my football.

The other sport I have a passion for is badminton. The lightness of it all was magic to me. Suddenly I didn't need to be strong or tall or part of a team that didn't give me an opportunity to do anything. Suddenly I could be fast and little and smack a shuttlecock across the room with a beautiful swiftness. Balls might soar, but they don't dance. The shuttlecock is a little dancer. And I love her. Tennis is a wild hog by comparison.

I'm just like this guy from the badminton anime Love All Play.

But I'm not playing any sport right now, of course. I'm in bed, smiling at the thought, legs rigid, sleepy. Hell yes. 

Reviewing J2ME Games: 1916 Dogfight

This is the worst one. This is the worst J2ME game I have played thus far.

1916 Dogfight has a certain visual flair. The text is legible and golden and beautiful, and the 3D models of the planes you pilot look neat and considered to a pretty high calibre for this sort of game. The look suggests a high level of polish and competence.

When you start the first level, though, and begin manouvreing your plane, you quickly realise that this is filth. 

You're tasked with flying the plane through a series of hoops. A classic flying challenge. Only, the controls on this thing are utterly disgusting. The plane swerves wildly with the slightest touch, careening into the static, poorly-tiled picture of a cloud that represents the sky. Everything is too fast, and all attempts at correcting your course will massively overshoot the direction you're actually trying to go in. This is a nightmare.

I'm supposed to fly through all these rings.

Perhaps this is what pilots experienced in 1916. Perhaps it was just impossibly dizzying. I've never before gotten motion sickness from a phone game, so this is the accolade 1916 Dogfight can enjoy. It is genuinely nauseating. 

Reviewing J2ME Games: 1805 French Empire

Don't worry everyone, anime Napoleon is here. He is the first thing you see when you open up 1805 French Empire, a strategy game in which you command the sexy French army and their cute little horses against, you know, a palette-swapped army clad in red with their own cute little horses. Aww.

The boys, in the field.

The text pre-amble that comes before each level in this game is remarkably rudimentary. There is a lack of flair to this game. We are just here to straightforwardly direct our guys. There is some music, but it's that typical Java music that just plays in brief moments and has a very non-notable sort of melody. It reminds one of the arcade, in a way. Those simple interludes of sound that let you know that Pac-Man is alive and well. And boy, is he.

Cool.

I do really like the pixel art here. There's something just right about these little men and their little horses. It reminds me of the tin soldier display room at the Musée de l'Armée in Paris. 

The men, on display.

The levels themselves are satisfying. You blast some guys, and that's all you could really want. I really like the way some of the men and their horses appear in the black space outside the game, on occasion. They're hanging out. They become spectators in the void, waiting for their turn to get blasted.

It is, perhaps, a bit awkward to control an isometric strategy game with the on-screen numpad controls. My heart wants to tap the tile on my screen, but that's not how we play this. Something about this format in particular means that I keep forgetting. But that's why a real, committed gamer trains hard. To win the war.

Ultimately, this is a nice little game, and I am enamoured by the horses. The men will also often say, "oui, d'accord" when you give them a command, which is just nice to hear. Thanks boys. 

Congratulate Me For Reading Books

I've already read 12 books this year, and they are as follows:

1. Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation - Joseph J. Ellis | ★★★★☆
2. Les Misérables - Victor Hugo | ★★★★☆
3. The Pearl - John Steinbeck | ★★★★★
4. Hollow Inside - Asako Otani | ★★★★☆
5. Hamnet - Maggie O'Farrell | ★★☆☆☆
6. Half His Age - Jennette McCurdy | ★★★★☆
7. John Paul Jones' Memoir of the American Revolution: Presented to King Louis XVI of France - Translated by Gerard W. Gawalt | ★☆☆☆☆
8. Carrie - Stephen King | ★★★★☆
9. Freaky Friday - Mary Rodgers | ★★★★☆
10. Wuthering Heights - Emily Brontë | ★★★☆☆
11. Elvis & Me - Priscilla Beaulieu Presley | ★★★☆☆
12. Softly, As I Leave You: Life After Elvis - Priscilla Beaulieu Presley | ★☆☆☆☆

I feel incredible. This is probably what a bear feels like after catching its first salmon. That's just how good it feels to read books, baby!

The year started with a string of incredible bangers. There was an unexpected lyrical beauty to Founding Brothers, my first book of the year, which focuses in on a tiny selection of Political Moments in sumptuous detail. I felt a tear forming in my eye while reading this book. It did something to me. I know exactly how Lin-Manuel Miranda must've felt writing Hamilton.

Then, of course, the masterwork, Les Mis, was finally completed by me. At times, reading that veritable tome felt like a challenge bestowed on me by a giant atop a hill who would eat my bones if I failed. It's a dense creature that chips at your memory and makes you sleepy, but the highs are high, and the miseries made all the more effective by enduring essays on Napoleonic conflicts. Also, Victor Hugo's essays become deeply addictive and cause this book to essentially be littered with surprises. It's a sort of pass-the-parcel of a book. So dense and so emblematic of the 19th century novel. Loved it.

These two, followed by John Steinbeck's sensational short story The Pearl, and Asako Otani's wry and unique Hollow Inside, were a huge catalyst. The Pearl is easily my favourite book of the year so far (and the only library book on this list).

Last year, I read 13 books total. I am about to smash the record. Where is my medal? 

Reviewing J2ME Games: 1100 A.D. Battle of Legends

1100 AD is a beautiful game. There is an incredible aesthetic and some powerful music that lets you know that this is serious.

The blokes.

It's a game about men. You can choose from a roster of different guys (I chose to be Johnny Linger, because I believed that was the funniest name), all representative of different tough boy cultures, and then you are tasked with beating the shit out of the other three.

Before the carnage begins, we get a little bit of intro text. This tells us that we are essentially at the final battle to determine who is the most badass soldier in the land. I think it’s kind of iconic to begin the game after some huge whittling down of strongmen. We’re not starting out as a rookie and punching our way to the top through fight after gruelling fight, we just have to kill three guys.

I killed them all and rolled credits in about five minutes. I proved myself to be the strongest warrior and succeeded in every step of the challenge. Yay!

This incredible fast pace, combined with the beauty of button mashing, perfectly suited to the Java format, creates an exhilarating experience. Speeding through this is a joy, although of course, it would be nice if there was more to it.

Probably the best Java game I’ve played thus far (aside from Gameloft’s fabulous Shrek platformers).

Reviewing J2ME Games: 09 Formula Extreme

When you see the images of 09 Formula Extreme's car driving through rainy streets peppered with palm trees, you might not think it looks impressive, but the feel of this thing is powerful. There are gorgeously layered synth tracks throughout that immediately put you in the driving spirit, and the wonder of this game is that it uses your phone's gyroscope to control the steering. It feels amazing.

That is, until you realise that turning your phone too haphazardly also rotates the game entirely, which can cause horrible sudden stopping, when all you wanted was to make that steep turn.

Because of this, the game has a wonderfully conflicted feel. At first, the smoothness of the controls feel incredible. There's a succinct tutorial level which runs you through the basics, and it feels much more sophisticated, bright, and exciting than a lot of Java games.

The text is pleasantly blue, the colour of great calm, and you are invited to participate in the "Season 2009 mode", where you can choose from a selection of legally distinct versions of real racing teams to join. I chose 'Rad Bull', which is surely short for 'Radical Feminist Bull', but let it be known: there is something so beautiful about 'Henda' to me. 

Unfortunately, I came dead last. The screen-turning problem became much more prominent out of the tutorial, and so I lost control. I have to blame the game for allowing such dark things to happen in game while requiring gyro precision, but there is something about this humiliation that makes want to play again, to best the racetrack, sudden ninety degree screenturn or no sudden ninety degree screenturn. 

Tragic.

There is a remarkable attention to detail here, and none of the amateur charm and glitched-out scuffs I've come to expect from Java games. Perhaps there is more sophistication in the medium than we thought possible...