Features// Girl Gamer - This Week: The Strip Club

Sun is shining, weather is sweet. I lounge in the park, working off my hangover with immediate meat. Wrapped in my Spartan blanket, I reflect on how lovely it would be if I had a DS so I could do some "work" instead of just giggling quietly to myself about the previous night's antics (getting kicked out of a strip club, then the Dry Dock, then a taxi. The usual.)

Luckily my glorious and much needed editor is on hand; well, I say 'on hand'; "observing through binoculars" is probably more accurate - same difference really, no? I borrow my mate's DS. Yes, I know if I'd only put a little more into Stacker I could, possibly, have one of my own, however the likelihood is that if I'd continued pumping money into it I would have gained nothing except a bloodied fist from trying to punch my way through reinforced glass having lost all my money.

Unfortunately it is at this point that it begins to rain. All is not lost! My editor, in his wisdom, has given me Forza 2 as well! I get settled in to design some pretty cars and take them for a spin, when the broken twig of destiny once again lands in the bicycle spokes of my gaming. PAL 50! Damn TV!

I play on valiantly despite the fact that it's like trying to play whilst someone's waggling a fish slice over the screen. I try to go backwards for a couple of rounds; I try to experience the realism that so many people crave. But it's no good - the fish slice wins.

Is it wrong that all racing games I compare mentally to Mario Kart? For me I think realistic racing has limited satisfaction (incidentally, this was the name of the tune I got kicked out of the strip club for dancing to, fact fans) when one's not playing against other people, so I decide that Forza 2 can be saved for another occasion… and so can my TV.

Both DS games that I've been sent share a very cutesy-pie Japanese style, and both for some reason unbeknownst to myself, focus on the exploits of chubby birds.

There has been a certain amount of synchronicity over the last couple of weeks and one element that keeps recurring is the demonisation of fowl. Therefore, I view Chocobo Tales tentatively and, if truth be told, with some trepidation. I start with an Adamantoise / Cactuar race but lose interest quickly. Bomberwall is fractionally more engaging, but only in an area that Minesweeper covered a couple of decades ago and, unlike Minsweeper, I could not play Bomberwall for days (once you see my sweet moves you're gonna stay amazed). By the time I move to Job Juggler I'm ready to give it up as a lost cause, but then I spot Cheese Chase.

Ah, even now as I sup on my mini-Guinness I'm filled with a warm glow of recollection. A small hamster, strung with balloons has to attempt to avoid some adorable bats in an attempt to ingest cubes of cheese from both screens. You move him up and down by blowing into the microphone socket. Despite having the lungs of an 80-year-old, I do like to blow and am kept thoroughly entertained for a good half an hour, occasionally releasing small, involuntary “Uhhs!” when I accidentally pop his balloons and send him earthwards, perturbing my friends not a little.

So, all is not lost! As a selection of tinkling little games it could be worse and would probably be much appreciated by its target audience who, presumably, are still in single digit ages and need something to keep them busy - apart from selling crack and Uzis, that is.

I pop out Chocobo Tales and insert Trioncube.

But that is another story.