Blue Dragon News: US Release Date

From MyGamerCard.net:

Microsoft today announced that Blue Dragon, the popular Japanese role-playing game developed by Hironobu Sakaguchi, with art design of Akira Toriyama, and music by Nobuo Uematsu, all famous and highly regarded Japanese game designers, will release August 28th in North America for $59.99. Blue Dragon, along with Eternal Sonata (known as Trusty Bell in Japan), are the Xbox 360’s two current “heavy-hitters” in Japan. While they haven’t gone all the way to the top of the charts, they’ve both penetrated the top 10 during their initial releases.

Sounds great. Blue Dragon is the JRPG I've been looking forward to. Just hope I finish with Two Worlds before BD reaches Europe =D

Check the MyGamerCard link for the full press release.

Carcassonne Achievements

Written by © borandi 2007 for www.achieve360points.com

1) Big City - 5GS

Scored a City with 3+ tiles in Single Player

Make a city that contains three or more city tiles. Very easy to get in your first game. If you're having trouble, watch the tutorials to see how the game works.

2) King of the Road - 5GS

Scored a road with 5+ tiles in Single Player

Make a road that contains five or more road tiles. Again, very easy to get in your first game. This may require so planning by placing a follower on a road and extending the road yourself, and finally finishing the road. But this situation is fairly common against Easy AI.

3) Farm Boy - 10GS

Scored a Farm supplying 4+ Cities in Single Player

Place a follower on farm/grassland that borders four or more cities. From the start of the game, aim to build small cities. When you have enough in one section of grassland/farmland, place a follower on that land. This is also a good way to get lots of points for the Count of Carcassonne achievement.

4) Rack Up The Points - 10GS

Scored 50+ points with Single Player

Achieve a score greater than 50 points in a game in Single Player. Fairly easy to get in your first game.

5) King For A Day - 15GS

Won 1 Ranked Game

Hop on XBL and play a ranked game. 1vs1 gives you more control of the game board, but will lead to a close game (I won my first 130-129).

6) Top Score - 15GS

Scored a total of 2000+ points from all your Carcassonne games combined

At an average of 130 score per Single Player 1 on 1 vs Easy AI, this should take 15-16 games. As far as I can tell, losses and multiplayer games count as well.

7) Top of the Heap - 20GS

Win a Player Match against 3 or more opponents

Join an XBL Player Match with 3 or more people in. You have less control of the board, so make each tile count and use as many followers as seems necessary. See what area is building the cities and dont forget to place a follower in that farmland. If a large city is forming, place a city tile one away with a follower in and try to connect them up. Get two followers in there, and the other team wont recieve the points. Make sure you know what rules are being played in the match before it starts.

8) Count of Carcassonne - 20GS

Scored 150+ points in a Single Player game

One on one against Easy AI. It took me several games to get this, and I ended up with a 72 point city, but there are easier ways (I've got more 150's since then). Aim for small cities and lots of them, with a follower in that farmland. If a city has extra shields, get a piece of that action. Roads are OK, but not worth as much points. Monasteries often get you at least 8 points each, so exploit this by placing a few together, but dont make them unfinishable if possible, so you get the followers back. Near the end of the game, go for the big points - more followers in farmland with cities.

9) Metropolis - 25GS

Score a City with 9+ tiles in a Player Match vs. 2 or more opponents

Can be difficult to get legit, but start a build a city with fairly 'open' (city on three sides) tiles. Once it gets to about 5/6 tiles, try to start closing it off, and make sure other players don't try and get a piece.

10) Mirror Monk - 25GS

Scored 2 adjacent Monasteries in Single Player

May take a few attempts and works best if you get monasteries early in the game. Dont box the monasteries in with city tiles. Best chance is to play 1 on 1 against Easy AI. There are ~6 monastery tiles in the game.

11) Lord of Carcassonne - 25GS

Beat an opponent in a Player Match by 50+ points

Getting this achievement legit can be easier in matches with more people, with your follower in the most profitable farmland.

12) Ultimate Score - 25GS

Score a total of 5000+ points from all your Carcassonne games

As Top Score. @ ~130GS per Single Player 1 on 1 vs. Easy AI, may take 40 games.


Read the Carcassonne wiki at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carcassonne_%28board_game%29

There 11 expansions for the real life board game, of which one is included in this electronic video game. This may open up the possibility of the other expansions being included as DLC in the future.

29th June: GS Update

FlatOut UC	0 -> 35 of 1000 3 of 45 Achievements
NBA 2K7	525 -> 545 of 1000 26 of 50 Achievements
Just Cause	75 -> 185 of 1000 18 of 50 Achievements
Eragon	0 -> 150 of 1000 6 of 37 Achievements
Carcassonne	105 of 200 8 of 12 Achievements
Command & Conquer 3	0 -> 20 of 1000 1 of 22 Achievements

Plethora of games today.

Managed to rent Flatout today. I'm a bit disappointed, as it's basically the same as Flatout 2 on the PC. Almost identical. I got bored of the PC version fairly quickly, and I'm basically bored with Flatout already. I've a few of the easy achievements - participate in a cup, 5 slams etc. But most of the rest of the achievements seem difficult - Complete Carnage Mode with all gold; Complete FlatOut Mode with all gold in all cups and events; Win Derby class in Flatout Mode (all cups gold) with an unupgraded Chili. There are a few online ones, but I cant really be bothered with it. It's no Forza - it's not even Destruction Derby on the PSX. Now that is a classic.

Pulled out NBA 2k7 from the shelf to get an easy achievement - 81 points in one game with Bryant. There are quite a few achievements I have left that involve shot blocking, yet I've played around 30 games, and got about 2 blocks total. Odd.

Got out Just Cause - a game I played for around 8hrs when it came out but put it on the shelf for newer games. It's got all the fun elements of GTA/Saints Row with a 'Columbia Drug Ring' bonus added in. Downside is that the world is too big and doesnt really have an easy transport system. But nevertheless, I got the 1000 metre base jump achievement (1109m), and a few general achievements (20 side missions, collection mission, kill 500). What is getting me at the minute is that it wont let me take over any green districts - but will let me get the yellows. Slightly odd.

Eragon has sat on my shelf for two months, and everywhere says it is an easy game, so I got it out of its shrink wrap. Its basically the same style as Pirates of the Caribbean/Shrek III - hack and slash. It gives you a bow and magic, which is a nice touch, but there is less to collect (one secret egg per level). Achievements are for completing levels on Normal and Hard, but unfortunately they are not retroactive (i.e. completing a level on Hard does not unlock the Normal difficulty achievement). So I played the first three levels on Normal and Hard for those achievements. The first level involves no real fighting, so for 5 mins work, 50GS. The rest is getting harder, but not that much. I could only be bothered to play it for an hour.

Played some more Carcassonne as well, now in the top 15 in the world with ~60 single player wins. Did some legit against the AI too in order to help with the 5000+ score achievement - in two successive games I won 167-67, 167-100. =D I did the achievement list for a360p.com, so I'll post it here too.

Also rented C&C3 today. Took it straight back for Flatout later this evening. I dont like RTS from the off, and while C&C is a good franchise, and this game has great graphics, it doesnt work well on the 360. Controls are not precise, and you cant really select the units you want. Main reason I dont like RTS is that I seem to have bad 'Computer Luck' (i.e. one time in Texas Hold 'em me and a mate just went all in for 50 hands, I won 2 of them). As a result in a 10 unit vs 10 unit battle, I always lose :( Even if the units are the same.

Also passed 35k today =D

GS: 34,798 -> 35,128

Completed XBLA:	7 / 21
Completed Retail:	17 / 74
GS Completion %:	40.92%
GS % (Non-Demo):	44.35%

Country Rank:	506/202641
World Rank:	2988/1502472

28th June: GS Update

Carcassonne	0 -> 105 of 200 8 of 12 Achievements
SHReK the THiRD	160 -> 590 of 1000 15 of 22 Achievements
Forza Motorsport 2	303 of 1000 22 of 44 Achievements

Good gaming today =D Carcassonne is great fun. Its like a quick version of Catan with 1000s of more moves possible that chess (it seems). The game provides tutorials which are quite thorough for the basic game, but doesnt explain the expansion (which isn't too hard, you just place ~12 river tiles at the beginning). On easy AI it's very easy, as long as you place a settler in a farm that borders on most of the cities. I managed to get a 72-point city once. The offline achievements are fairly easy - a couple of them require you to purposefully aim for them, but that isnt hard as the games are short. However there is a glitch - if you play a game on 'free game' mode, it counts as a win in the global leaderboards. Thus me being 11th in the world at the minute, with 55 played games, at least 20 vs. AI, the rest on 'free game'. The online achievements look OK as long as you get a game going - there doesnt seem to be many people playing this yet.

Shrek went well today - I completed the main game, all the move achievements, and all the collection achievements up to 66%. The rest requires a playthrough on the easiest and hardest difficulties, collection of all the special items and mini-quest perfection. In reality, it's taken me about 5 hours to get 590 GS, the rest should take another 5-10 hours.

Forza is still going strong - did 5/6 more endurance races and now lvl 44 with 300k needed for level 45. 5.4 mill in the bank though =D

GS: 34,263 -> 34,798

Completed XBLA:	7 / 21
Completed Retail:	17 / 71
GS Completion %:	42.01%
GS % (Non-Demo):	45.67%

Country Rank:	523/202641
World Rank:	3078/1502472

27th June: GS Update

SHReK the THiRD	0 -> 160 of 1000 5 of 22 Achievements
Forza Motorsport 2	271 -> 303 of 1000 22 of 44 Achievements

Rented Shrek III - its not that bad. The animation is shoddy and I found a glitch in the first few minutes of playing, but apart from that, its your stereotypical hack n' slash. Imagine 3D Golden Axe with quests on each level. Hopefully the movie will be better - I rented Shrek I + II this week to catch back up on the greatness that is Shrek! On the upside, the achievements are quite easy - complete on easy, normal and hard; finish the collection quests and do X amount of special moves. A couple of hours netted me 160 GS, and I see another 4 hours giving another 200-300 GS.

More Forza goodness =D Got the Sweden car achievement and one of the cup achievements, and did another 2 exhibition races. Downside is now I've completed all the races I can in career, and yet I need another 3/4 million credits to get to level 45 to unlock further cups. One of the endurance races nets around 130k an hour, so I'll have to do that a few times.

Carcassonne was released today on XBLA. I'll be checking it out soon. Its a board game similar to Catan but a lot more complicated that looks quite fun =D



GS: 34071 -> 34263

Completed XBLA:	7 / 20
Completed Retail:	17 / 71
GS Completion %:	41.34%
GS % (Non-Demo):	44.95%

Country Rank:	571/179813
World Rank:	3290/1350840

26th June: GS Update

Apologies for the lack of updates, I've been distracted by several things this week:

Lord Of The Rings Online (PC): Started a 7 day trial. I'm a level 12 Man Champion, but its going well so far. I'd be further, but the hobbits in the shire are damn annoying! The game could be better if you could zoom out with the minimap, or quests were more pinpointed on the map.

Quake Wars: Enemy Territory Beta(PC): The highly anticipated FPS for PCs now has a limited public beta (60,000 keys only), of which I got a key. Notched up about 8.5hrs, 2000XP. Its a good fast paced Quake game with Enemy Territory style objectives. I love the team and class aspects. What annoys me is the hit detection -_- and how no matter what team I'm on I get 2 hit killed with pistols -_-.

Floods: Not a game, but that I was in a badly hit area this week due to rain. It covered my front garden, and was 2 inches from my front door. Some people down the street had to bail water out of their houses, and for the first time in 48hrs I was able to get down the shops this evening.

Work: Yeah, I have a job this summer now =D I'm making a website for a client, and its going well, but I'm have to spend a lot of time this summer in order to get it finished.

Now, onto the 360 gaming fun =D

X-Men:TheOfficialGame	410 -> 685 of 1000 12 of 16 Achievements
WSC2007	0 -> 100 of 1000 8 of 50 Achievements
LEGO Star Wars II	250 -> 270 of 1000 8 of 29 Achievements
F4: ROTSS	0 -> 60 of 1000 3 of 19 Achievements

Finished up Nightcrawlers' missions on X-Men III, getting full genes and pickups. Some of those Superhero difficulty missions are very difficult! I'm dreading doing the flying missions though, they seem to be very annoying.

WSC2007 is a really good snooker game! It beats Yahoo pool every time =D Its very good for learning the game too. Downsides are that if you let the CPU even have one shot, chances are they'll clear the table.

I finally got Ben Kenobi's ghost on Lego Star Wars II, so it should make the rest of the achievements easier. Though I'm 20 hours in now, making this a long 1000 GS to get.

Fantastic Four is a wierd game. You run round with the four members, using them at various times to do various deeds. The achievements and gameplay are somewhat similar to X-Men, but I dont find the game entertaining to play it for long periods of time.

This week Blockbuster got Shrek III, Vampire Rain and Flatout: Ultimate Carnage. I'll try and rent them this week if they're still available. I'm looking forward to Flatout, having played previous members of the series.

GS: 33616 -> 34071

Completed XBLA:	7 / 20
Completed Retail:	17 / 70
GS Completion %:	41.58%
GS % (Non-Demo):	45.26%

Country Rank:	580/179813
World Rank:	3335/1350840

19th June: GS Update

It's been a very DiRTy couple of days. What a game.

DiRT™	0 -> 315 of 1000 17 of 49 Achievements
Boom Boom Rocket	75 -> 100 of 200 9 of 12 Achievements
Forza Motorsport 2	186 -> 271 of 1000 20 of 44 Achievements
Gears of War	80 of 1250 7 of 57 Achievements

DiRT is the rally version of Forza, albeit with less options. It drives and handles like Forza, but gives that rally element of crashing into trees while only doing an average of 60mph. I like it also because on Rookie difficulty it's fairly easy to win =D Though I've done most of exhibition apart from the big 6 rally tournament, 20% of Career, and a few online games. Online is fun and just what I sort of imagined it to be - up to 100 people in a lobby, vote for a track, everyone does a time trial at the same time on it. Quickest time wins. That's all well and good, but I never came near the top in a 20 man lobby, so goodness knows how I'm going to get that achievement. Though apart from the online ones, the offline ones seem kinda easy.

I picked up some Boom Boom Rocket today, and finished off three songs to get all the firework types. I also found out that along with the ABXY buttons you can also use the D-Pad. *d'oh!* Though it really helped with the final song on hard. The last 3 achieves will need some work on though!

Still doing some Forza 2 even though DiRT is here. Got to level 40, so I was able to get some gold cups and the level 40 achievement. Also managed to buy/sell 10 cars in the auction house for that achievement. I also got out my best car, headed to the easiest Nissan Raceway track on Career, stuck all the difficulty settings as high as they would go, and win to get the Natural and Hardcore achievements. Using the Nissan Raceway meant that I only had to change gears to go up, and using the best car meant that even on the highest difficulty, I still had a 50kph+ advantage.

Yes, I still suck at GoW. No matter how many Annex games I play. Though I'm probably up to 50 global kills now, probably a 0.1 kpd ratio and 5 hours played online. I might aim for a boosting group this weekend if we can get enough people together.

GS: 33191 -> 33616

Completed XBLA:	7 / 20
Completed Retail:	17 / 68
GS Completion %:	42.21%
GS % (Non-Demo):	46.05%

Country Rank:	587/151831
World Rank:	3298/1170328