23rd July: Where I been

Ok so first post in a while. I have two very good reasons....!

a) Moving house is always a chore, and to top it off the local phone company requires 2 weeks to flick a switch to enable my internet. Though I'm running on 8mb d/l (up from 2mb at my last place) =D
b) Xbox 360 went bye bye! I'm getting the 3RLoD on the box. I still need to phone MS (its been a week now, lol), but by the time I get it back, I'll be on holiday, so UPS will probably balls that up. I might get it redelivered to a friends house, and phone MS tomorrow.

Apart from that, before it went, I bought Sonic and Golden Axe, with around 100 and 150 in them respectively. I'll update soon, though it might not be until mid august. I've a lot of news to catch up on, so see you on the flipside =D

8th July: GS Update

At World’s End	125 -> 250 of 1000 10 of 30 Achievements
Guitar Hero II	160 -> 330 of 1000 25 of 50 Achievements
Tenchu Z	0 -> 220 of 1000 10 of 31 Achievements

I've now rented out At World's End three times. The first time, I also had two other rentals out and they took precedence, and as such I played At Worlds End for about an hour. The second time, I didnt play it at all (thank god for free rentals). This week, there are no new releases for rent at my local Blockbuster, thus I can focus on some of those games I haven't played as much, like At Worlds End. Well, I played for around 90 minutes, and got all the achievements now for the first five stages that is possible, and thus have seven stages left. Should not take too long =D Though I've been reading on the forums that the '100 souls' achievement can be quite tricky.

More GH2, its a bit addictive. I managed to finish Medium, all on 5 stars. I've bought all the extra tracks from the store, so I'll finish playing though those to get that achievement. Actually, here's a bug - one of those songs uses the fifth fret once on Medium difficulty. Bastards!! I also tried a couple of tracks on hard - it was hard at first, but the easier stuff gradually puts you into the swing of things. The credits were boring (I trolled the net til that finished), but at somepoint I'll go through the easy tracks.

The first Tenchu I played was the first one on the PSX, and it was a phenominal stealth-ninja game. The stages were hard, with people everywhere and it was difficult to get any of the 11 rounds clear. Tenchu Z, while it takes a step up in terms of graphics, gameplay and stage count (there are 50), takes a step back in both difficulty and individuality. It's a great feeling in the game when you can silently stealth kill everyone on the map (even the innocents if you so which), but after doing it for the first 5 levels, it gets boring. The maps are somewhat repeated too, with the same sort of situations. But there are many ways of doing things - go straight to the objective, or kill everyone first. Unlike the first Tenchu, there so far has been no-one on roofs (upto stage 11), and items have not been necessary. But I am playing it on easy, and I do get a great feeling when I get a perfect score on a level. That is shown in the time taken to get each stage just right - when getting into the swing of things (stages 1-5), it was taking me around an hour (of deaths and getting everything just right) per stage, now however, it's taking me 30 minutes. I'll definately be getting this out again - I suggest you go play the demo if you love any sort of stealth.

Oh, and Ninjas > Pirates... always!

GS: 37,169 -> 37,634

Completed XBLA:	7 / 21
Completed Retail:	17 / 81
GS Completion %:	40.49%
GS % (Non-Demo):	43.81%

Country Rank:	445/203789
World Rank:	2557/1509791

6th July: GS Update

Guitar Hero II

0 -> 160 of 1000 12 of 50 Achievements

I already have GHII on the PS2, so I borrowed the 360 version off a friend, and it's the only thing I've played today (despite having a Tenchu Z rental up on my desk). I've done 90% of the songs before, so it's a hassle doing them again. But I started going though the easy achievements - fail a song on easy; tutorial; 100 note streak etc. On the PS2 version, my favourite song was always one of the bonus ones - Less Talk More Rokk by Freezepop. So I bought it as soon as I could on the 360, and jumped straight in at medium difficulty. Several minutes later, I came out with my first perfect ever on it, 820 note streak and 216k score. Result =D I usually play on medium difficulty - doing hard with 5 frets and only four fingers gives me some brain strain. If anyone knows of an easy way to do it, then let me know. My default style is probably shit to begin with anyway. I doubt I'll buy the 500MS points extra packs, as there isnt a set of tracks I'm interested in. The odd track or two alone, maybe. Though apparently some new tracks are due out in a couple weeks, so we'll see what comes out then.

GS: 37,009 -> 37,169

Completed XBLA:	7 / 21
Completed Retail:	17 / 80
GS Completion %:	40.43%
GS % (Non-Demo):	43.78%

Country Rank:	450/203714
World Rank:	2614/1509519

Microsoft Warranty Update

If you have an unmodded 360, Xbox will now fix the 'Ring of Death' problem for 3 years since purchase. This is for all 360s, worldwide, but only extends to the RoD issue. Check other news sites for details, I'm busy =D

Bomberman Live: Making Of Video

A video from Hudson about how Live is being made: basically from the outset that no-one liked Act Zero!

Here's what X360F said:

It seems so important to have some presence on YouTube these days. Every company, network, and politician is out to reach all the obsessed YouTubers with their "message," be that "buy my product," "watch my show," or "vote for me." Typically, we don't pay these much mind. Especially those fed to us by game companies. It is somewhat refreshing then, to see Hudson open its making-of Bomberman Live video by admitting that Bomberman Act: Zero was a piece of garbage. Yes, that goes a long way towards restoring our faith in the franchise, for truly it was a festering pile. It's heartening to know that Hudson began with "let's not make another Act: Zero" as a base for their upcoming Xbox Live Arcade offering.

It's okay, Hudson. We all make mistakes. As long as Bomberman Live delivers, all is forgiven.

Blue Dragon Demo - July 20th

From X360F:

If you've been on the fence about Blue Dragon, then we have some good news for you. According to Dengeki Online (helpfully translated by Siliconera), an international Blue Dragon demo is slated for July 20. Weighing an impressive 1.1GB, the demo will apparently contain a whopping 2 hours of available gameplay. We hope you've grown accustomed to the English voice-overs though, as Japanese will not be an option in the demo. There may be a few different subtitle options, depending on the language settings of your Xbox. Finally, be sure to grab the demo as soon as you can, as it will fly away from Marketplace on August 3rd, giving just over three weeks to save up for the real thing.

Niice =D I'll be in the US from the 30th, it'll give me time to play the demo 120 times =D

5th July: GS Update

Overlord	0 -> 170 of 1000 14 of 44 Achievements
LOTR, BFME II	0 -> 10 of 705 2 of 35 Achievements
Vampire Rain	0 -> 650 of 1000 13 of 20 Achievements
The Darkness	255 -> 295 of 1000 22 of 50 Achievements

Its mainly been an Overlord couple of days =D I played the demo, and thought it was rather good, so I rented it. What's the best way to describe Overlord? Third person Dungeon Keeper mixed with Pikmin. You control a big ass 'Overlord', with the power to control minions who do your tasks for you. Use the Right Stick to move the minions around to pick up stuff, smash barrels etc. I've probably played the game about 6/7hrs, and I doubt I'm even 15% of the way through it. It's a very long game, and in order to get all the achievements, you have to play through at least twice =D If you liked Pikmin or Dungeon Keeper, get this.

Unwrapped LOTR: BFME2. I've played it on the PC a few times, and I wasnt that keen (like with most RTS games). This game differs from other RTS in the fact that most maps are very short - you wont see a 3hr brawl on one map - maybe only 30 mins. The achievements look easy enough, though when I did the second mission today, I needed to do all the secondary objectives such like 'Destroy all tunnels', and the other side bastards started building a tunnel (which counts as a tunnel) about 0.2 seconds before I completed the last primary task. Bah humbug!

Vampire Rain is an interesting game. Imagine Metal Gear Solid meets Blade (the films). The first two single player missions involve running from waypoint to waypoint, avoiding the nightwalkers/zombies. If they see you, they are very powerful and you're dead in less than a second. So keep with the stealth, and it should see you through. I started going after some of the secret achievements, and thus spent 45mins on the 2nd mission, only to die 5 metres from the finishing point. Bleh.... Though I did team up to boost for the online achievements. Took just over an hour to get ALL the online achievements (which is pretty pants tbh), which can be done with two people and private player matches.

Had another little play before taking back The Darkness, and got the 'collect 75 collectables' and 'summon 50 creatures' achievements. I'll get this out again soon to at least complete the story mode, if not participate in some more online brawling.

GS: 36,139 -> 37,009

Completed XBLA:	7 / 21
Completed Retail:	17 / 79
GS Completion %:	40.70%
GS % (Non-Demo):	44.11%

Country Rank:	451/203695
World Rank:	2624/1509377

3rd July: GS Update

The Darkness	0 -> 255 of 1000 20 of 50 Achievements
Forza Motorsport 2	303 -> 409 of 1000 27 of 44 Achievements

The Darkness is rather run. I'm not one for horror films, but The Darkness is hardly horror, despite what the packaging might have you believe. Its just a lot of blood, guts, shooting, and ripping hearts out of peoples chests. I've got at least 1/3 of the way through Single Player on normal (rather than easy, heh) and so far I havent been frustrated much. Infinite lives, but it respawns you at the beginning of the stage (annoying on long stages). Very linear, but it works well. Achievements are all spread out too, which is a good thing. Single player achievements look fairly easy (except complete on hard mode), online ones are a bit annoying based on the fact that most servers are fairly laggy, thus host advantage is almost 2:1 if not 5:1 in kills. I quick did a few secret achievements thanks to these phone numbers. This game, overall, is a nice break from the WW2/GoW type FPS scenarios. Controls are half decent too (despite sticks on FPS games), apart from jump being Y and not A. If the controls were a little more stealth oriented, it would fare better I feel. But overall, a good game. I'll be renting this again soon.

I've now only got 2 tournaments to go on Forza 2 career mode, both requiring level 50 to participate. I've also started to purchase cars from regions where I've already unlocked all the cars there. A word of warning, if you've barely touched upon Ferrari, expect to pay around 3 mill for their 19 cars. It drains your bank balance a bit too much! I still have 3.5 mill left, and I reckon I need another 2 mill to get to level 50. The new level 45 endurance race is giving me 142k for 1hr 5mins, so I'll stick with that for a while too.

GS: 35,778 -> 36,139

Completed XBLA:	7 / 21
Completed Retail:	17 / 76
GS Completion %:	40.96%
GS % (Non-Demo):	44.51%

Country Rank:	481/203230
World Rank:	2809/1506376

2nd July: GS Update

Forza Motorsport 2	303 of 1000 22 of 44 Achievements
PROJECT SYLPHEED	0 -> 460 of 1000 15 of 24 Achievements
Band of Bugs	0 of 200 0 of 12 Achievements
Shadowrun	70 -> 125 of 1000 10 of 50 Achievements
Marble Blast Ultra	0 of 200 0 of 12 Achievements
Bankshot Billiards 2	0 of 200 0 of 12 Achievements
Pro Evolution Soccer 6	360 of 1000 9 of 23 Achievements
Carcassonne	105 -> 125 of 200 9 of 12 Achievements
Blitz: The League	130 of 1000 11 of 47 Achievements
FlatOut UC	35 -> 135 of 1000 8 of 45 Achievements

Lots of games these past few days. =D

Finally level 45 on Forza after several more endurance races. Still need to do the few cups to get a couple of achievements (which my auto driver is doing now). Though it's going to be a while until I hit level 50 I feel.

I rented Project Sylpheed today, and it's quite good. Square Enix usually never fail to disappoint, and their foray into a flight sim has turned out rather well. It has quite an arcade style to it, and is full of pre-rendered story scenes that are full of life and colour. The story is worth listening to, as it does help with the missions in the game. There are 16 main missions in the game, each with primary and secondary objectives - but you're never told the secondary objectives. Each level gives you a rank based on time, kills, objectives etc. Each level can last for 5-25 minutes, though it took me 3hrs 30mins of flying for my first run though (about 6/7 hrs total if you include the cut scenes). About half of the achievements are fairly easy and got by going through the game, though 2 of the story achievements didnt unlock for me as I played it which was wierd. The rest are for doing special activities - completely annihilate 'Squad X', destroy 1000/10000 ships, destroy stuff with a total weight of one gigaton etc. Half of those require more than one run though (I got 81 megatons on my first run through, so that 1000 megaton/1 gigaton achievement would require 12 run throughs). As you play through the game, you get unlocks for your ship, and you have to do more difficult tasks and so forth. I enjoyed it, until my second run through, where in order to get higher ranks on some of the levels I died several times from annoying little things. The controls are ok, though it's a bit annoying that if you accidentally go into hyperdrive you cant stop and end up hitting something, and often the screen is so full of colours you cant tell which are the enemy ships, or where your base ship is in order to refuel. Thus, as you try and decipher the map and radar (which sortof help) you end up with either no shield or dead :S Though if you dont really like the current flight sims available (Blazing Angels, Over G Fighters), or love Square Enix or arcady games, then give this game a go.

I tried the Band of Bugs demo. It reminds me of Final Fantasy Tactics Advance (yeah I didnt get into Advance Wars that much) and looks quite fun-ish. The achievements look ok, with 130 being easily attainable, depending on how long the single player mode is.

I also rented Shadowrun again. I liked it a bit more than last time - mainly because I was able to play a few games with people who weren't retards. By retards I mean the following: people who have to have a running commentary on what they're doing; people who scream and shout down their mic; people who swear non stop; people who are racists and people spouting racial slurs; people who shout 'you got pwned, biatch' after each round; 'people who keep shouting 'revive me!'; people who beat box down their mic; people who play music down their mic... I could think of others, but I'm sure that 66% of XBL games contain at least one of the above. That being said, I got the 5:1 damage to kill ratio achievement, and the fever. I should have got the 10 rounds won in a row achievement (6-0 first round, then 4-0 second, then 4-1, finished 6-1) but it didnt unlock. BOO! I tried going for the 5 gust kills, but I reckon I only got one.

Marble Blast Ultra is a game I like the demo of. Until I gets frustrated by annoying 'air' physics such that movement in the air is almost nil. Bleh.

My *box finally decides to download the Bankshot Billiards demo despite being on auto download for new XBLA demos. It's ok, but in a heartbeat I'd pick WSC2007.

Put in PES6, played a few more games of my D2 League and cup. I'm beginning to wonder why the shortest half length on this game is 5 minutes, and not 2 mins like most other football games. It'll be a while before I reach 1000GS on this game, but I'll get there =D

I've been playing a few more games of Carcassonne, and a couple online. I got the win vs 3 other players online achievement (rather comfortably), and I'm still working my way to that 5000 points achievement. I hope to get 200 GS on this soon. It's a shame no-one on my friends list has it.

I have a love/hate relationship with Blitz: The League. Dont get me wrong, I love the NFL and enjoy the Madden franchise, despite it being made by EA. But the Blitz is riddled with poor camera and poor controls. I hadn't played this in a while, so I went through the tutorials again (quite comfortably). Went back to my campaign game, only to be 21 points down after the first quarter. My defence cant defend, apparently. The menu system for choosing your plays is rather poor, as in the fact that it never remembers your previous play, and as the quarters are rather short there is no messing around in choosing your play. All the default plays (just pressing A) are rather crap. On the field, the defence ends up not defending the Hail Mary, or completely missing with the blitz on a running play. The controller never switches to the person you want, and everytime you select a new person, you have to re-press LT to lock on with a dirty hit. They could have done a lot better with this game. I'll tackle it again when the real NFL starts hiking their balls.

Well, I finally decided to sit down with my rental of Flatout, and go through Carnage mode. All was well for the most part - I started to get silvers and golds, rather than a complete bronze slate. Also ended up with some achievements - Heavy Blast, 100 slams, 1 mill Carnage points, etc. So then I was down to the penultimate Carnage race. Normal race/destruction type, with the goal being 50k points for bronze. 50k?? Thats gold on most other races. So 8 attempts later, my best score is 35k. This is a load of pants. Then I get 45k. Getting better, so then another 8 attempts later, I have 48.5k and 15 seconds left. I can see the car ahead of me, I have full Nitro. I aim full pelt at it, and the car ahead partially crashes into the wall, scraping along the side at 60mph. Easy kill I feel, so I aim for where it should be. In the 50 metres between me and the wall, the other car comes to a complete halt. I mean 60 to 0 in 0.000 seconds. My car never does that unless I hit a tree. So this glitch made me miss, and then if you've ever played this game, you know the reverse gear is shite, so I end up with 48.5k for the race, and almost a busted controller as it gets flung across the room. Destruction Derby got AI and reversing right, why cant these people??

OK, rant over. I also have The Darkness rented out, which I'll hopefully play (and enjoy, by looking at the manual and achievements) tomorrow.

GS: 35,128 -> 35,778

Completed XBLA:	7 / 21
Completed Retail:	17 / 75
GS Completion %:	41.01%
GS % (Non-Demo):	44.61%

Country Rank:	496/203230
World Rank:	2882/1506376