28th October: GS Update

Another week, more gaming! I might have to tone down some more in the following weeks - work is beginning to creep up and deadlines looming! On the plus side, however, I now own 106 retail games.

borandi likes to game, I like to game, this is a match made in heaven! It takes a gamer score like 54,317 to be as cool as him. That is an improvement of 135 points over last time! He rocked out to Overlord gaining 1 achievement, Madden NFL 08, Speedball 2, Tiger Woods PGA TOUR06 picking up 1 achievement, Carcassonne gaining 2 achievements to complete the game, Catan, E4 acquiring 1 achievement, and then he had to stop because we both couldn't take it anymore... we were spent.

And the games this week:

At World’s End	425 -> 550 of 1000 22 of 30 Achievements
Madden NFL 08	0 -> 1000 of 1000 48 of 48 Achievements
E4	0 -> 15 of 200 1 of 12 Achievements
Carcassonne	150 -> 200 of 200 12 of 12 Achievements
Tiger Woods PGA TOUR06	0 -> 50 of 960 1 of 16 Achievements
Overlord	280 -> 530 of 1000 30 of 44 Achievements
Quake 4	80 -> 85 of 1000 7 of 50 Achievements
Beautiful Katamari	0 -> 420 of 1250 26 of 40 Achievements
Crash Of The Titans	0 -> 133 of 1000 9 of 47 Achievements

This is now the forth or fifth time I've rented Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End. It's the only game I've rented, so maybe I'll complete it this time! I only picked it up a few hours ago, and ran through the next couple of levels. I only have 8 achievements left - the last 3 levels, all Calypso pieces, and 100 souls. So that's what, another 3 rentals? :p Apparently the 100 souls can be tricky, but I'll have a bash at it.

I actually found a cheap(er) copy of Madden 08 this week to buy. I cant find it to rent, so I bought it, and had a wonderful sight after my first game on it: 27 achievements for 545GS. This game was very easy :) You can also sim ALL the achievements, as shown by my friend who got 17 achievements for 405GS just by simming a 15min qtr game. Fantastic. Well I had a little trouble on one achievement - the 4 blocks achievement. I kept intercepting the ball instead :p But an hour of simming got that final one. Another game complete Jeeves!

I played the demo of E4 just as a random bored thing to do. It was rather interesting, though I didnt really see the point of it. Then I read the 'How to play' section, and under advice, bought it for 800MSPs. It's a fun game :) Just blowing up stuff to either the music provided, or your own. I added a track with 596BPM :) Makes the game a bit easier too. Though I played for 30 mins with the same music track repeating in the background, and got 17 trillion points. I look on the scoreboard, and lo and behold, 17,000 trillion. WTF?? How long do these guys play the game??? The achievements look tricky though, so I'm not expecting 200 from this one. It's like Geometry Wars on crack.

I was able to boost with 3 other friends my final 2 achievements on Carcassonne: Win vs 3 other players, and win by 50 points. It should have been an easy 200GS, but the lack of people online made the online ones a bit tricky.

Tiger Woods 06 is one bitch of a game. To start with, some achievements require you to play online modes. Modes that EA have shut down for cutting into their 'profit margins', thus you cant get these achievements anymore. W*nkers. Though I boosted a little with rican ninja89, and I got one achievement by accident. Woo! 50pts!

I was also able to boost most of the online achievements for Overlord. 50 wins on slaughter and pillage for each player took around 2 to 2.5hrs. The wins are easy - go kill something, then the other person quits and you get the win. I also played a little of the story mode, getting the Arcanium smelter.

I also boosted somewhat on Quake 4 with mingo21 and rican ninja89. We're going after various achievements, like the 500 excellents and 250 impressives. It's a slow process, probably going to take months. I should also play some of the story mode tbh.

I imported Beautiful Katamari the week of its US release. And I'm glad I did, its a wicked game!! After 7 hrs, I had completed the main quest, now I'm finishing up some of the secondary tasks. For several days, according to mygamercard.net, I was no.1 in the UK for GS!
I'm number one!
Yup, thats no.1! Out of about 15 people who'd played it in the UK =D I want to get hold of the downloadable content for it, but that's Asia only. Probably wont make it to the UK marketplace until it gets released here - sometime in January then.

I rented out Crash of the Titans earlier this week. It's your typical Crash Bandicoot platformer, though lacking somewhat in the graphics department. I didnt get to play it a lot, but if you like your platformers, you'll like Crash Bandicoot.

GS: 52,354 -> 54,442

Completed XBLA:	13 / 35
Completed Retail:	25 / 128
GS Completion %:	38.30%
GS % (Non-Demo):	40.68%

Country Rank:	216
World Rank:	1,377

21st October: GS Update

A busy week in terms of work, so not much gaming. But it was luck that a new shop opened this weekend: the second largest GameStation in Europe. They were having some bumper deals on the opening weekend, so I picked up six 360 games for not much money (some of which I havent played yet). I also bought Eternal Sonata, and imported Beautiful Katamari, which should be here next week.

borandi seemed really excited to play yesterday. Our current gamerscore is 51,949 . That is a profit of 10 points over last time! He rocked out to Eternal Sonata finishing 1 achievement, Puzzle Quest, Streets of Rage 2, and then he started getting all these friend requests because of high awesomeness levels.

And the games:

Battlefield 2: MC	210 -> 250 of 1000 12 of 46 Achievements
Open Season	0 -> 40 of 1000 2 of 46 Achievements
CM 2007	0 -> 365 of 1000 16 of 42 Achievements
Streets of Rage 2	175 of 200 11 of 12 Achievements
Puzzle Quest	0 - > 60 of 200 5 of 12 Achievements
Eternal Sonata	0 -> 10 of 1000 1 of 22 Achievements
DDR Universe	0 -> 190 of 1000 6 of 32 Achievements
Speedball 2	0 -> 40 of 200 3 of 12 Achievements
Halo 3	170 of 1000 14 of 49 Achievements
Bankshot Billiards 2	175 -> 200 of 200 12 of 12 Achievements
Ridge Racer 6	0 -> 5 of 1000 1 of 36 Achievements
NFS Most Wanted	0 -> 10 of 1000 1 of 15 Achievements
Call of Duty 2	230 of 1000 4 of 13 Achievements
Sonic The Hedgehog 2	125 -> 145 of 200 9 of 12 Achievements

I've done a little boosting on BF2:MC, getting some more of those online achievements. In particular, I got the Navy '5 water vehicle kills' and '20 C4 kills' while helping a friend from 10k get some other achievements.

Open Season was one of the cheap games I picked up this week. Looks fairly easy, though I didnt play it much - too many games, not enough time!!!!!

CM (Championship Manager) 2007 isnt a bad game. I'm always reluctant with Football Management sims as they usually are overcomplicated and take too long (or have an elaborate load/save system). So I started a season with Man Utd., and in a few hours I was winning lots (thanks to reloading after a loss) and got quite a few achievements fairly easily. Not many people have this game, and I'm already in the top 300 in the world for GS.

I started a new game on SoR2 on Hardcore, going after that 800k achievement. Basically it'll be like going after the Golden Axe one - beat an enemy without losing health, then save. If hit, reload. I'm halfway through stage two, with ~125k score.

Played a bit more of Puzzle Quest. It's annoying that it's different from the DS version - you cant infinitely raise your stats given enough money, and my favourite weapon has been dulled a little. However, I'm hitting for 11 for every 3 skull combo, and winning easy.

Eternal Sonata's graphics are awesome - they look better than Blue Dragon/Two Worlds/Gears of War. They look Cel Shaded, but its done in such a good way. I played the game for a little over an hour, and I cant help but feel that these new RPGs just aren't as varied as the Final Fantasies of yore. There's little to do with regards to side quests. What might be annoying with Eternal Sonata is that to get 1000GS, you have to play through it twice.

I imported DDR Universe - I had a feeling it might drop off the side of the earth soon. It's an easy game so far - if you start to fail you never lose, and can keep going. It's the only DDR game I've seen with a story mode (which is a bonus), which improves the game immensely over other DDR games/clones. Overall, it looks like an easy 750GS, but some of the challenges look immensely hard.

Speedball 2 came into XBLA this week. It's a game I've been waiting for a while, and one I used to play on the Commodore 64 and Megadrive. The XBLA port is a very good one - improved graphics with retro style as an option, and a much easier to navigate front end. Kudos!

Nellas and I played some social matches online. We came 1st/2nd on a king of the hill game, though a few online players were bunny hopping everywhere. Cheating b*stards!

I finally completed Bankshot Billiards 2. I turned it on, played a large number of games, then thought I had 20 left, so turned it off. Next day, I log in, play 2 games and that final achievement unlocked. =D Game Complete!

I opened Ridge Racer and Need For Speed: MW to get the 'Launch King' badge over at 360voice. I've had the games in my collection for ages, just never opened them. I'll take a better look at them at a later date.

I also went back to CoD2 - I still need to complete this game on Veteran (I've done it on easy on PC already), and it's still quite hard. Grind, grind, grind!

After watching a video online to get the Chemical Plant 1 quick time, I had a bash at it. Took around 15 minutes to get the correct path just right, and another 20GS.

GS: 51,629 -> 52,354

Completed XBLA:	12 / 34
Completed Retail:	24 / 125
GS Completion %:	37.84%
GS % (Non-Demo):	40.25%

Country Rank:	239
World Rank:	1,529

14th October: GS Update

This week has been a busy week! Where do I begin....

On Thursday, I organised and ran a Halo 3 on XBL night for the Hull University Computer Society (HUCS, for which I am Vice-President). We had 6 to 7 people on for most of the time, mainly playing some Big Team Battle. Eventually people logged off until we hit 4 players, then we started doing story mode on Legendary, till around the third stage.

On Saturday, I was at a HUCS LAN for around 10 hours. Lots of PC games (Quake Wars, UT3 Demo) with some Console play on the side (a 2 vs 2 Halo 3 Tournament - my team went out in the semi-final 25-24, some Wii Tennis and some Guitar Hero). Good fun had by all!

So, for my 360voice:

Pick it, pack it fire it up, come along, lets get borandi's gaming on! Gamer score is 51,609. That is a gain of 5 points over last time! He rocked out to Amped 3 finishing 5 achievements, Battlefield 2: MC, Pro Evolution Soccer 6, Blue Dragon gaining 1 achievement, and then borandi had to stop for a bathroom break or something... Humans really are bags of mostly water. Also, don't tell borandi I told you this, but we have now gamed 50 days in a row... he doesn't like to share that with others. If I understand the rules, I think we are getting a streak badge...

w00t 50 days ;)

Puzzle Quest	0 -> 40 of 200 4 of 12 Achievements
Blue Dragon	45 -> 50 of 1000 6 of 43 Achievements
Pro Evolution Soccer 6	840 -> 880 of 1000 20 of 23 Achievements
Halo 3	125 -> 170 of 1000 14 of 49 Achievements
Bankshot Billiards 2	120 -> 175 of 200 11 of 12 Achievements
Sonic The Hedgehog 2	45 -> 125 of 200 8 of 12 Achievements
Yaris	0 -> 5 of 200 1 of 12 Achievements

I picked up Puzzle Quest from XBLA for 1200 points. I like the 360 graphics, but gaming on the DS was easier (plus there was a bug to get easy exp). So far I'm level 23, about 10% into story mode - I spent a while grinding exp on an easy quest. The rest of the achievements bar one should be easy to get, the other one is a game on LIVE, which I'll probably do when I'm level 50.

I started a new game on Blue Dragon, this time going through with my guide to get all the items and achievements. I got the first button mashing one that I missed previously, and I've got to the Devee village this time so far. Instead of focusing on Generalist and Guardian classes, I'm focusing more on the Barrier class, as well as the Generalist, so I can use that field barrier to easily kill enemies.

PES 6 is still a slow grind - I won the 20 games or so left of Serie A to get that achievement, now I'm in the Dutch league as PSV Eindhoven, about 10 games in. So that makes around 140 games left until 1000GS.

Like I said previously, I've been playing some Halo 3 online with friends and as part of HUCS. I got the first 3 skulls, the triple kill achievement, and I'm also now a sergeant rank.

Bankshot Billiards is a slow game now as well - the only achievement left is the 'play 200 games', which is glitched such that you have to win 200 games to get it. I'm about 140/150 games into it, so several hours with the TV on should get that, and the full 200GS.

I've had Sonic 2 a while, but never seriously played it yet. This time, I went after the emeralds and the super sonic achievements - they're very easy with that save function! The only achievements left are to complete the game, complete the game fast, win 10 games online and Chemical Plant zone 1 in 45 seconds (which imo is quite hard).

Yaris is the free game on XBLA this week. It's a bit naff, and it looks like most achievements can be had online. I'll play more later.

GS: 51,359 -> 51,629

Completed XBLA:	11 / 33
Completed Retail:	24 / 113
GS Completion %:	40.89%
GS % (Non-Demo):	43.76%

Country Rank:	246/215083
World Rank:	1564/1563274