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