25th November: GS Update

Good week for gaming and releases - Guitar Hero 3, Mass Effect:

Have you ever wondered what it was like to play games with someone who has a gamerscore of 60,082? Well guess what... you will never know, and I do! borandi is mine! All mine! No touchy! That is a profit of 45 points over last time! He made some progress on Mass Effect picking up 2 achievements, Gun, Prey, Open Season, Phantasy Star Universe, Enchanted Arms, Track and Field, TMNT, Oblivion, Boom Boom Rocket, Guitar Hero III finishing 1 achievement, Blue Dragon, Undertow, as well as stared off into space... thinking about the one that got away.

And the gamage:

Guitar Hero III	0 -> 160 of 1000 18 of 59 Achievements
Undertow	0 -> 50 of 200 5 of 12 Achievements
Mass Effect	0 -> 135 of 1000 6 of 45 Achievements
The Outfit	0 -> 15 of 1000 1 of 41 Achievements
Party Animals	0 -> 665 of 1000 37 of 50 Achievements

Guitar Hero III is a great game - much like GH2. Now that I've played GH2 a lot, GH3 is almost second nature. Though they have increased the difficulty somewhat - hard on GH3 is like expert on GH2, thus expert is near impossible. I started on hard, which was quite straightforward to begin with. I'm 80% into it - though stuck on a Slipknot song in tier seven. It's got quite a few doubles in it, and my mind doesnt work in doubles :D. Played a bit online too, all co-op.

Undertow was released on XBLA this week - this is a game I've been waiting for a long time. It's a great game - some easy single player and online modes. Its a shame it'll never get the recognition it deserves - after a few days I was still 70th on the leaderboard for gamerscore, even though I'd only played a couple of hours. The achievements look straightforward - the only difficult ones will be 'do each stage on ultra difficulty' and '10000 kills' - luckily the 10k kills also counts in offline mode against the CPU, so its just a case of finding the best level to do it on.

After playing GH3 for a few hours, I was starting to get hand cramps, so I went out and bought Mass Effect. There's been lots of talk online about this game, how it's an action RPG/FPS mix. Its an awesome game - I've played it seven hours, and you end up looking for clues, talking to people for a couple of hours, then shooting shotgun for the next couple. It's a great mix. You also get to respond positively or negatively - i.e. be the hero or be an ass. Some of the ass comments look hilarous, but for achievements sake I'm going good the first play though, then an arse the second time. To get all the achievements, you have to play through 3 times though! At the minute, my character looks like a Hulk Hogan throwback, but its fun :D

I rented out The Outfit for a friend, but we only played the first level. It looks like a great game - the ability to deploy stuff to destroy other stuff :D I'll get it some other time to play it proper.

Viva Pinata: Party Animals is like Fusion Frenzy 2 - but good. It's a fun mix of racing and minigames - most of them quite easy for kids and grown ups alike. It's a short game, and was easy to get ~700GS. Some of the others require a little grinding, so I'll rent it again.

GS: 58,617 -> 60,107

Completed XBLA:	15 / 38
Completed Retail:	27 / 137
GS Completion %:	39.45%
GS % (Non-Demo):	42.01%

Country Rank:	162
World Rank:	324

w00t! 60k =D

18th November: GS Update

A couple of completions this week!

borandi brought the pain yesterday... the good kind... the gaming kind. We are up to 58,327 points of gamerscore. Jealous? That is an increase of 150 points over last time! He rocked out to TimeShift winning an amazing 9 achievements, Puzzle Quest, and laughed with joy and glee the whole time. I like making people happy.

Oh BTW, did you know that borandi is competing in a gamerscore challenge? Here is the link: check it. 6 people are throwing down in this challenge. If I do the math correctly, it means that 6 players X 14 days means a whole lot of trash talk! borandi has the number 2 spot... With 9 days to go though, anything can still happen though... get on it!

As you can see, I'm 2nd in the XBL Challenge so far - still got a few games up my sleeve though!

Puzzle Quest	60 -> 200 of 200 12 of 12 Achievements
Call of Duty 4	0 -> 190 of 1000 8 of 37 Achievements
Hexic 2	0 -> 80 of 200 8 of 12 Achievements
TimeShift	0 -> 150 of 1000 9 of 47 Achievements
Open Season	40 -> 1000 of 1000 46 of 46 Achievements
DDR/DS Universe	190 -> 350 of 1000 10 of 32 Achievements
SmackDown vs RAW 2008	0 -> 510 of 1000 10 of 26 Achievements

This week was a big Puzzle Quest week. After at least 15hrs worth, I now have all the achievements. The 'Create a Godlike' achieve was quite easy - on the DS version it did take me a while. The online match was annoying too, given that the only people I saw online were top in the world and were really good (had the right skills). I eventually found a guy and we won one each unintentionally. Game Complete!

I rented CoD4 today, and will have it for the next couple of days. Its very good so far - I'm going through it on Veteran Difficulty to start with, but I'm stuck at the TV station. I've got a few of the random achievements so far - 4 head shots, 20 second run though. I might restart on easy, just to at least complete the game =D

This week was Xbox Live is 5ive week, and everyone got Carcassonne free. Unless you've a Korean account, then you get Hexic 2 free. So I got Hexic 2 on my Korean account. Achievements are ok so far - I have some quite hard ones left to do though - beat the computer on expert (very very hard!), make a black pearl, make a cluster, win 10 online. At least three of those I should get!

I rented Timeshift too this week. It's a fun, interesting game - I got through the first two levels on Elite. It runs like CoD - lots of checkpoints. The time shifting feature is quite fun too. However, online mode is a bit annoying - I joined a team battle, first team to 100 kills, and some guy joined in half-way and ended with a 15-3 kill to death ratio. Bastard.

I ran through Open Season - first just the levels, then for all the collection achievements. Quite quick - probably around 4 hours in total. A couple of the automatically running levels (like the snowball) are a bit challenging, but the help of a guide sorted it out. Game Complete!

I also fired up some DDR Universe. I'm at the final stage in quest mode, but the final boss guy has an advantage on every track, so I have to have my advantage enabled AND do really well. Apart from that, I'm also getting the standard tracks a ranking - I've done just under half atm.

Rented WWE 08 too. Its much like WWE 07, apart from less of the annoying online achieves, and less loading screens. Its all good stuff - the achievements are easier now with sliders, and I got the big 350GS simming achieve. I could have got a few more, but I was being a bit stupid :p

GS: 56,437 -> 58,617

Completed XBLA:	15 / 37
Completed Retail:	27 / 134
GS Completion %:	39.51%
GS % (Non-Demo):	41.91%

Country Rank:	179
World Rank:	413

The Easy Games - November

I've gone through my games again, to give you an updated list of 'easy games' - i.e. ones that I;ve completed. This list is in the order such that each game has a PPH score - This is the techinical system of variables based on the number of hours taken to complete the game and the GS of the game.

For fully retail games:

Madden 06
NBA 2k6
College Hoops 2k6
NHL 2k6
Madden 08
MLB 2k6
TMNT
Fifa 06 RTFWC
NBA Live 2006
NHL® 07
Cars
Surf's Up
King Kong
POTC: At World's End
GUN
Fuzion Frenzy 2
Fight Night Round 3 - should be higher, I had to do the game twice
NBA Street Homecourt
X-Men III
Madden 07
Dynasty Warriors 5 Empires
Prey
Elder Scrolls: Oblivion
Enchanted Arms
Phantasy Star Universe
Viva Piñata - 980GS in 20hrs, last achieve is 50hrs play
WWE 07

And XBLA games:

Galaga
Sonic
Golden Axe
Track and Field
Bomberman Live
Sonic 2
Gauntlet
3D Ultra Minigolf
Backgammon
Carcassone
Uno
Worms
TMNT: Arcade
Bankshot Billiards 2

This list is not taking into account the difficulty of the games - though the games are on a scale of time and GS, thus the games at the top should be the quickest to complete for the GS they hold.

Notable games missing from the list include:

Open Season
Meet The Robinsons
Eragon
American Wasteland
Bionicle Heroes

and various others.

This is because I haven't completed them yet/haven't got around to playing/grinding them through. I'll get to these - eventually!

11th November: GS Update

Another week, another bunch of gaming!

borandi showed up yesterday and we were like a superhero team together. I make a great sidekick! Gamerscore stands at 56,387. Up up and away right? That is an improvement of 545 points over last time! Another day, another milestone. The 56,000 barrier has fallen! He rallied Beautiful Katamari gaining 1 achievement, Halo 3 acquiring an amazing 6 achievements, and then I basked in the warm glow of post gaming. Mmmm warm...

My 360voice actually says I was away the past couple of days, which is true. I had to travel to Oxford for an interview. But I'm back, and ready to rack up that GS.

This following fortnight, I'm participating in the 'XBL 10k Community Challenge - No. 1' as set up on 360voice. Its where a group of people get together, and in a set period, try and get as much GS as possible. This first challenge is for 14 days, and we have 7 people ready to win. The people who start with the lowest have the natural advantage, given that they havent played all the easy games! Well, I've a few easy games left too =D

This weeks games were:

Beautiful Katamari	420 -> 640 of 1250 31 of 40 Achievements
Sonic The Hedgehog 2	190 -> 200 of 200 12 of 12 Achievements
Halo 3	230 -> 735 of 1000 22 of 49 Achievements
Tony Hawk's Project 8	50 -> 120 of 1000 9 of 49 Achievements

This week has been a big Katamari week. I'm at a great point now - all the presents and cousins in the game without the DLC, and I'm 3 stages from getting 100+ points on each stage. I'm back up to second in the UK, and my biggest Katamari is 1.4m kilometres. I've got 95% of the collection, still getting the new bit here and there. I also went online a bit - which can get laggy, but usually goes ok if I'm in a Japanese room. Got the 1000 cookies, so now just after the 50 games worth - I'm sure I'm around the 25 mark. Apart from that, I need the 100/200 requests, 50/100hrs gameplay and the DLC achievements.

Sonic 2 is now complete! I just needed the 10 stage wins online, but usually there's no-one on. Luckily, someone was on, and they asked me to boost. 5 mins later, we both had the achievement. Score =D Game complete!

Warmish Hot Tub and I met up again this thursday for some Halo 3 pwnage. We completed Legendary - so I got all 3 completionist achievements and the 3 stages we had left to do, which was around 500GS. The only achievements left now are skulls, online achieves, and points in the round achievements. Fun =P

I also rented out Project 8 again. I didn't elaborate last time, but its a hellish game. The achievements are hard, and it feels worse than previous Hawk games out there. I'm having trouble with the challenges, and the achievements I got this time were for online, and a viral achievement worth 50GS. I see people online getting 2mill in one combo, so I guess I'm not doing something right...

GS: 55,632 -> 56,437

Completed XBLA:	14 / 36
Completed Retail:	26 / 131
GS Completion %:	38.92%
GS % (Non-Demo):	41.28%

Country Rank:	196
World Rank:	1,310

Boom Boom Rocket Update

I've always been a sucker for BBM, and now it has a nifty gifty update:

Boom Boom Rocket Title Update
- Guitar and dancemat peripheral support.
- Japanese and Korean language support.
- Tweaked scoring system to make grade awarded more fair (now purely based on accuracy).
- The huge loud "noise" which popped up occasionally on endurance mode is now gone.
- Occurrences of scores getting overwritten with a lower score when playing with 2 profiles signed in is now fixed.
- Display updates when viewing the game through a VGA cable.
- Friends leaderboard now shows extra information such as grade, accuracy, etc.
- Multiplayer endurance mode fix for player colours swapping sporadically.
- Slightly bigger and better explosions (updates to firework rendering).

So now we can use the GH guitar properly, and the gradings 'should' be easier to get. When I get my GH3 (pre-ordered it, should be here the 23rd - UK release date), I'll fire this baby up and try and imporve on the 100GS I've had on it for a while. 3 achievements left - A on a hard track, A on 10 medium tracks, Hard track on endurance for 5 loops.

Guitar Hero III - Dragonforce

I may have mentioned this before, but I love the music track Dragonforce - Through the Fire and the Flames (see http://dragonforce.com/main.html for a free MP3). So when I heard it was going to be in Guitar Hero III, I was amazed, and frightened, at how difficult it might be.

Well GH3 has been out in the US for about a week, and videos on Youtube have been popping up. I found an amazing one, from someone who is obviously a GH god.



So I preordered my copy of the game, with wireless guitar. 60GBP (I got a voucher =D) and due Nov 23rd. Rock on!

6th November: GS Update

Update is a bit late this week - I've been tired for some god awful reason.

Go ahead... call me a wussy... but I almost started crying when borandi turned me on yesterday. 55,557 points of raw gamer score are making you jealous! That is a profit of 215 points over last time! He rallied Puzzle Quest, UEFA CL 2006-2007 finishing 3 achievements, and laughed with joy and glee the whole time. I like making people happy.

What is really good is that every day played is another chance to catch up to rican ninja89 and that 56,682 score... Make it happen borandi!!

Did I mention that I like it when people like us? borandi's gamer reputation increased yesterday proving that he is an all-around nice guy.

And the games:

The Simpsons™ Game	0 -> 75 of 1000 8 of 44 Achievements
UEFA CL 2006-2007	10 -> 350 of 1000 6 of 31 Achievements
Sonic The Hedgehog 2	145 -> 190 of 200 11 of 12 Achievements
E4	15 -> 35 of 200 3 of 12 Achievements
Halo 3	170 -> 230 of 1000 16 of 49 Achievements
Yaris	5 -> 35 of 200 4 of 12 Achievements
Clive Barker's Jericho	0 -> 110 of 1000 6 of 42 Achievements
Virtua Fighter 5	0 -> 55 of 1000 5 of 32 Achievements
Quake 4	85 -> 90 of 1000 8 of 50 Achievements
Eternal Sonata	10 of 1000 1 of 22 Achievements
At World’s End	550 -> 1000 of 1000 30 of 30 Achievements

The Simpsons Game was released this week, and after playing the demo last week, I rented it as soon as I could. In general, it's a fun platformer. It's your stereotypical platformer/Simpsons combo, with humour (i.e. it informs you when you hit a game cliché) typical to the Simpsons. People who aren't fans of the game will just see it as another platformer, and gamerscore whores will find it annoying due to the collection achievements. At times the graphics are really poor, but in general hold up to a mid-range set of 360 standards. I'll rent this again in due course, to at least complete the main game.

Long time readers may remember my last encounter with UEFA CL: It was appalling. I was so used to Pro Evo, I couldn't stand this game. I rented it again, given that ZACH SP8 10k had just purchased a copy and wanted the online achievements. He directed me towards the easier achievements - win the UEFA cup once, then three consecutive times, on any difficulty. Each win of the UEFA cup - that's about 18 matches at 2 min halves, including loading times, took just over an hour. I've learned how to adapt to this game now - it requires proper skills, unlike the bombing down the pitch like in Pro Evo. I'm happy to have about 1/3 of the GS on this game, but I'd have to focus for the other achievements.

I loaded up Sonic 2, aiming to complete the single player mode. It was quite easy in retrospect, with the final boss requiring some finesse and active saving. The only achievement left is the 10 XBLA wins online, and as no-one plays this, I'll need to boost with someone.

I fired up E4 again, this time to play with the predetermined music supplied with the game. As a result I hit a couple of achievements. This game only lends itself to 30 minute sessions, so I'll come back to it to grind out a couple more achievements.

Thursday was another HUCS gamernight, and we played Halo 3. I say 'we', it ended up being Warmish Hot Tub and I. Thus, we played through some more of story mode on Legendary (Warmish has done it on Heroic, so he knew what he was doing). As a result, in 3 hours we got through 4/5 levels, and I got another couple of achievements. Well I'll get to the rest some other time :p

I fired up Yaris so get the online achievements, and hoping to get a few more levels in. Fat chance! I need more coins to beef up my car. Got the online ones though, but still stuck on level 3.

I rented Jericho. I posted this on my 10k forum:

Rented it, played it, its quite fun. Not on the same level of Bioshock, but the story is compelling nonetheless. I dont see how the countries that banned it (Aus/Ger, cant remember which) could do so - I've seen more gore in GoW! So far going through on hard is quite easy actually, as it's kind of a CoD system with very frequent checkpoints. You're also in a squad of 7 initially, that can resurrect each other as needed.

Worth a rental, not much to do on if after completing it on hard though I reckon. I got 110GS in around an hour, just going through the story line, done 6/30 missions. Some of the 'go through without getting incapacitated on hard' might be a bit difficult.

I'll rent it again. It was fun.

I also rented Virtua Fighter 5. Its a lot more fun than Dead or Alive 4. Kudos. Worth another rental.

Also a boost with Rican Ninja89 on Quake 4 - I got the 100 points in multiplayer matches achievement. We worked primarily on the excellent and impressive achievements however.

I played for an hour on Eternal Sonata too. I'm awaiting a guide for it (as I get with all my RPGs) just so I dont miss anything. I could do it without the guide, but in general I find it less fun if you miss 50% of the side quests.

Heh I decided to grind At Worlds End! Got the full thousand - completed the game, and went after the 100 souls. I did Port Royal, and in the first tavern fight keep using Jacks special to earn skulls, then used 1 skull at a time away from the enemies then cut them down except the main guy. Rinse and repeat! I actually finished that level with 99 souls total (bleh), but I had a few levels with 0 souls (Davy Jones' locker) so I did it then.

GS: 54,442 -> 55,632

Completed XBLA:	13 / 36
Completed Retail:	26 / 131
GS Completion %:	38.37%
GS % (Non-Demo):	40.70%

Country Rank:	200
World Rank:	1,328

- Thats top 200 in the UK. w00t ;)