Friday, February 29, 2008
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
360voice and the Badgescore Calculator
If you're a member of 360voice, and like going after the badges that they offer, there is now a new utility to see how your set of badges compares to everyone else.
Over at GoofyGamertags.com, Croaker111 has developed the 'Badgescore Calculator'. This takes the rarity of each badge, assigns them a score, and gives you a total for what you have.
So, say you have the '20 retail games complete' badge at 360voice. The Badgescore Calculator states that on 360voice, 125 people have it. Thus this badge is worth 75 badgescore.
So the rarer the badges you have, the more badgescore you have.
There's also a leaderboard. I'm currently 62nd with 625 badgescore. What's yours?
http://www.goofygamertags.com/badgescore.aspx
Over at GoofyGamertags.com, Croaker111 has developed the 'Badgescore Calculator'. This takes the rarity of each badge, assigns them a score, and gives you a total for what you have.
So, say you have the '20 retail games complete' badge at 360voice. The Badgescore Calculator states that on 360voice, 125 people have it. Thus this badge is worth 75 badgescore.
So the rarer the badges you have, the more badgescore you have.
There's also a leaderboard. I'm currently 62nd with 625 badgescore. What's yours?
http://www.goofygamertags.com/badgescore.aspx
Sunday, February 24, 2008
24th February: GS Update
A random slew of games this week. Played some new ones, played some old ones, focused on some RPGs and did some multiplay.
Now for this weeks gamerage:
I've always been a fan of fishing games, just out of blind ignorance I suppose. Rapala on the 360 got a bit of rap as it's not that indepth, it's a boring game and a significant portion of the gamerscore is glitched. However, I caught a few tiddlers - enough to unlock a 40GS achievement. Not many people have played this game it seems, as there isnt a significant guide for it.
I also started to play Splinter Cell Double Agent. A couple of training missions, the first story mission and half an online game. The online game was 'half' as my 360 froze mid game (it's been doing that since the repair). The game loading was slow, the controls are stodgy and clunky, and it's not really a fun stealth game. However, it seems a little boostable so I'll keep with it a little while.
I've been after The Orange Box for 360 for a while. I've got it on PC, and competed Portal and played some TF2, but never really tried the linear storyline. I didnt buy TOB, but a friend got it so I borrowed it. I completed Portal (again), and did most of the achievements on TF2 - just needing the 1k kills and the 'room of eight' achievements. I also started the single player HL2 campaign - it's going ok so far.
Bleh - Eragon is a long, boring, crappy game. I don't want to know the story line. I don't want to play through 18 levels, both on Normal and Hard difficulty. If they included points on the game for kills and so forth, it'd make this a more fun game. It's just that the combat is almost superfluous and boring, and most of the levels are just running though a stage trying to avoid the combat. But nevertheless, I'm now over half way through.
Now I've got the guide for Two Worlds, the game got a bit easier. I completed the rest of the storyline (including that final 370GS achievement), and now I'm searching around for all the 'visit' achievements and getting level 50. Should be straightforward - apart from the 'find everything' achievement. Hopefully this will get me the 2* RPG badge on 360voice too.
Undertow had a mixed myriad of achievements when it was released - especially the 'complete each stage on co-op' and 'complete each stage on ultra' achievements. Both of which I was able to complete thanks to rican ninja89. It was touch and go on some of the stages, but we pulled through with active defences. All that's left now is the 10k kills achievement. Thankfully, offline kills count too, so several hours doing the same level over and over should do it.
I've had NBA Live 07 a while, not really bothered to play it. However, I stuck it in with NickHarkonnen to see what it was like. 8 minutes and 150GS later, my interest was piqued. I looked online for a guide to the achievements, and got another 500GS in 15 minutes. The only achievements left are online ones which should be easy to get - apart from the 'play online with 1000 people on' achievement, given that when I saw the lobby, there was 27 people online.
I was able to get the 'win an online achievement' for NHL 2k7 this week. I now have to play as each team once, win 100 matches, play 30 online and quit 10 online. That gets me to 950GS - but the last achievement in this game is glitched, to 950 is the max. EA should sort this out. They fixed The Godfather - now fix this.
NickHarkonnen and I also did some Warriors Orochi. We just grinded out some abilities, and in single player I was also able to get some more characters. When my abilities are almost maxed, I'll go after completing the storylines.
I fired up LMA 07 with two leagues to go, at ~6pm at night. By midnight. I had the final achievements. Luckily, there was not much reloading needed, and I'm happy this game is finished. Game Complete!
I didnt get any more achievements in Lost Odyssey, but I played a while - now nearing the end of the first disc I think. The bosses are still hard, and the story is still excellent. Good stuff.
For the blast from the past game of the week (might be a new feature), it was Dead Rising. A game I regret not playing more. However, this time, with a little guide, I got the hang of driving round in cars and vans, running over zombies. This lead to the 1k kills and 10k kills achievements, and I picked up a couple of others on the way, as well as my first finish of 72hr mode. It should be easier when I hit level 50.
Finally, Arkadian Warriors. I finished it shortly after last weeks main post (hence the mini-update), with a few playthroughs of the first stage. Game Complete!
[Aiming for that 3* RPG badge on 360voice]
borandi showed up yesterday ready to dominate. Total gamer score stands at 75,521. That is a boost of 740 points over last time! Another day, another milestone. The 75,000 barrier has fallen! He made some progress on Poker Smash, NHL 2K7, The Orange Box acquiring an amazing 10 achievements, NBA LIVE 07 picking up an amazing 8 achievements, Guitar Hero III, Undertow picking up 2 achievements, Two Worlds gaining an amazing 6 achievements, and before I even realized it, he was finished and I was sad.Also got through some gamerscore, hitting that 75k barrier. That's 10k since the year beginning. It might go up somewhat, as I've now started a LoveFiLM subscription for games and films, so I can start renting again. I've opted for the 3 games/films at a time for 18.99GBP/month. Just got the confirmation email, so I might see some games in the post by Tuesday. First on my list is Kingdom Under Fire, as I've had a couple of inquiries about whether I had it or not for online multiplayer. Then after that, it's Thrillville, Avatar and some other easy games.
Oh hey, time for the gamerscore challenge update too... borandi still has that going on and stuff. There's so much action in this one, you may pay for the whole seat, but you'll only need the edge!!111! Witness the spectacle. There are 4 other people rocking out on this thing which keeps it fun. Out of all those people, borandi is currently parked at number 2. With only one day left though, we need to make that last big push!
Now for this weeks gamerage:
0 -> 40 of 1000  1 of 30 Achievements | |
| 0 -> 100 of 1000 4 of 38 Achievements | |
| 0 -> 205 of 1000 26 of 99 Achievements | |
| 270 -> 540 of 1000 22 of 37 Achievements | |
| 270 -> 800 of 1000 35 of 41 Achievements | |
| 115 -> 165 of 200 11 of 12 Achievements | |
| 0 -> 650 of 1000 11 of 15 Achievements | |
| 535 -> 650 of 1000 12 of 17 Achievements | |
| 40 -> 110 of 1000 5 of 29 Achievements | |
| 870 -> 1000 of 1000 22 of 22 Achievements | |
| 110 of 1000 4 of 36 Achievements | |
| 140 -> 240 of 1000 12 of 50 Achievements | |
| 190 -> 200 of 200 12 of 12 Achievements |
I also started to play Splinter Cell Double Agent. A couple of training missions, the first story mission and half an online game. The online game was 'half' as my 360 froze mid game (it's been doing that since the repair). The game loading was slow, the controls are stodgy and clunky, and it's not really a fun stealth game. However, it seems a little boostable so I'll keep with it a little while.
I've been after The Orange Box for 360 for a while. I've got it on PC, and competed Portal and played some TF2, but never really tried the linear storyline. I didnt buy TOB, but a friend got it so I borrowed it. I completed Portal (again), and did most of the achievements on TF2 - just needing the 1k kills and the 'room of eight' achievements. I also started the single player HL2 campaign - it's going ok so far.
Bleh - Eragon is a long, boring, crappy game. I don't want to know the story line. I don't want to play through 18 levels, both on Normal and Hard difficulty. If they included points on the game for kills and so forth, it'd make this a more fun game. It's just that the combat is almost superfluous and boring, and most of the levels are just running though a stage trying to avoid the combat. But nevertheless, I'm now over half way through.
Now I've got the guide for Two Worlds, the game got a bit easier. I completed the rest of the storyline (including that final 370GS achievement), and now I'm searching around for all the 'visit' achievements and getting level 50. Should be straightforward - apart from the 'find everything' achievement. Hopefully this will get me the 2* RPG badge on 360voice too.
Undertow had a mixed myriad of achievements when it was released - especially the 'complete each stage on co-op' and 'complete each stage on ultra' achievements. Both of which I was able to complete thanks to rican ninja89. It was touch and go on some of the stages, but we pulled through with active defences. All that's left now is the 10k kills achievement. Thankfully, offline kills count too, so several hours doing the same level over and over should do it.
I've had NBA Live 07 a while, not really bothered to play it. However, I stuck it in with NickHarkonnen to see what it was like. 8 minutes and 150GS later, my interest was piqued. I looked online for a guide to the achievements, and got another 500GS in 15 minutes. The only achievements left are online ones which should be easy to get - apart from the 'play online with 1000 people on' achievement, given that when I saw the lobby, there was 27 people online.
I was able to get the 'win an online achievement' for NHL 2k7 this week. I now have to play as each team once, win 100 matches, play 30 online and quit 10 online. That gets me to 950GS - but the last achievement in this game is glitched, to 950 is the max. EA should sort this out. They fixed The Godfather - now fix this.
NickHarkonnen and I also did some Warriors Orochi. We just grinded out some abilities, and in single player I was also able to get some more characters. When my abilities are almost maxed, I'll go after completing the storylines.
I fired up LMA 07 with two leagues to go, at ~6pm at night. By midnight. I had the final achievements. Luckily, there was not much reloading needed, and I'm happy this game is finished. Game Complete!
I didnt get any more achievements in Lost Odyssey, but I played a while - now nearing the end of the first disc I think. The bosses are still hard, and the story is still excellent. Good stuff.
For the blast from the past game of the week (might be a new feature), it was Dead Rising. A game I regret not playing more. However, this time, with a little guide, I got the hang of driving round in cars and vans, running over zombies. This lead to the 1k kills and 10k kills achievements, and I picked up a couple of others on the way, as well as my first finish of 72hr mode. It should be easier when I hit level 50.
Finally, Arkadian Warriors. I finished it shortly after last weeks main post (hence the mini-update), with a few playthroughs of the first stage. Game Complete!
| GamerScore: | 73836 -> 76106 |
| Zone: | Pro |
| Completed XBLA: | 15 -> 16 / 45 |
| Completed Retail: | 35 -> 36 / 180 |
| GS Completion %: | 39.28% -> 40.06% |
| Country Rank: | 130 -> 120 |
| World Rank: | 856 -> 813 |
| Completion Rank: | 2,394 -> 2,125 |
[Aiming for that 3* RPG badge on 360voice]
(NSFW) Zero Punctuation @ GDC08
GDC '08 - the Game Developers Conference. I've been keeping track with a few of the goings on in San Fran, and they look rather interesting. The XNA game system for the 360 is going up for home developers to get their games onto the market. GoW2 got a video and a release date (yay, not). Lots of other little things too - if you're in the UK or US, check out the videos on your Inside Xbox - especially the one where Larry Hryb (GT: Major Nelson) tries on the force feedback waistcoat designed for fast paced FPS.
Also, Zero Punctuation got his hand it. At the request of GDC, he designed a mini segment to be shown as one of the seminar type thingies. And here it is.
Also, Zero Punctuation got his hand it. At the request of GDC, he designed a mini segment to be shown as one of the seminar type thingies. And here it is.
Sunday, February 17, 2008
17th February: Mini Update
Just finished Arkadian Warriors. 6 times through the first level with a weak weapon made it easy.
Game Complete!
Game Complete!
17th February: GS Update
Various ups and downs gaming this week. I ended up putting in all the games that I own that I've not played yet into my xbox, so they would all show up in my profile. Hopefully some 0 GS games would shame me into playing them ;) Also received my copy of Lost Odyssey =D
Arkadian Warriors was added to the RPG genre over at 360voice. Thus it became higher up on my priorities list =D For some reason, playing the game this time round was incredibly easy. I completed the last 7 missions in the main quest, got the 500k gold achievement, and at the end redoing the final level netted the 'level 20' achievement. All that's left now is the 'kill 100 with exploding vases' achievement. It should require a bit of grinding the first mission, but not too difficult.
The first GHIII achievement in a while came my way this week =D Was playing some co-op with Nellas, and we got the 100% a song co-op achievement. Unfortunately, some games are weird with two players getting the same achievement at once, so Nellas didnt get it. It was an easy track, so we can get it again.
Last week, I was 10 games into the German season on LMA Manager 07. This week, I finished the German league achievements and the French league achievements. All that's left is the Dutch and Portuguese leagues. Four, maybe five hours of simming I reckon.
I didn't actually play any WarTech this week. I just left the console on for a few hours while working around the house, and got the '10 hours played' achievement. While doing nothing, might as well try and earn something ;)
I started playing Warriors Orochi on advice that it should be an easy 1000GS - about 30 hours or so. Its like Dynasty Warriors 5: Empires, but more RPG and Story based. It's fun - each map takes around 20 minutes (rather than 5) and is quite easy to win (unlike Ninety Nine Nights). Well, except for the final bosses. I got my characters to level 40ish and the final boss kicked my ass. More grinding, better weapons, more skills. Not too hard, just a little bit of playing and grinding.
As I've stated before, Dead or Alive 4 is an annoying game. It's got an annoying difficulty curve, and I suck at it. So rican ninja89 and I went and did the online achievements - 5, 10 and 20 consecutive wins, beat people on 10-14, 15-19 and 20+ win streaks, achieve rank B and D. I didnt take long =D
I opened up Two Worlds for the first time since September this week. I had no idea what I was doing. Controls, storyline, nothing. So I bought the guide - it has the main storyline and all the side quests explained, so the rest of the achievements should be fairly easy. Didn't play it much though. Will focus on it soon ;)
Lost Odyssey. All the best elements from Final Fantasy in a Japanese-RPG, and I'm only two hours in. Seemless transition from FMV to in-game action sequences. It makes Blue Dragon look like a minor 'Side Project' or 'concept car' to test the engine. Get this game, now.
Also did some online achievements in Undertow with rican ninja89. We also started the story mode on Ultra, and did about 5 stages. 200/200 is perfectly possible on this game, just needs some grinding and a small amount of skill (hopefully).
Pimp My Ride is one of those games that has been labelled as 'easy' by the gaming community. So I gave it a 45 minute whirl when I was putting in all my unplayed games. It looks easy, and a bit of a grind. I'll play some more later.
Also with Football Manager 2007 - I just simmed for about 30 mins, and got a few achievements. This game reminds me of FM06, which was crap. Bleh.
It looks like the new PSU achievements kicked in on mygamercard.net - hence the 36 -> 35 game completion drop.
It is that time of the week. I got your weekly recap right here: Oh man are my cores just rocking... borandi played seven days last week! SEVEN! That is a NUMBER SEVEN followed by NO ZEROS! HOT! Ready for this? Last week saw an increase of 1784 points! My eye almost bleeds looking at a number that large! Getting 87 achievements can do that to you. I was there. I saw it!There are still a couple of games in my US pile I still need to put in ;)
I told borandi to try 15 games last week: Poker Smash, The Club, The Godfather™, DEAD OR ALIVE Xtreme 2, Football Manager 2007, Hitman: Blood Money, LOST PLANET, Need for Speed™ Carbon, Over-G, Pimp My Ride, Rapala Tournament, Rumble Roses Double X, SAMURAI WARRIORS 2, Star Trek Legacy, and NBA LIVE 07. It was a mix of good and bad. Oh, and borandi seems obsessed with role playing games lately... You can tell because Blue Dragon was the favorite last week. He played it on 5 of the days.
| 95 -> 190 of 200 11 of 12 Achievements | |
| 275 -> 285 of 1000 30 of 59 Achievements | |
| 670 -> 870 of 1000 18 of 22 Achievements | |
| 490 -> 520 of 1000 17 of 25 Achievements | |
| 0 -> 40 of 1000 2 of 29 Achievements | |
| 80 -> 245 of 1000 16 of 45 Achievements | |
| 260 -> 270 of 1000 24 of 41 Achievements | |
| 0 -> 110 of 1000 4 of 36 Achievements | |
| 50 -> 115 of 200 9 of 12 Achievements | |
| 0 -> 30 of 1000 3 of 30 Achievements | |
| 0 -> 9 of 1000 3 of 50 Achievements |
The first GHIII achievement in a while came my way this week =D Was playing some co-op with Nellas, and we got the 100% a song co-op achievement. Unfortunately, some games are weird with two players getting the same achievement at once, so Nellas didnt get it. It was an easy track, so we can get it again.
Last week, I was 10 games into the German season on LMA Manager 07. This week, I finished the German league achievements and the French league achievements. All that's left is the Dutch and Portuguese leagues. Four, maybe five hours of simming I reckon.
I didn't actually play any WarTech this week. I just left the console on for a few hours while working around the house, and got the '10 hours played' achievement. While doing nothing, might as well try and earn something ;)
I started playing Warriors Orochi on advice that it should be an easy 1000GS - about 30 hours or so. Its like Dynasty Warriors 5: Empires, but more RPG and Story based. It's fun - each map takes around 20 minutes (rather than 5) and is quite easy to win (unlike Ninety Nine Nights). Well, except for the final bosses. I got my characters to level 40ish and the final boss kicked my ass. More grinding, better weapons, more skills. Not too hard, just a little bit of playing and grinding.
As I've stated before, Dead or Alive 4 is an annoying game. It's got an annoying difficulty curve, and I suck at it. So rican ninja89 and I went and did the online achievements - 5, 10 and 20 consecutive wins, beat people on 10-14, 15-19 and 20+ win streaks, achieve rank B and D. I didnt take long =D
I opened up Two Worlds for the first time since September this week. I had no idea what I was doing. Controls, storyline, nothing. So I bought the guide - it has the main storyline and all the side quests explained, so the rest of the achievements should be fairly easy. Didn't play it much though. Will focus on it soon ;)
Lost Odyssey. All the best elements from Final Fantasy in a Japanese-RPG, and I'm only two hours in. Seemless transition from FMV to in-game action sequences. It makes Blue Dragon look like a minor 'Side Project' or 'concept car' to test the engine. Get this game, now.
Also did some online achievements in Undertow with rican ninja89. We also started the story mode on Ultra, and did about 5 stages. 200/200 is perfectly possible on this game, just needs some grinding and a small amount of skill (hopefully).
Pimp My Ride is one of those games that has been labelled as 'easy' by the gaming community. So I gave it a 45 minute whirl when I was putting in all my unplayed games. It looks easy, and a bit of a grind. I'll play some more later.
Also with Football Manager 2007 - I just simmed for about 30 mins, and got a few achievements. This game reminds me of FM06, which was crap. Bleh.
| GamerScore: | 73072 -> 73836 |
| Zone: | Pro |
| Completed XBLA: | 15 / 45 |
| Completed Retail: | 36 -> 35 / 178 |
| GS Completion %: | 43.51% -> 39.28% |
| Country Rank: | 129 -> 130 |
| World Rank: | 860 -> 856 |
| Completion Rank: | 1,812 -> 2,394 |
It looks like the new PSU achievements kicked in on mygamercard.net - hence the 36 -> 35 game completion drop.
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
Sunday, February 10, 2008
10th February: GS Update
A very interesting week for gaming. Grinded a couple, and tried a couple new games. Completed a 360voice challenge, started another.
Now this weeks games:
Just a small amount of LMA this week. Each season is still a grind, but I've 4 seasons left, currently 10 games into the German league. If this game was nicer on the save/reload feature, then I might be having some fun.
Meet the Robinsons - a fun family game. Difficulty curve may be too high for their target audience, and a couple of frustrating achievements. When I loaded up, I was two fights from the end of the game. Did those, an easy 160GS. With the game complete, I was still missing 110GS - I'd missed one collectable, and not done all the 'special' Havok mini-games. In order to do those, I'd have to play through the whole game to get them. So I did. The first play through took around 7hrs (I reckon). The second playthrough took 4 hours, given that I knew what I was doing and didnt have to worry about the other achievements. Nevertheless, it was frustrating. None of the regular websites I go to have these achievements in the order they would normally be achieved. That would be a nice feature. Nevertheless, Game Complete!
I'd received GRAW2 for Christmas. I'm not a fan of the GRAW series - only sitting through 2 playthroughs of GRAW due to the infinite health cheats. Nevertheless, I'd thought I'd give it a try. It's a nicer game than GRAW - easier controls, and the tutorial is better. However, the achievements are bollocks. Most of them for doing co-op online or on online matches. A small amount for offline. This is stupid from Codemasters. Here this - most people play offline/single player. Don't try and make us play co-op. Otherwise you get angry blogs like mine. Take a leaf out of CoD4s book - a good game gets lots of Online Play, even though ALL the achievements are offline only. Get with the game Codemasters, and make something decent (for once).
I picked up The Club this friday. It was released here on Friday, in the US on the 18th/19th. As a result, there is almost no-one online. However, this game is fun. Imagine Hack-and-Slash gameplay with guns, with points, and combos. Its that good. The single player mode, on the easiest setting, is quite short. 8 locations, each with 6/7 events using the whole location. The harder difficulties require lots of skill, so there's lots of replay value - as well as trying to get high on the leaderboards. Online modes consist of your normal DM, Team DM, CTF, as well as Siege (try and take over a base), Hunter Hunted (like a virus mode) and others. The only downside to this game is that searching for matches takes a while - so when they do appear on your list, most of them have started/been cancelled. Achievements are quite varied - some offline, some online. The online ones involve doing each location on any difficuly, then insane difficulty, and then some other skill based ones. Offline involves killing X amount of people with Y weapon, and the stereotypical 'win on every map' type achievements. Also, there is the -now quite boring- 10,001 kill achievement, called 'No, Seriously...' (a dig at the 10k kill achievement on Gears of War called 'Seriously...'). Overall, a fun game, that allows pick up and play. After the first day, I was 12th in the world with 415GS. Good stuff ;) A hard 1000GS though.
This weeks XBLA game was Poker Smash - Bejeweled meets Poker meets Puzzle Quest. Its a winner - pick up and play, impossible achievements, and good fun. Go play the demo - if you like, its a definite pickup at 800MSPs. I got some simple chain achievements - 3x and 5x - but the difficult one is 24x that I'd never get :(
The big game of the week (again) was Blue Dragon. Using the guide, lots of achievements came my way. The big worries were whether I'd get the 'collect all items/monsters' achievements. But they came quite easily - all I'd missed was a couple of level 1 spells that I could go back and buy. The long achievement was the 'get all characters to level 99' achievement. That took 4 hours of grinding, just fighting the same monster over and over again. Nevertheless, it works out at 90.5 hours to get that playthrough (I played 30hrs before I restarted, so 120hrs total) and the full 1000GS. Game Complete!
This week also yielded a surprise achievement - completing Hard on GH2. I 4*'d Free Bird, and did some more of Expert. If I could get my hand around those 32nd notes, then I'd be fine ;)
borandi is the best... he treats me right, I treat him right. It is a good thing we have going here. Gamer score stands at 72,657. Not too shabby! That is an improvement of 495 points over last time! He played Blue Dragon gaining 1 achievement to master the game, The Club winning an amazing 27 achievements, Poker Smash, Spyglass Board Games, Catan, and wished it would never end, but it did and that was sad.The only other prevalent news this week is my order of Lost Odyssey. Lost Odyssey is an RPG from Mistwalker Studios (of Blue Dragon fame, featuring the creators of Final Fantasy and this time, Shadow Hearts) that was the major project for the 360 - sort of like Blue Dragon was just a lite spinoff. It's projected to be a Final Fantasy-esque game, due out in the US on the 12th, Aus on the 8th, and the UK on the 29th. However, the Asian/English version is PAL compatible, so I ordered that from Hong Kong for cheaper than the cost of a UK pre-order. Result ;)
A big shift in score is coming soon as well. borandi is competing in a gamerscore challenge titled 'Auto Challenge - #128' and looking to win big. Expect a lot of games, a lot of points, and no sleep!
Now this weeks games:
| 660 -> 670 of 1000 13 of 22 Achievements | |
| 720 -> 1000 of 1000 38 of 38 Achievements | |
| 0 -> 105 of 1125 7 of 52 Achievements | |
| 0 -> 465 of 1000 28 of 50 Achievements | |
| 0 -> 40 of 200 3 of 12 Achievements | |
| 345 -> 1000 of 1000 43 of 43 Achievements | |
| 490 -> 520 of 1000 34 of 50 Achievements |
Meet the Robinsons - a fun family game. Difficulty curve may be too high for their target audience, and a couple of frustrating achievements. When I loaded up, I was two fights from the end of the game. Did those, an easy 160GS. With the game complete, I was still missing 110GS - I'd missed one collectable, and not done all the 'special' Havok mini-games. In order to do those, I'd have to play through the whole game to get them. So I did. The first play through took around 7hrs (I reckon). The second playthrough took 4 hours, given that I knew what I was doing and didnt have to worry about the other achievements. Nevertheless, it was frustrating. None of the regular websites I go to have these achievements in the order they would normally be achieved. That would be a nice feature. Nevertheless, Game Complete!
I'd received GRAW2 for Christmas. I'm not a fan of the GRAW series - only sitting through 2 playthroughs of GRAW due to the infinite health cheats. Nevertheless, I'd thought I'd give it a try. It's a nicer game than GRAW - easier controls, and the tutorial is better. However, the achievements are bollocks. Most of them for doing co-op online or on online matches. A small amount for offline. This is stupid from Codemasters. Here this - most people play offline/single player. Don't try and make us play co-op. Otherwise you get angry blogs like mine. Take a leaf out of CoD4s book - a good game gets lots of Online Play, even though ALL the achievements are offline only. Get with the game Codemasters, and make something decent (for once).
I picked up The Club this friday. It was released here on Friday, in the US on the 18th/19th. As a result, there is almost no-one online. However, this game is fun. Imagine Hack-and-Slash gameplay with guns, with points, and combos. Its that good. The single player mode, on the easiest setting, is quite short. 8 locations, each with 6/7 events using the whole location. The harder difficulties require lots of skill, so there's lots of replay value - as well as trying to get high on the leaderboards. Online modes consist of your normal DM, Team DM, CTF, as well as Siege (try and take over a base), Hunter Hunted (like a virus mode) and others. The only downside to this game is that searching for matches takes a while - so when they do appear on your list, most of them have started/been cancelled. Achievements are quite varied - some offline, some online. The online ones involve doing each location on any difficuly, then insane difficulty, and then some other skill based ones. Offline involves killing X amount of people with Y weapon, and the stereotypical 'win on every map' type achievements. Also, there is the -now quite boring- 10,001 kill achievement, called 'No, Seriously...' (a dig at the 10k kill achievement on Gears of War called 'Seriously...'). Overall, a fun game, that allows pick up and play. After the first day, I was 12th in the world with 415GS. Good stuff ;) A hard 1000GS though.
This weeks XBLA game was Poker Smash - Bejeweled meets Poker meets Puzzle Quest. Its a winner - pick up and play, impossible achievements, and good fun. Go play the demo - if you like, its a definite pickup at 800MSPs. I got some simple chain achievements - 3x and 5x - but the difficult one is 24x that I'd never get :(
The big game of the week (again) was Blue Dragon. Using the guide, lots of achievements came my way. The big worries were whether I'd get the 'collect all items/monsters' achievements. But they came quite easily - all I'd missed was a couple of level 1 spells that I could go back and buy. The long achievement was the 'get all characters to level 99' achievement. That took 4 hours of grinding, just fighting the same monster over and over again. Nevertheless, it works out at 90.5 hours to get that playthrough (I played 30hrs before I restarted, so 120hrs total) and the full 1000GS. Game Complete!
This week also yielded a surprise achievement - completing Hard on GH2. I 4*'d Free Bird, and did some more of Expert. If I could get my hand around those 32nd notes, then I'd be fine ;)
| GamerScore: | 71457 -> 73072 |
| Zone: | Pro |
| Completed XBLA: | 15 / 45 |
| Completed Retail: | 34 -> 36 / 159 |
| GS Completion %: | 42.87% -> 43.51% |
| Country Rank: | 137 -> 129 |
| World Rank: | 905 -> 860 |
| Completion Rank: | 1,952 -> 1,812 |
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