Monday, June 30, 2008
Saturday, June 28, 2008
Review: Bionicle Heroes
As far as is ascertainable without investigating the Bionicle world, you play an androgynous ‘freak’. This ‘freak’ can switch persona with a simple change of its LEGO head giving it different powers – but this freak is pissed. Pissed at some random ‘dude’ who can create minions. This ‘dude’ hasn’t stolen the protagonist’s significant other, or an exceptional amount of wealth from some evil caper worth stealing. Thanks to the no voice acting or written story, this tale offers a mind fuck not worth thinking about.
Nevertheless, the game itself acts like a third person shooter. Each level consists of going from point A to point F via points B, C, D and E in typical LEGO sequential fashion. At each point, your goal is gain LEGO pieces by collecting or shooting enough ‘bad guys’ to fill a special meter. This power is unleashed and you proceed to the next point. Each level offers either a level or collectable to finish. Repeat 25 times, ‘story’ complete.
To be honest, the controls are the big let down here. I play the odd FPS/Third-PS, and you should get the normal forward/back/turn/strafe combo with the analog sticks. No such luck in BH, which only strafes if RT is held down. But wait, isn’t that meant to be the fire button? Alas, that is reserved for the myriad of options by ABYX. This combined with the level length and the lack if an apparent story constitutes the main flaws of BH.
On the bright side, the visuals are a credit to the game. When considering the target audience of ages 3-15, the children will like the highly coloured scenery and the responsive sounds BH offers. Unfortunately, not much comfort for hardcore players.
As a game, I can’t recommend BH. It’s dull, boring, and has no ‘yay’ factor after completing a task. In my case, due to the appalling save system the game uses, my save file corrupted at around 80% into the game. Unfortunately, looking at online forums, this problem is common. Nevertheless, with persistence (and another 8 months), I was able to complete the games achievements, totalled around 20hrs play altogether.
On the achievements side, BH is an easy completion in the grand schema of Xbox gaming. Finish the game, kill X amount of each monster and get 5 million coins – these achievements are all straight forward. The main achievement basically requires 100% completion – thus needing every level to be played again (once all the upgrades have been obtained) to get every special item in each level (~9/level), and finish the level with a gold medal (all special items, lots of LEGO pieces). This type of collection achievement is also detriment to the LEGO games.
Bionicle Heroes – one for the kids.
borandi
Thursday, June 26, 2008
Monday, June 23, 2008
99999 (point 99999999)
RPG: Lost Odyssey, Arcadian Warriors
Film: Surf's Up, Eragon
Race: Forza 2/Burnout Paradise, Fatal Inertia
FPS: COD 4, R6: Vegas
Music: GH3, DDR Universe
Sandbox: GTA IV, Assassins Creed
Sports: PES 08, Any Fifa game
My top three favourites are:
Lost Odyssey
Guitar Hero 3
GTA IV
Bottom three:
Eragon
Sonic (Retail)
Fusion Frenzy 2
According to MGC, I'm 525th in the world. That means at least 524 have the magical 100k!
23rd June: GS Update
As a result of my 'week off', my 360voice had a field day, spouting all sorts of hatrid that my 360 was unhappy to be played. Take this excerpt:
If borandi doesn't play me tomorrow, I have this sinking feeling something really bad will happen... like a meteorite obliterates all life on earth and the EMP takes all electronic devices with it.However, I've been busy since I've been back. Take a look at these games I've played:
0 -> 855 of 1000 I've been a fan of the Civilization series since Civ II on the PC. I'd spend hours upon hours with the game. It would eat up my spare time. It would devour my sleep time and make me miss meals. This new game, CivRev, is no exception. No, seriously. I bought this game and starting playing it at 4pm. Last thing I knew, I was being messaged at 4am for some boosting on a different game. Then 20 minutes later, I was back on CivRev for another couple of hours. Now, I haven't spent that long on one game for ages. It's just something about the Civ series that makes players lose track of what day it is. Civ is a hard game to describe if you've never played it. In a nutshell, you control a Civilization (duh) - you decide whether to make new cities, to focus on science or money, to focus on attack or defence. Your surroundings determine whether you can attack, or whether it pays dividends to play one strategy over the other. It's turn based, so you move all your units and make all decisions, then it moves onto the next player. CivRev is fixed at 5 players (1 player, 4 CPU) on a fixed sized map. Each decision can yield 1000s of different combinations of potential outcomes, which is why CivRev games can take ages to finish. Compared to older Civ games, CivRev is essentially a dumbed down version in large print. The games are simpler, and the controls work well for a console. But CivRev captures the spark of Civ games. These games are still rough around the edges and need a little QA, but play beautifully and you'll want to keep playing them. The achievements of CivRev are fairly easy - win as every civilization, certain city achieves, a handful of easy ones that are unlocked in the first 15 minutes of play, and some hard ones, such as win on the hardest difficulty for every type of victory, and win by the year 1000AD. At time of writing, I'm 50th in the world on GS =D I play it too much maybe... |
40 -> 60 of 200 This was the game that interrupted my CivRev marathon =D I was in a boosting party of four - we got one guy the achievements he needed, then he buggered off. The bastard. |
580 -> 650 of 1000 A couple of achievements on GTA - win each type of MP game, and complete SP! I managed to do that final mission, eventually! In the end, I had to not focus on the main target - killing the guy. Only when I got to the final part (after the helicopter flight) could you actually kill him, so I did it then =D Now I'm on a quest for 100%. All that's left is - 200 pigeons, 50 stunt jumps, meet all random people and the 30 most wanted criminals. |
165 -> 200 of 200 Not much to say here - I got the final achievement, answer all 700 questions. It only took 150 games (2/3 nights with a turbo pad). However, it seems like it took longer for one guy on my friends list, who took nearly 400 games. Game Complete! |
GamerScore: | 98,909 -> 99889 |
Zone: | Pro |
Completed XBLA: | 24 -> 25 / 59 |
Completed Retail: | 49 / 201 |
GS Completion %: | 46.10% -> 46.34% |
Country Rank: | 73 -> 71 |
World Rank: | 515 -> 523 |
Completion Rank: | 1,026 -> 990 |
===================
On a side note, I'm 111GS from 100k. I'll see if I can make 99999, not sure if exactly 100k is possible though if I go for that =P I have no plans to stop at 100k. However, I'm moving next week, so keep you're eyes peeled =D
Monday, June 16, 2008
No news
Monday, June 09, 2008
9th June: GS Update
borandi likes to game, I like to game, this is a match made in heaven! It takes a gamer score like 98,884 to be as cool as him. That is a boost of 150 points over last time! He made some progress on NFS Most Wanted winning 1 achievement, Rock Band, PES2008, Blacksite, N+, Catan, Wits & Wagers finishing 4 achievements, and oh... don't tell borandi this, but I have been getting in a little video chat in the off-hours. Booyah!
I've noticed that I've been doing a lot of driving type games recently - this week, NFS:MW, but also the racing in GTA IV, etc. Along with that, some Rock Band, and pursuing various 360voice badges as well.
165 of 200 I bought Wits and Wagers this week in order to go after that 3* Party Badge at 360voice. Along with Party Animals (see below) from LoveFilm, I should be getting this badge today. I've seen a couple of people with the full 200GS, and so far it's been quite easy to get GS. There is one main problem - as the questions are tailored to each region, I can't play with the US players (where the majority are) unless I change my Locale on my profile to the US. As such, I did and set up my Turbo pad to keep joining online games and answer the default answer for each question. Now I only need two more achievements - 'Play with 10 different people online' and 'Answer every question'. |
50 -> 245 of 1000 Green Grass and High Tides, the final song on the guitar, was quite hard. With a few suggestions and an hour in practice mode, I finished the track, using the overdrive/star power only when I really needed it. As such, that makes all guitar difficulties complete! Along with that, Nellas and I are going through World Band Tour mode thing, and we've a couple of achievements in that mode. I've tried doing some singing on medium, only passing the tracks I actually know =D |
10 -> 265 of 1000 Ah, what a frustrating game. My first achievement in this game was many, many moons ago. It's been labelled as an 'easy' game, and I was fed up with it sitting there on my profile with 10GS. I also want points towards my 1* Race badge at 360voice. So I'm about 1/2 way into this game now, and one controller fewer. The aim of this game is to meet certain requirements to race against particular people - win races, get police bounty. The downside is, in the races, a normal car/SUV/people carrier will appear out of nowhere, you crash into it, and the other cars will pass you, even though you've lead for 99.99% of the 8 minute race, meaning you have to do it again. Bleh. Also, with the police bounty, x360a.org has a nice guide to get bounty, but doesnt tell you how to lose the police in order to keep it. So I've had to devise my own method. This game is also very odd - the final two achievements are 550GS (iirc) in total, yet they'll probably be little difference in getting them. |
30 -> 55 of 200 On Boogie Bunnies, I finished a level in under 2 minutes, got a large bunny combo and reached the jungle. I tried passing the beach levels twice now, but the bunnies never seem to line up nicely. Bleh. Still a bit away from my 1* Puzzle badge at 360voice. |
50 -> 110 of 1000 After large frustration at GTA IV (see below), in order to get my 1* Sandbox badge I decided to boot up this game (which is crap). It had several very easy achievements I hadn't bothered to get - Swing 50 miles, Ride 5 miles in a car, and go splat 25 times. Easy stuff. |
550 -> 580 of 1000 Ah, another reason to get angry. On the achievements side, I completed all the assassination missions, and got further in the story. I actually only have 2 or so missions left, but the mission I am on is a biatch. It starts with a 15 minute or so gun fight, followed by chasing a boat in a bike then jumping into a helicopter. After the firefight, if you make one mistake on the chase, you fail. I've now done the firefight 5 times, only for the bike to crash, or the boat to glitch and speed off too quickly. Bleh. |
100 -> 130 of 200 A game I've neglected, but randomly decided to play when bored. Last time I left it, I was in the top division in league manager mode, and needed to win it to get the achievement. So I played the season, quitting out if it looked like I was losing. 15 minutes gave me that achievement. |
720 -> 1000 of 1000 I got VP:PA from LoveFilm this week. Last time I got this, I should have finished the full 1000 - it's very easy. I had to do a 7 race game, then a few 1 race games to play as each characters second colour. Then find all the shortcuts, race every race, then play every game. Very easy. Game Complete! |
350 -> 425 of 1000 After some talk online about this game, I decided to put it in to get some more achievements. There are a few problems with the achievements of this game - some are online, and no-one plays it online; some take years of grinding. So I went online and actually found some players! I got the achievements for hosting 10 and playing as each colour/sex. With a boosting partner, I could probably get 600GS or so quite quick. |
GamerScore: | 97,749 -> 98,909 |
Zone: | Pro |
Completed XBLA: | 24 / 59 |
Completed Retail: | 48 -> 49 / 200 |
GS Completion %: | 45.65% -> 46.10% |
Country Rank: | 262 (I switched to US for Wits and Wagers) |
World Rank: | 515 -> 508 |
Completion Rank: | 1,026 -> 993 |
Wednesday, June 04, 2008
Liberty City Police Face Allegations Of Incompetence, Brutality
June 4, 2008 | Issue 44•23
LCPD officers deal with a shoplifting suspect.
LIBERTY CITY—With the city in the midst of a record crime wave, concerned citizens claim the Liberty City Police Department has done little to prevent the constant car chases, ongoing gun battles, and overall atmosphere of violence that pervade the area.
"I used to feel safe in Liberty City, but lately, it's been total mayhem," said night-shift worker Lola Del Rio, who spoke to reporters while sucking nervously on a red lollipop. "In the past week alone, I've been carjacked twice, run over 10 times, and witness to a half-dozen gunfights that ended with automobiles exploding. What are the police doing to stop all this?"
Since the surge in crime, which began on April 28 at midnight, more than 830,000 civilians have been murdered—nearly one-tenth of Liberty City's total population. In addition, 35,000 vehicles have been reported stolen, many of which were then driven illegally over sidewalks and pedestrian walkways before plunging into the nearby Humboldt River. And according to startling figures released by local community action group Citizens for a Safer City, drug trafficking has become rampant and prostitution has increased by 800 percent.
"I was shot 14 times on my way to work today, including twice by police," said one Algonquin-area resident. "That is unacceptable."
Many blame the LCPD directly for the increase in criminal activity, citing the department's lax procedure for arresting criminals, which involves taking 10 percent of the suspect's money, confiscating his weapons, and simply releasing him from custody later that day. Outraged citizens say this is not enough, especially in a city where assault rifles can be found on factory roofs and grenade caches are located under the globe at the old World's Fair site.
"The police just let them go, and 20 minutes later they're shooting at the very same criminals from helicopters," veteran crime reporter Mike Whiteley said. "That is not proper law enforcement. We may be seeing a return to the bad old days of 2002, when the police, the FIB, and even Army tank battalions would leave countless bodies on the streets while attempting to capture just one man on some sort of joyful mass-destruction spree."
Perhaps even more alarming, city records indicate that more than 75 percent of perpetrators in mass-murder or vehicular-manslaughter cases escape, usually by simple methods such as driving into a car-repainting facility. Criminals have even eluded pursuit by walking into their apartment and going to bed for six hours, after which the search has been called off.
However, one LCPD official, who wished to remain anonymous, blamed the recent crime wave on the police department's lack of proper equipment.
"We are only equipped to pursue a suspect within a small radius on a very basic half-centimeter radar screen," the officer said. "If we were allowed to seek criminals who escaped this radius for more than 15 seconds, our results would improve dramatically."
"And to those who say the LCPD is too quick to resort to deadly force, remember that almost 850,000 police officers, FIB agents, and N.O.O.S.E. [National Office of Security Enforcement] team members have died in the line of duty in the past month," he added.
Nonetheless, residents say that their confidence in the Liberty City police force—low in the best of times—has eroded almost completely.
"I was buying a hot dog from a street vendor in Hove Beach yesterday when I saw someone run a red light, barrel down the sidewalk, careen into a garbage truck, exit his vehicle, steal a nearby convertible, and drive away," one Broker resident reported. "A nearby police car didn't even react. But when the car behind him nicked his fender, the officer shot the driver through the windshield and walked away."
"That is not the kind of law enforcement we want for our community," he added.
Most admit that the problem is not a lack of police presence, as the LCPD currently operates 15 different police stations throughout the city's four boroughs, and there is a seemingly infinite number of officers on duty at all times to respond to reported crimes. However, citizens say the officers' "shoot-first" mentality and willingness to accept bribes only contributes to the city's widespread violence and corruption.
"It's almost as if the cops in this town are as much an adversarial faction as the criminals," said public defender Kiki Jenkins, who is rumored to be instrumental in recent incidents of police being inexplicably pulled from chases and criminal pursuit. "Sure, we have excellent radio stations and an incredible range of things to see and do here. But if I were younger, I'd move to Mario World in a second."
(NSFW) Zero Punctuation: TWOWY (NDS)
Monday, June 02, 2008
(NSFW) Zero Punctuation: Painkiller (PC)
1st July: GS Update
borandi really threw down yesterday. It was good to see! I wish you could have been there! Last time I checked, his gamer score is 97,689. That is an improvement of 925 points over last time! Welcome to 97,000!! He played Rock Band adding 3 achievements, Lost Via Domus finishing an amazing 24 achievements to master the game, Bionicle Heroes gaining 1 achievement, and then nothing... nothing at all...This week saw the arrival of Rock Band into my profile. At the equivalent of $90(45GBP), it's the most expensive game (just the game, on it's own) I've ever purchased. It's been part of a want for a long while, plus a personal gift to myself for finishing! I haven't got the instrument pack yet, I'll probably get that in a few months when a) I have the money, and b) it comes down in price. In the mean time, I've got my GH3 controller for lead and bass, and the wired headset for vocals. More about Rock Band below.
Did I mention the gamerscore challenge that borandi is competing in? Bookmark this link now and check out all the action! 4 other people are also involved... which is madness. Current rank out of all those people is number one though. Everyone else is jealous... I feel their hate. I've made a wager with the 4 other Xboxes in the Challenge -- let's not blow this thing...
Besides Rock Band, there were a few completions this week, including an old-time grind, and another 'position to remember' completion.
So for the games:
0 -> 50 of 1000 I got this game Friday, and now it's Sunday night/Monday morning. What do I think of Rock Band? Well, it's a very good game. There's only so much you can say about this music genre type games, and I thought GH3 had done well, but Rock Band just takes it a step further with a bit of spit and polish to make everything look neat. The layout of the game itself is good and clean, and the repertoire of music tracks available are varied, with many more available on the Marketplace. My first experience of RB was one I was rather expecting - I was told that it was easier on GH3, so I stuck it on Expert difficulty straight away. That was fine, except when I played, the timings were significantly tighter than GH3. That's very good at least, means I have to play to a beat, rather than be slightly off. So far, I'm now at the final track on expert. I haven't had to repeat one yet to pass it, except this final one - it's a bastard. 9 minutes 49 seconds of Freebird style playing and me with a semi-broken wrist. One thing I notice with Rock Band on Guitar is a lot of the tracks have the same note repeated, quickly, for a long time. So my hand hurts. So when I got to this track, I got 80% through TWICE, and a solo kills me. Thats 8 minutes into the track, so you bet it's annoying that to go through it again I have to play though ALL 8 minutes. Pah. On the vocals side, I suck as I'm tone deaf. However, Roquey and Nellas seem to be pretty good - Roquey has been able to 95%-99% a few songs on hard, and Nellas has finished some on expert as well. It looks like I may be calling upon them to do my Vocal achievements, but we'll see and I'll practice. My vocal range is limited to C, C#, and some wierd falsetto, currently. |
540 -> 550 of 1000 Not much GTA at all this week. However, the GTA 'kill a developer' achievement was released into the wild. Common thought was that this achievement was not viral, as in you would have to personally kill a developer to get it. But, it seems like it is viral, and spread like wildfire. I caught wind of this fact, and jumped into an online game of Cops and Crooks. I got the achievement on my first kill, so that was handy =D |
940 -> 1000 of 1000 A grinders hardship can be summed up with Bionicle Heroes. For those that have followed my story, this is how it has gone: I got the game and starting playing it in the morning of 17th February 2007. I sat playing through every level, for almost 8 straight hours. I was 18 stages in (~83% through the game), when I received the following message: 'Autosave Failed'. I did not know what this meant at the time, but to sum up - this game, which does all the saving automatically, will not let you save in two places. If it fails to save, it will no longer save, and your previous save is corrupt. What this meant for me is, that those 8 hours of playing went down the tube. I had 800 or so GS in the game by this time, and the final achievements would require playing through those 8 hours again. So, over the course of the next 16 months, I played a level here, a level there, making sure not to play it for too long at a time. Until last night that is, when I blitzed 14 levels or so to get the final 19% of the game. It required completing each stage with a gold medal, and collecting every Gold and Silver canister (people have reported in online forums that this isn't necessary, but for me it was) to get the full 100%, and 5 million monies along the way. My Bionicle Heroes story is a weary one, and I'm glad to get this POS out of the way. Game Complete! |
125 -> 1000 of 1000 At first, I was saving Lost for a 8-week GS competition over at x360a.org. But then I dropped out, seeing as I will be moving in that time (stay tuned) and then used it for a 360voice 5-day auto challenge. Lost, in all respects, is a fairly easy 1000. No hard parts, a fairly quick game, but at the same time, dull. Not necessarily boring, but just dull. You don't get a sense of 'Why am I playing this?', but you also do not get the sense of 'This is fun and enjoyable!'. With the online guide at x360a.org (check the forums), it was fairly easy with minimal thinking. Game Complete! |
0 -> 30 of 200 I bought Boogie Bunnies for Nellas this week, and also as part of my on-going quest for the 1* Puzzle badge over at 360voice. It's one of these 'match 3 in a row and try not to die' type games, apart from this game uses over the top cute bunny type creatures, who sound like they've been eating the defauly soundbites from every Worms game every made. I haven't had a serious go of this game yet, however the achievements look a bit tricky (Nellas has 6 atm, compared to my 3) and might require some proper playing time. |
60 -> 110 of 200 Jewel Quest is also part of my 1* Puzzle gaining quest. This week I finished off the first playthrough, and gained the 500k score margin. Then I got 4/5 through the second playthrough, then I must've pressed a wrong button on a menu option, but I have to start my second playthrough again. Bah humbug. |
165 -> 200 of 1000 With it being the end of my degree and all, one night involving some mates and pizza, we started taking turns doing crash events on Burnout Revenge. The next day I decided to persue some more achievements, and ended up getting the ones for '250 takedowns' and 'perfect the 2nd stage'. This game is fun, albeit having a high difficulty curve to get the achievements. For crash events, it's better than Burnout: Paradise, but Paradise beats it on everything else. |
0 -> 200 of 200 Buku was one of the XBLA games released this week. I'm not usually a fan of Sudoku, but after having a look at the achievements, I decided to have a bash. Overall, this game is VERY easy. Achievements include 'win 25 online games', 'win one of each board', 'win one of each difficulty', 'win 200 games', 'get 10million points'. Now what makes this easy is that the helpers on this game make it simple to guess the number required. So if you turn all them on, and do simple 6x6 easy boards, the 200 wins is easy at 20secs/win. In the online modes, if you do co-op 6x6 boards on easy, both people get the online win, making that simple. With the points, if you mix some 6x6 easy with a few (12-15) 12x12 boards on easy which take 2 minutes to solve, the points are easy. Also something special worth noting - according to MGC I was: 10th in the World to complete Buku Not bad, eh? Game Complete! |
340 -> 470 of 1250 Not much to say about Army of Two - I completed story mode, and got all the associated achievements, as well as killing 250 with machine guns and 30 with riot shield melee. The achievements left involve completing it on the hardest difficulty, some more 'kill with X weapon', and a couple online. EA released some FREE DLC (yes, that's right - free) for the game, but as this is my US copy, I need to use my US account to get the DLC. But the DLC is currently only for Gold members, and my US acc is Silver, so I'll have to wait a bit. |
770 -> 940 of 1000 I am now done with CoD4. When I saw in Blockbuster that I could get Rock Band for 15 quid if I traded in CoD4, I leapt at the opportunity - after I'd finished all the achievements first. If you may remember, I was stuck on 'In the War Room' on Veteran difficulty and could not get past it, so I did the final 2 levels on Easy. Well this time, I did the final level on Veteran (for an achievement), then 'In the War Room' on Hardened to get the 'Complete on Hardened or Veteran' 90GS achievement. To be honest, Hardened difficulty was very, very easy compared to Veteran. Well apart from that, I had to collect all the intel on every level (x360a.org guide for that, quite easy). That leaves me with two achievements which I have resigned myself to never getting - 'Complete In the War Room on Veteran', and 'Mile High Club'. I also wont be getting them as I traded my copy into BlockBuster. But they didnt get any Rock Band in on their next delivery, so I got a full refund and bought it from GameStation (hence the $90/45GBP price tag). Game Complete? Not quite, but game finished with. |
GamerScore: | 96,139 -> 97,749 |
Zone: | Pro |
Completed XBLA: | 23 -> 24 / 58 |
Completed Retail: | 46 -> 48 / 200 |
GS Completion %: | 45.28% -> 45.65% |
Country Rank: | 73 -> 73 |
World Rank: | 534 -> 515 |
Completion Rank: | 1,072 -> 1,026 |