(NSFW) Zero Punctuation - Mailbag Showdown

According to his email, no-one liked ZP's review of Smash Bros. Brawl. Here's why you're wrong.

The Easy Games - May 2008

67 Completions. Which are the easiest, which are the quickest per GS? Well, here's my list:

Avatar
Madden 06
NBA 2k6
College Hoops 2k6
NHL 2k6
Madden 08
MLB 2k6
TMNT
Open Season
Fifa 06 RTFWC
NBA Live 2006
NHL® 07
Cars
Galaga
Surf's Up
CSI: Hard Evidence
Cars: Mater-National
King Kong
POTC: At World's End
GUN
Fuzion Frenzy 2
Jericho
A-Train HX
Fight Night Round 3
New Rally-X
Sonic
Golden Axe
NBA Street Homecourt
Eragon
X-Men III
Madden 07
Track and Field
Ms. Pac-Man
SpiderMan: FoF
Spyglass Board Games
Bomberman Live
Sonic 2
Dynasty Warriors 5 Empires
Meet the Robinsons
Gauntlet
Prey
NHL 2k7
3D Ultra Minigolf
Superman Returns
Bee Movie Game
Pac-Man
Dig Dug
LMA Manager 07
Backgammon
Carcassone
Elder Scrolls: Oblivion
Uno
Puzzle Fighter HD
NCAA Football 07
Worms
TMNT: Arcade
Bankshot Billiards 2
Enchanted Arms
Phantasy Star Universe
WWE 08
Arkadian Warriors
Viva Piñata
WWE 07
Pro Evo 6 / Winning Eleven 2007
Undertow
Blue Dragon
Beautiful Katamari
Forza
Puzzle Quest

What does that mean? Play Avatar for quick GS. Play Viva Pinata for easy GS, but it takes a bit longer. The PDF showing all this data is available here.

(NSFW) Zero Punctuation - God of War: CoO (PSP)

Another series game - this time God of War on the PSP. ZP provides his retrospective.

borandi's Quick Start Guide to A-Train HX

I said I'd put up my guide at some point! So here it is. Click the following link to go to the thread where I originally posted it.

http://www.xbox360achievements.org/forum/showthread.php?t=64270

borandi's Quick Start Guide to A-Train HX
=========================================

This guide is for people to follow in order to get over half of the GS in A-Train HX without playing about too much with the core gameplay. This strategy worked for me (640GS in ~5hrs) and I hope it does for you too.

I'll start as if you've just put in the game without reading the manual (I didnt get a manual as it was a LoveFilm rental).

Edit - The basic principle is 'Get Money Quick'. When this guide was first written here, we used the stock market. However, a quicker way has been discovered using Property. See the Youtube videos to see how. The Stock Market method will remain here so people can learn the controls or cant follow the videos.

When you've selected your storage device, you'll come up against the main menu. Here, use the D-pad to navigate (the D-pad and left analog stick do different things in this game, and you'll be using the D-pad a lot). Select New Game and there are eight different scenarios for you to conquer. Choose the one in the top right, called Clear River and Rice Paddies - this map is easy, it's what I did most of my early achievements on, and you start with 1 billion monies (for ease of use, I'll just put $ from now on).

When the map starts, press start. This is the instant pause button in the game.

Now we look at the HUD provided. Currently selected in the top left is what I'll call the Game Menu which uses a twist style function to navigate. If you press RB, the speed is now selected - this is in the top right corner, and should now be flashing. You can use the D-Pad left and right to adjust the speed, or press up on the D-Pad to set the speed back to normal. For this guide, I suggest putting it all the way to the right, as we need to sim a lot of days to get these achievements.

Pressing RB again takes us to the cutaway guide, to the right of the speed. This is for when you want to build in mountains or underground. RB again takes you to the bottom right, where the train selector is. Here you can view the path each train takes on its day. RB again brings up the calendar, and here you can set dates where your timer will automatically stop. This is useful on Tax Days (1st Apr and 1st May I believe) so you can cobble funds together. RB a final time brings us back to the Game Menu.

The Game Menu is fairly intuitive. However, if you want to delete a piece of rail, you have to select the rail menu and go to the delete function there - same applies for buildings, you have to use the construction delete funtion for those.

But the main crux is the market menu, which brings up the stock market. Go there now (highlight it, press A).

There are 50 companies from which you can buy stock. Now with any stock market, you have to use the 'buy low and sell high' strategy. This game can be a bit picky with stock market rises and falls, so keep an eye out of those.

To get these easy achievements, we need to make lots of money on the stock market - about 12 billion to begin with. Now as a general rule, I buy below $7 a share, and sell above $13. You can't make any money with small gains, as every time you buy or sell, 10% is charged as a commission fee. Sometimes the game will take shares as low as $1, or as high as $20, so we need tactics to counteract that too.

From the beginning, the shares are usually around $8, so try and buy the cheapest you can find. You can press Y to increase the amount that you buy (up to 10 million). Buy as many as you can, but leave at least 200 million in the bank - this is very important; you're current funds are in the top center right of the screen. You can only buy 10 million shares from each company, but you can buy shares from as many companies as you like.

When this is done, press start. Now you will see the days go by quickly, and the stock prices rising and falling. As a market, they rise as a group and fall as a group, so you wont see $4 on one set and $16 on the other, they'll all be around $4 or around $16, etc. Also, share price is not based on how well you play each scenario - its random.

As the days go by, you'll see the odd message saying 'the stock market is falling!' or 'the stock market is surging!'. As a general rule, ignore these messages. Most of them are hoaxes - some of them are true, but most spout the most purile lies.

Stick to your stock screen until the majority of the 5 prices you are looking at reach above $13 - this could take 2 minutes or 10 minutes as the stock market is random. When this happens, press start to pause the game. Now we need to save the game. This is done by going to the Game Menu, and selecting File, then Save. [Note, you cannot overwrite a save game - it has to be deleted first by pressing X, then you can save it the slot]. Once that is done, go back to the market. Press right on the D-pad, and what said 'Buy shares' now should say 'Sell Shares'. Sell all the shares you own. Your money should now be over 1 billion by a small amount (I was by 160 million the first time). Now save the game again, but this time in a different slot.

Go back to the market, and resume the game. If after 5 days or so the stock market has risen, go back and reload the save where you had the shares. In general, this game does follow the same trends everytime after a save (at least for a short while), so this is generally a good indicator. If you reloaded, sim 5 days, and if it's still higher this time round, save before you sell the shares and after you sell the shares. That way, if the shares go up higher still, you can reload and save.

When the shares have peaked and you've sold them all, the market should decline again. This time, we're waiting for shares to dip below $7. This time, we save the game before you buy, and save the game after you buy. That way, if they dip below $5, we can reload the save with all the money and buy them at the cheaper prices. Again, buy as many as you can, but leave at least 200 million in the bank.

You need to repeat the buying/selling/saving process for a while. As you accumulate more money, you'll be able to buy more shares each time, and thus make more profit. About 4 billion is needed to buy from every company on the stock market.

Once you have around 7.5 billion, now we can go achievement hunting. Keep a save file with all this money, just so you can come back to it and get some other achievements.

In the market screen, press LB until you see the bank. Here, we need to take out lots of loan. Press Y until the loan amount is 1 billion, then press right on the D-Pad so it becomes a 2 year term. Then take out as much as you can (goto each line in the table and press A). You should be able to take out 4 or 5 billion, and your total money should now exceed 10 billion (the more the better).

Now goto the project sub menu of the Game Menu. Here, you can create Bullet Trains and MagLev Trains - which cost 600 million and 10 billion respectively. Create both on the map - they should be easy to place, this is an open map. These trains take 128 days to build, so sim through them until they are done. When they are built, you should get the following achievements:


Bullet Train in Service - 30GS
Complete the bullet train project to open a bullet train line.


Maglev Train in Service - 60GS
Complete the linear train project to open a maglev train line.


Railway Kingdom - 60GS
Total railway assets exceed the total of non-railway assets by over 15% when the game is cleared.


Harmony With Nature - 60GS
Blocks of trees exceed 300 when the game is cleared.


The Great Leap Forward - 60GS
Clear the game within 5 years.

Now reload up your save with all the money. Goto construction, a choose the small factory. Build 60 or so. After simming a day or two, you should get these achievements:


Factory Head - 30GS
Number of factories exceeds 30.


Company Expansion - 50GS
Number of your properties exceeds 60.

You can also build 30 stations, from the station menu. Any will do, the cheaper the easier though. After another day or two, this achievement will be yours:


Station Expansion - 30GS
Number of stations exceeds 30.

The rail laying achievements are quite easy. Press RB until you get to the cutaway option in the top right, and press down twice, then A. The screen should turn almost completely orange - don't worry, this just means you are underground. Now bring up the rail menu from the Game Menu. We need to put down 2000 bits of rail, so keep building in an up and down. 2000 takes a long time (5-10 minutes), and at this point it's probably best to keep the timer running for this one. You'll get a message when you hit 1000. These achievements will unlock as you go through:


Tube Expansion - 30GS
Total length of rails in tunnels exceeds 100.


Public Transport King - 30GS
Total rail length exceeds 2,000.

Ah here's something I almost forgot - go back to the bank screen (under Market). Now keep taking out max loans and paying them back (press A again after taking them out). After less than a minute, this achievement will unlock:


Sign of Success - 40GS
Bank interest paid exceeds 500 million.

If you need all your money back, now is a good time to reload, as these other achievements require some money and time.

These achievements require some basic knowledge of how the train system works in this game, as well as some info about materials.

About factories and materials: most of the buildings in this game require materials. Materials come from factories, or trains that deposit them in material yards as they come from off the map. Trains can only deposit materials in yards within a certain radius of the station, and buildings have to be built near materials in material yards.

Now go back to sea level, and find the patch of water in the bottom right of the map - this is so we can build a port. A port needs a stretch of land next to water of 4/5 squares, so keep this in mind when building.

Near the edge of the map (3 squares away), build a Marshalling Yard with five platforms (press Y to change the number of platforms), with the barriers of the station facing into the main map. Now build rail such that each of the five platforms is going to the edge of the map. Now build large Material Yards around the station - I believe each station can reach out 20 squares or so, so populate the area around the marshalling yard with lots of material yards - keep them close together. Now we need to buy trains.

Goto the train menu. You will see that you already have 3 trains. Ignore those for the time being. Using the D-Pad, goto train spot number 4. Press A to buy a train. Here you see the list of trains available - scroll down until you see the Model EC6 HS Goods Train. Press Y until it has 7 carts, then press A. Now move to one of your platfroms of the Marshalling yard, and press A twice. The train should now be set. Do this with the other 4 platforms.

If you sim a few days, you should now see materials building up in your yards. Good, we need lots and lots.

First task should be to build a port and an airport. If your Marshalling yard is close to the water, building a port is easy - note what looks like the building section of the port actually goes in the water, the rest is on land. The airport is easy too - just find an open space near the material yards. These achievements should be yours:


Take to the Skies - 30GS
Construct an airport.


Port of Call - 10GS
Construct a port.

Now, we build leisure facilities. This is under the construction menu. Here we go with the one that uses the least materials - the shrine. Build 20 of these and sim a day for this achievement:


Leisure Industry Leader - 30GS
Number of leisure facilities exceeds 20.

Now these next set of buildings may take a while. They need lots of materials and money. I'm talking about the landmarks. Find a space near the material yards, and build them one by one. You only need one of each. When they are all built, you get this achievement:


Tourist Trap - 50GS
Construct all types of landmarks.

All that's left is to reload your save and keep playing with the stock market. When you hit 10 billion, this achievement is yours:


Top Trader - 40GS
Share trading profits exceed 10 billion.

Many thanks to woody1993 for the following info on other achievements:

Quote:

I would play the stock market until you have about 35 billion and save this map as it will be extremely useful in a few of the achievements later on (you should get the 30 billion in assets by doing this also) Railway Microstate achievement Like borandi says just find a map with a track length less than 300 at the start of map and play the stock market till you get about 7 billion then take loans out till you get past 10 billion then you should get the achievement i personally done it on north/south of the mountains map National Conquest Complete the eight original maps this is easy but time consuming just play the stock market as before when you get to 10 billion you clear the map I cleared all eight maps but didn't get the achievement at first so i went to my map list and deleted the maps i downloaded and created then cleared an original map again so to be certain i would just have the eight original maps to start with when you do this achievement Industry Leader Just play stock market again till you get 30 billion and selling any property you own counts towards your total assets City Expansion I did this one by building as many supermarkets,convenience stores and restaurants as i could then sold them to the city and built more and sold them and so on until the achievement popped up this could take some time but you will get it eventually

Or do the property baron achievement and sell everything, then build, then sell. (Go to the market screen, then LB to get to where you can sell properties).

Quote:

Top Taxpayer You should get this by doing Property Baron

I got this during Property Baron - 15 bil in income tax!

Quote:

Property Baron - also see video underneath called 'Using Property Pt 1' I built five long tube stations on the edge of the map one level down underground (you can do this by pressing rb until you to the enable cutaway part) then put five goods trains on them with seven carriages then surround the stations with large material yards if they exceed 20 spaces away from station nothing will be dropped off on them, return to normal level then build 50 department stores 1 (you can use other shops and property's but i found these to be best) if you build tall buildings or skyscrapers they will not make a profit until they are fully built.Put a few elevated stations close to the stores so the population will build around them, pretty soon you should be making a profit go to to management info on report at the top of page it should say subs,profit/year it's this total which must succeed 20 billion don't worry it doesn't have to be done in a year. I waited a year until my city built up a bit then i took all my trains off sold them then left it on over night to get this achievement but that's just the way i did it you don't have take your trains off Subway Mall Expansion It's best to do this achievement with a highly populated city when my city had about 9000 population i built an underground double tube station, on the first track i put a goods train with a material yard close by, on the second track i put a tube train, i connected this station with another station further on after a while a subway expanded from the back of my tube station this expanded two at a time to a maximum of eight in length 16 in total when it was fully built i built another six tube stations in close proximity to the original tube station when all fully expanded you should get the achievement (a fully extended subway mall attached to a tube station should resemble the letter t)

I made a video showing about Subway malls. One thing I didnt add is that these malls work best when using tube trains and underneath current towns.

YouTube - A-Train HX - Underground Malls

Useful Links to A-Train HX:

http://www.artdink.co.jp/japanese/ti...en_playing.php
A website that introduces the core concept of the game
(As mentioned by DJ Psydande in another thread)

Videos for making money, made by borandi:

YouTube - A-Train HX - Using Property Pt 1
YouTube - A-Train HX - Using Property Pt 2
YouTube - A-Train HX - Using the Stock Market

(NSFW) Zero Punctuation - Super Smash Bros. Brawl (Wii)

The next game in the Super Smash series. Zero Punctuation expresses his joy.

(NSFW) Zero Punctuation - Condemned 2: Bloodshot (360)

A chilling look at the sequel of Condemned (a game I've still yet to play) courtesy of Zero Punctuation.

4th May: GS Update

The week is all about GTA. GTA this and GTA that. You can't escape it!!! *evil grin*

Oh man, borandi was totally in the gaming zone yesterday when he fired me up to play. 91,332 points of total gamerscore doesn't do his skills justice. That is a profit of 150 points over last time! He played GTA IV winning an amazing 7 achievements, Lost Cities, BLADESTORM, PES2008, Marvel Ult. Alliance finishing 3 achievements, and oh... don't tell borandi this, but I have been getting in a little video chat in the off-hours. Booyah!

Oh and it is time for a gamerscore challenge update... listen up... Bookmark this link now and check out all the action! 4 other people are also involved... which is madness. Currently borandi and I are on top of the challenge mountain... it's so beautiful, and high. I can see my house from here. Is that an airplane, or a space shuttle? How's the weather down there? We're in the home stretch with 24 short hours left! Work for that win!

Well I'll explain GTA a little later on. Apart from that, I got Avatar this week from LoveFilm for an easy 1k, I passed 90k, no XBLA game this week (thanks to GTA), though there was a very exciting talk over at 360voice about their merger with GamerDNA. All those that participated got the 'Plays Well with Others' badge, so I joined in (at 3am UK time) and is was good fun.

Marvel Ult. Alliance 515 -> 980 of 1250 50 of 58 Achievements Lots of MUA this week. The main story line is complete (on easy), wrapping up those achievements, as is all the costumes from the DLC pack achievements. Alongside that, 500 enemies thrown off a ledge, and enough statues to unlock Daredevil and Black Panther. I'm currently working my way through the simulator (managed to get all the discs), going for gold in each. After that, I'll be going for all the costumes on each character, and that should leave two DLC achievements, and complete on Hard left.

PES2008 210 -> 235 of 1000 9 of 28 Achievements Just one achievement this week - 'Keep foul ratio below 0.1 per match for the last 10 matches'. I'm about 27 games through the English league now (out of 38), going after the 100 assists achievement.

GTA IV 0 -> 325 of 1000 23 of 50 Achievements Ah yes, the big game itself. It says I've notched up 24hrs in the game already, though some of that is during dinner, etc., where I forgot to pause it. Well, what do I think? It's a very good, all round game. It has bits of everything, and is an absolutely stunning environment to be in. Game of the Year for sure, unless something like Fable 2 shows something spectacular. The developers have worked hard on GTA, balancing every aspect and giving the player freedom to do what they want, with some minigames and a nice multiplayer option to play around with. Some of my best moments in GTA: - I met a random guy on the street, high on drugs, called me a eastern european tard, then gave me $100 'courtesy of Uncle Sam' - If you cause a ruckus in a strip club, they throw you out, and all the strippers seem to go outside. I just saw one walk outside, in broad daylight, and she started eating a hotdog. - Bumped into a hobo, he shouts 'I ain't got any bananas!' - Did a double flip in a police car and the lights got smashed, the siren now plays like its broken A few small bugs though. One - at some point in the game, you have to leave the area of your first home with your cousin. Then, when you go bowling or so with him after that, you have to pick him up from the first area where people are after him. Some other responses from NPCs are also out of sync. Also, a distinct lack of things to do in Single Player compared to previous games, like taking cars to the docks for money etc. I'm hoping the August DLC for the 360 shows some more spectacular stuff. As far as achievements go, it's not really a game you can get achievements easily in - the average GS so far (according to MGC) is about 25. That said, I passed the 90k mark with GTA as some of the achievements are really easy. Escape from a 4* wanted level? Go up and down the runway on a bike. Spend 5 mins at a 6* wanted level? Take a boat or heli and drive round the unopened islands early on at full speed where they cant catch you. Some of the multiplayer ones look a bit tricky - 'Kill 20 people with a pistol match in a ranked match'. Luckily however, if you're the host, you can set it to a small map, pistols only, 20 min match to get that achievement easy. Go buy the game and enjoy it. It's worth your monies. Over at metacritic, GTA has been getting 100% marks from a lot of magazines. In my eyes, a good game, but not 100%. I'd give it a 98%, as there are some touchup/QA issues they could have worked on, but its GOTY material nevertheless.

Avatar: TLA: TBE 0 -> 1000 of 1000 5 of 5 Achievements The undisputed easiest 1000GS of any game on the 360. All it involves is tapping B on the first level, until your combo hits 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 - and your combo stays unless you get hit. So I did the full 1000GS on each of my 3 accounts and Nellas did it on hers for her first completion. So I timed it the third time round. One minute and 55 seconds from pressing play on the dashboard, to the full 1000GS. Easiest game ever. Game complete!

Guitar Hero II 640 -> 700 of 1000 40 of 50 Achievements Two easy achievements I'd been neglecting on GH2 this week. I had to start a new band to get the 'buy every guitar' and 'buy every finish' achievements, but all it took was 22 5* songs on medium to get enough money, which is now quite simple for me =D

===================

GamerScore:	89487 -> 91442
Zone:	Pro

Completed XBLA:	23 / 55
Completed Retail:	43 -> 44 / 196
GS Completion %:	43.39 -> 43.78%

Country Rank:	91 -> 88
World Rank:	637 -> 601
Completion Rank:	1,439 -> 1,319

27th April: GS Update

A mix this week. Some news, some games.

borandi came to represent the gaming world. 89,362 points and counting! That is a profit of 40 points over last time! He rocked out to Lost Cities, BLADESTORM, Call of Duty 4 gaining 1 achievement, Lost Odyssey, and almost cried with joy. I have that effect on people.

All this week has been a buzz around GTA4. It comes out Tuesday, despite a large number of people playing it already (thanks to people working in game stores, or people selling it early). My preorder was in, and the money has gone out, so I expect it to be dispatched, ready for Tuesday. I'll probably play it a good lot, apparently it's a lot of fun.

PES2008 130 -> 210 of 1000 8 of 28 Achievements Just a little bit of PES08 - just 5 or so games. Yet as a result, 3 achievements unlock - 2+ goals average in 5 games after 20, possession > 60% in last 10 games, beat all England teams. Like PES6, this game will take a while. Each game is 5 mins, and one of the final achievements is 'play 500 games' - thats 2500 mins (even without loading), which is 42hrs.

Lost Odyssey 110 -> 235 of 1100 5 of 42 Achievements After some recent FPS gaming, I decided to delve back into the RPG arena, now that I have the Lost Odyssey guide - I've played it almost all weekend. As a result, I got to the second disk in around 10hrs from a new game. The guide is a brilliant help, especially with the bosses which are hard for a JRPG.

Call of Duty 4 190 -> 770 of 1000 31 of 37 Achievements Well it looks like last time I played CoD4 I didn't update. Well I was at 600GS, stuck on the level where you got 20 minutes to get out. I was literally pulling my hair out. That was in November, so now I took off the shrink wrap (I bought it around Christmas, last play was a rental) and put it in again. A quick youtube guide got me through that level, and the next, until the point where you've got 9 minutes to save the missile launch. Now that level is an ARSE. You have to get into a couple of pathways that face each other, and enemies are on either side. You cant peer round to shoot one then the other, and grenades dont work. So I'm basically buggered - and as a result, I almost broke a controller. So I set the difficulty to easy and breezed past the last two levels. I dont think I'll comp this game on veteran, I just dont have the patience, and Activision frustrates gamers like me with these achievements. Why not make a couple online, like reach level 54? (Which is v. easy on the PC version).

BLADESTORM 550 -> 600 of 1000 12 of 18 Achievements I still like Bladestorm - its the Hack and Slash with out the frustration and a little bit of strategy. I got the 3*, and the Book of Camels. I'm taking a liking to the Halberds, the Poleswords. With their 3 specials, they can take out a whole squad which they are weak against. As a result, my Halberds book is at 73%, which is enough for the final achievement. Now I'm working on a couple of other groups - archers and spears. I cant stand the cavalry, though.

Lost Cities 0 -> 80 of 200 5 of 12 Achievements Lost Cities is the XBLA game this week, which I bought so Nellas and I can play. It's a simple card game, with some easy achievements - except the 'Win 300 games' achievement. A game lasts 3 rounds, and a round can last 4-5 minutes. Thats 3600 minutes, or 60 hours.

Guitar Hero III 365 -> 390 of 1000 36 of 59 Achievements Not much on GH3 this week - Nellas and I finally finished co-op easy. We're doing a couple of tracks at a time - I hope to get 5* easy, 5* medium co-op, as well as complete co-op as lead and bass eventually.

Viking 0 -> 90 of 1000 6 of 50 Achievements I got a small chance to play Viking this week. One of my friends had bought it, and came over one evening. I played for an hour, but it looks an alright game. I cant really tell if it's going to be a good one, as there was no real tutorial. But the slicing and dicing was fun, anyway.

G.R.A.W. 670 -> 736 of 1000 30 of 43 Achievements A couple of online achievements on GRAW - a group of 6 of us went for the Crackshot achievement (10x headshots without reloading with at least 5 different gametags in the room) as well as Team Player (Win 30 co-op matches with at least 6 GTs in the room). On the way, I managed to get the Sniper ach (500 head shots in multiplayer).

LEGO Star Wars II 350 -> 390 of 1000 14 of 29 Achievements I started playing this just to get some achievements, and complete it a little more for the 360voice 2* family badge. Yet I can't still stand this game - the levels are still too long, and too boring. It's all a boring grind. I got 2 level completion achievements, then couldn't stand it any more.

=================

GamerScore:	88841 -> 89487
Zone:	Pro

Completed XBLA:	23 / 55
Completed Retail:	43 / 194
GS Completion %:	43.28% -> 43.39%

Country Rank:	89 -> 91
World Rank:	634 -> 637
Completion Rank:	1,425 -> 1,439

20th April: GS Update

This has been one exciting week (and a half). On a spur for some completions, I ended up with SEVEN new completions. Yup, thats SEVEN! =D

borandi is awesome! Just plain radical even... I say that because we played some games. Did you know our gamerscore is 88,816? That is a profit of 945 points over last time! That was enough to cross the 88,000 mark! Good stuff! He made some progress on Civil War adding an amazing 27 achievements, MS.PAC-MAN picking up an amazing 12 achievements to finish the game, PAC-MAN adding 1 achievement to master the game, Crash Of The Titans acquiring 1 achievement, Puzzle Fighter HD winning 3 achievements to complete the game, BLADESTORM, Burnout Paradise, Bejeweled 2, Geometry Wars Evolved, Texas Hold'em, and then borandi developed a funny twitch and went to try and sleep it off or something. Crazy humans...

This is really good stuff... the more we play, the more chances we have to leave Stignob 10K in the dust. Call me crazy, but a 2,305 point cushion is not nearly enough for me...

And..... guess what? I will reveal the latest gamerscore challenge status to you as a matter of public record. If you are curious, follow along over here. There are 3 other people involved. I didn't know borandi even knew that many people. Currently, borandi has been using every power-up in his achievement-gaining arsenal, rocking the lead with authority! Only one day left too! This is good stuff!

On the 360voice side of things, I've gone for my 1* FPS badge, 1* Retro badge, I'm just a smidgen off a 1* Music badge (thanks to DDR2 and RockBand not being out here yet) and I also got the 1* 'Hail to the King' badge for getting wins in challenges. I won a 13 player, 3 day challenge, came 2nd in a 8 player 3 day challenge (I was giving out the viral), and I'm on my way to winning a 4 player 3 day challenge. I would go for the 2* family badge, but I dont have any of the other games for that one - I'd complete Shrek if I got it from LoveFilm.

As for the games:

Texas Hold'em 115 -> 140 of 200 7 of 12 Achievements I was let on to a fabulous way of playing Texas Hold'em, at least for the 1000 hand ach and the 'get all hands' ach - and it involves clamping down the A button in a normal single player match. Then the game plays itself. However, I've seen people leave this game on all night for weeks to get the 'get all hands' ach, to no avail. Time will tell! (I got the 1000 hands ach this week.)

Burnout Paradise 360 -> 560 of 1000 32 of 50 Achievements According to the in-game timer, I've played B:P for 30 hours already. That's a lot, and I didn't realise it was that many. However, some useful information came my way this week. Using the Carson Fastback, it's easy to do drifting burnout donuts in the baseball stadium. With that, it was easy to do the 20x burnout ach, and the 1 million stunt run achievement (I was able to do that normally yesterday, 2.2m, using the quarry and the bridge). With that came the A class licence. I also did some online achs - won an 8 player race, make 50 online rivals, completed 1 and 20 online races. The other online ach required a bit of tweaking - start an online game, but make it private. Now set all the road rules, except near misses. Make the game open, and as one or two people come in, start a race, and eventually the room will fill. When the room is full, go to the stadium and look for a row of parked cars (or Watt St.) and set the best near miss record (make sure 8 people are in the room at this time). If you get that (or someone beats one of your other records), you'll get the 'In 8 player online Freeburn led 6 of the Today's Best Scores' achievement. Easy stuff.

Puzzle Fighter HD 120 -> 200 of 200 12 of 12 Achievements I last played PF:HD in late August - the week it came out - with ZACHSP8 10k and we went after the achievements. After that week, 3 still eluded me - 5x chain, 7x chain, and complete story without using a continue. Well, thankfully the guides are up on the appropriate websites and I had a gander. Within 10 minutes, I had the 5x and 7x chains, and another 10 minutes saw the complete story mode ach. Nice and easy =D Game Complete!

Crash Of The Titans 333 -> 343 of 1000 22 of 47 Achievements Crash is my LoveFilm rental for the time being. I've basically had to restart my game on Hard, as according to everyone online, that's the best way to do it (so you can get the hard achievement). Well, I like Crash games, except this one. The levels are too long (15-30 minutes), and the game is unbalanced (at least on hard). Tbh, I'd only play a level at a time if I could. And the fact that you have to replay a whole level if you miss one little thing needed for an achieve is also ridiculous. This is akin to 'Lego Star Wars' syndrome. Both games have lead charagcters that don't speak, both games have long ass levels that are too long, both games drag on for years and years with no reprieve, and both games require 100% completions for achievements. These developers can f**k off.

PAC-MAN 170 -> 200 of 200 12 of 12 Achievements Ol' Mr. Pac-dude can now die a happy death. I did that final achievement, without the hint or whiff of a guide - I used all my guile, and 5 lives in the process. To start, eat enough dots so they all come out. Now keep moving so all the ghosts bunch up and follow you. Now go for a pill and eat the bastards. Repeat. Die in between if you have to. Just kill Blinky. Game Complete!

MS.PAC-MAN 0 -> 200 of 200 12 of 12 Achievements The little yellow bitch is just as annoying as her no-bow wearing moronic cousin. And yes I do imply that they inbreed. Actually, I prefer Ms. Pac-man, purely on the fact that the levels change, and you're not scurrying around the same path for 21 levels trying to get achievements. Also, the final achievement I found easier on Ms. Pac-man. Game Complete!

Civil War 0 -> 525 of 1000 27 of 50 Achievements History Channel: Civil War is a US only game (based on the US Civil War) that tries to be an FPS. By all means, it is an FPS, although you seem to be the only bastard on your side. I started to play through this game, though the missions as both the Union and the Confederacy. Yet every mission I played (on easy), my idiotic 'team-mates' seemed to enjoy charging at will, dying in the first 5 seconds. There's only me left, doing the rest of the campaign. I did the Union and most of the Confederacy on easy before turning the game off. There are various rants on forums regarding the level of difficulty of this game, basically requiring you to save every 5 seconds in case some enemy decides to shoot through 500yds of weeds and trees and hit you square on the head. Yes this game is difficult, the AI is over-powered, and they've completely missed the market they were aiming for when this game was released. You can't teach the Civil War to 8 year olds when they don't want to play because they keep dieing. And the amount of death in this game is unsuitable for that age group (2 hours and 550 enemy kills). I may complete this game sometime, along with climbing Mount Everest and destroying the Moon.

NCAA® Football 07 825 -> 1000 of 1000 50 of 50 Achievements I had 3 achievements left on NCAA 07 when I started it up again this week - Get 8 5* recruits in a season, Win the National Championship three times in a row, and go through 60 seasons in dynasty mode. Well I played for 2 hours, going for an achievement I already had, which was stupid. Then I was reading on some forums on how to get these achs. It involves having a good run of the National Championships (i.e. simming, saving and reloading in case of loss), then finding each of the recruits' perfect pitch by reloading. So I did. And after the hat-trick, it took 4 tries to get the recruits. After that, a day and a half of simming while watching TV for the 60 seasons. It's a LONG time to sim. Game Complete!

Guitar Hero II 520 -> 640 of 1000 38 of 50 Achievements Ah it's always welcome when some GS has been earned on GH2! I was able to get four achievements this week - 300k on a song (Monkey Wrench on Hard), quite a few in co-op with Nellas - 400k co-op (also MW, me on Medium lead, Nellas on Easy bass), 100% a song in co-op (Cherry Pie, both on easy), 600k co-op (Free Bird, me on Medium lead, Nellas on Easy bass). All the achs left are almost impossible, apart from the guitar finishes one. I'm working on getting money for that, though I'm running out of tracks I can do, so I might have to start another band for cash.

KUF: Circle of Doom 100 -> 430 of 1000 13 of 32 Achievements I bought KUF from Play-Asia, so now I can join people on my friends list who seem to be always playing it. Well after a dabble with the previous rental, it all seems to be going smoothly now, thanks to Roquey. He's pimped 2 of my characters out, so they easily reach level 120, and we've gone and killed a few of the bosses at each stage. The main time consumption on this will be the story mode for each character, but at level 120 and going through normal difficulty should be easy enough.

DIG DUG 0 -> 200 of 200 12 of 12 Achievements I bought Dig Dug after my last post, as I needed an arcade completion for my '20 XBLA Complete' badge on 360voice. For the most part, it was frustrating - often needing 3 lives to complete a level or two. The final achievement is reminiscent of the Pac-man achievements. It involves digging every bit of the screen in a level. However, what they dont tell you, is that you have to dig the areas that are already pre-dug by the game before you begin - so all the holes the monsters live in, and the initial dig down before you get control, all of these have to be dug too. I didn't realise this until 90 mins of frustration and twice where it didn't unlock. A hard achievement, but I managed it. The trick was to keep 2 enemies on the screen, and if they start to get too close, then attack them until they almost pop, then carry on - it keeps them stationary for the max amount of time, allowing you to get some distance. Game Complete!

Clive Barker's Jericho 225 -> 1000 of 1000 42 of 42 Achievements I last rented Jericho at Christmas. Personally, I thought it was a realitively cool game - nice story line, not too hard. However one thing that did annoy me (and Zero Punctuation) was the level design (brown castle, brown castle, brown ruins, etc) and how I kept back-tracking without realising. However, rican ninja89 had the full 1000GS on it, so I got it from LoveFilm. With the helpful suggestions now available on the achievement forums, 1000GS was easy! On a level of King Kong, I'd say. It took me 2 hours to complete the rest of the story line, then another hour to get the various 'kill' achievements and 'complete without dying' achs. I did enjoy Jericho - it was the right length for an FPS, and a good story. Shame about the level design though. Game Complete!

Marvel Ult. Alliance 250 -> 515 of 1250 31 of 58 Achievements Ok, so I've been putting off this game a while now. Mainly because I didn't really understand the game mechanics, and it seemed better in co-op. But I got off my arse, and did some single player story. By-the-by, it's an alright game. It plays like most others in it's genre, but offers some RPG elements (which may annoy others). I did some of the story, and also bought the DLC pack for those achievements. I'm currently running around with Dr. Doom, Magneto, Cyclops and Sabretooth =D Most of the achs I'll get from the story mode, others I'll need to specifically seek out.

Hour of Victory 240 -> 320 of 1000 16 of 50 Achievements Looking back at my achievement list, I last played this game (when rented) back in July, but made no note of it as I was moving and travelling at the time. This game is heralded as one of the worst of the 360. It's a WW2 FPS (a genre that's beaten like a dead horse until it looks like it's alive), which for the most part, is quite easy, except for two factors - a) Few checkpoints, b) One level where you have to drive a tank through a town without it blowing up, with no checkpoints. When I played this game last, I was stuck on that level. So I got it from LoveFilm, and tried again. After several hours, I did the mission twice - the first time, it didn't count one of my kills for the objectives, so it wouldn't unlock the final door for me (the bastards) so I had to do it again. At that point I got really angry and sent the game back to LoveFilm.

Brain Challenge™ 70 -> 85 of 200 7 of 12 Achievements Not much to say about Brain Challenge, apart from I did the 40% brain usage achievement. When I bought this I started to play it every day. Now it holds almost no entertainment value. How hum-drum.

F4: ROTSS 60 -> 80 of 1000 4 of 19 Achievements I rented this game back in July 07, thought it was crap. Then saw it was on sale for 5GBP at Christmas, so picked it up then. I took it out of its shrink wrapper this week, as it's a game I know I have to complete. F4 is by no means a graphically poor game - they've included all the visuals you'd expect. However, they've let themselves down on two accounts - a) The level design is abominable - I'm into the 3rd or 4th stage and I've been stuck several times; b) This type of game has been done to death - so do it right - controls are meant to be responsive! So I did a level, not too much. I've had some advice from MR WHIPPY 10K on how to get the achieves, so it's a case of grind, anger, grind.

NHL 2K7 700 -> 950 of 1000 16 of 17 Achievements MR WHIPPY 10K and I did the online achievements, and I knocked out another 30 wins in quick play (seeing as the online ones didnt count). This leaves a dilemma - the last 50G achievement is glitched - i.e. you can do it, but it wont unlock - or so say the bods at the gamerscore websites. And they're right - only 4 people have the achievement, and they are known gamesavers and hackers of the system. So now, is this game marked as complete? If 2k Sports ever decide to fix their games (but they're as stubborn as EA and cant get their backsides in gear), then I'll go for the final achievement. I wont play it otherwise. Game Complete...?

Eragon 1000 of 1000 37 of 37 Achievements At last I can consign this one to the completions pile. Eragon has plagued me with annoyance since the first level - seemingly over lengthened for the level of enjoyment. The first time you play, you may think 'this looks cool!', but then realise that what you did in the first 10 minutes is repeated for the next few hours. BORING. Game Complete!

====================

GamerScore:	85191 -> 88841
Zone:	Pro

Completed XBLA:	19 -> 23 / 54
Completed Retail:	40 -> 43 / 193
GS Completion %:	41.80% -> 43.28%

Country Rank:	102 -> 89
World Rank:	701 -> 634
Completion Rank:	1,691 -> 1,435