Worms DLC

Thanks to the people over at X360F, we have Worms related news!

They say good things come to those who wait, and that may be more true for Worms fans than most. It took a long time and a massive heap of internet rage before Worms finally made it onto Xbox Live Arcade, but it was worth the wait for purists. Said purists may now rejoice a second time, as the new downloadable content (DLC to the kids) will be available tomorrow on Xbox Live. There will be 3 new landscapes available. The Space Landscape (pictured above) is free, while the Hell and Jungle Landscapes will set you back 150 points each. Perhaps the most exciting news, 22 new voice banks will be available for free. Finally, our Angry Scottish, Redneck (presents!), and Irish worms can rise again.

Expect the new content to hit the ground running wriggling tomorrow.

Two Worlds: Skills

IGN have posted a juicy number about the skills in Two Worlds. Yes, they seem like an Oblivion/WoW mesh and not balanced, but I'm sure by the time the 360 gets its goods that we'll be hearing a lot more... and then some.

Alchemy - Even if you don't have any points in this skill, you can still throw ingredients into a pot and create potions and items. However, those who do increase their Alchemy skill will find their creations becoming more effective.

Burn - A skill that's especially handy when exploring underground, Burn allows you to push a lit torch into an opponent's face - both blinding them and dealing damage. Putting points in this skill makes it more likely your foe will be left defenseless and increases the damage dealt.

*Critical Hit - With this skill, every melee attack will have a chance of dealing a hefty amount of damage. When you put skill points into Critical Hit, your chance of dealing one of these mighty blows increases, as does the amount of damage you'll deal.

*Setting Traps - The more damage or effects a trap deals, the more complicated it is. A higher skill rank in Setting Traps allows you to use more deadly devices.

Thanks IGN!

29th May: GS Update

Some more ICC Cricket. Finally getting the hang of the game with bowling and batting. Was able to get the 500 runs in a test, 200 runs with a batsman and 200 runs in a one-day international achievements, as well as a hat-trick. The game could be better if the cheats that you unlock during the game could be used for achievements. The last few achievements left are long ones - win a game in every stadia, win a test and ODI with every team, win the world cup with 8 teams. I might rent it again to get these, but they'll take a while (about 16hrs minimum according to online forums).

Oh man, I can't stand this game (c.f. my last update). I managed one of the challenge achievements, and bought a card online. I'll be glad to send this game back.


Since the update, I put the gangs on psychotic, and for some reason I have to now beat all the 21 bosses again. It's beneficial - I'm now finding new ability orbs. I've 464/500 without a guide. Also managed to impound a few more cars, though was having trouble with the Los Muertos Modified Van - can't find it anywhere.

Saw someone on my friends list playing Test Drive Unlimited, so I got my copy out of the shrink wrap. It's a really good game! So far it's straight forward - driving around, doing races or missions. If you've Xbox Live, then people who are playing around the world also appear on the map and you can race them. I got some of the multiplayer achievements and a distance achievement. I'll most likely enjoy this game for a while, until it starts to get harder!

GS: 29560 -> 29985

ICC Cricket 2007: 155 -> 480
UEFA CL 2007: 0 -> 10
Test Drive Unlimited: 0 -> 70

Completed XBLA:	7 / 19
Completed Retail:	17 / 56
GS Completion %:	44.79%
GS % (Non-Demo):	49.52%

Country Rank:	770/135261
World Rank:	4315/1136176

27th May: GS Update (2)

I've now done Bomberman: Act Zero single player =D The trick is to stay alive until level 20, where I got about 15 lives in that level alone. Then keep plugging away, and every 15-20 or so levels you can get another 15 lives. Most of the levels I went through, I had block pass, bomb pass, blast through wall bombs, infinite bombs, line bombs. Get an enemy in a corner by doing a line bomb up and across from the middle of the level, and it gets them every time. I was able to do the 100 levels in 100 minutes, thus got those achievements as well. What annoyed me however, was that after 100 floors, I still did not have the second bomb placement achievement - 10000 bombs set. Note, that one achievement to this game is 1,000,000 bombs placed, and 1,000,000 blocks destroyed. There's a reason why no-one has these achievements =P.

I started Lego Star Wars II this week. Its a fun game, dont get me wrong. But it does get boring after the first two stages. Its just the same thing over and over - run through the level trying to pick up studs (cash) and kill everything you come across. Achievements for this game involve completing each chapter, doing each level without dying, getting all the special pickups and buying everything from the shop. According to online forums, this is about 20 hours work if you're good, but I'm bored after an hour. Bleh.

I rented out Superman Returns this week. I'd played the demo, and thought it was alright for a Superman game. It's what you'd expect - fly around really fast beating the snot out of everything. In the full game, this is fun for about two hours. Then you realise that all you're doing is boring missions until you've enough experience to go up a level, then something story related happens. Each mini mission can take 5 minutes at most, and you have about 7-15 to do to get up a level. Boooorrrriing!!! Also some of the acheivements are annoying - complete all minigames, save 100 kittens, fly for 10,000 miles. According to online forums, a decent play through the main story line nets you 2000 miles, and the only way to get the rest was to use an elastic band on the controller overnight. Bleh!

Pirates of the Caribbean: At Worlds End is another rental. I played the demo, thought it was OK. Saw that Blockbuster had this in stock, so picked up a copy. It's a good, linear game. Easy enough to do the stages, but the achievements require some proper searching around the levels or planning in order to get. Thankfully there are now guides popping up over achievement forums =D I didnt have enough time to play this thoroughly though, so I'll rent it out again at some point.

NBA Street Homecourt - rental. I'd seen a few people from my friends list who were in the US play this, so I thought I'd pick it up. Quite honestly, it's the best NBA game on the market for gameplay. The weird querks, like stylish dunks and so forth, make this game fun. Being able to go up for a dunk after launching off someones back and ending up with a triple dunk after perfectly holding down the button for a given time gives a sense of achievement =D Speaking of achievements, 10 hours netted me the lot. Go through career mode with one player, then half way through with another. In total, about 120 games of basketball. Length of each game depends on your squad and skills and what sort of game it is (dunks only to 7, any shot to 11, gamebreaker to 3, first team to lead by 5 points, etc.). Then find a buddy for the win 10 online in a row. NBA Street Homecourt is a great game if you love basketball. And acheivements.

Helped a friend so a lot of achievements co-op style on Crackdown, and let him see what the extra DLC was like. Got the repo 100 cars in the process. Also found a few orbs, so now I have 450 agility without using a guide =D Also working through the time trial psychotic achievements - done Los Muertos and Volk, now Shai-gen left. The Volk boss took me 15 minutes, so I'm dreading the Shai-gen boss. Co-op anyone?





Initialised these games after playing around with http://my360stats.com - nothing I tried to do worked :S Though I did the online achievements for 3D Ultra Minigolf to get 200/200 on it.

Another rental - Brian Lara's ICC 2007. What a bitch of a game. It's a gret cricket game as cricket games go, but the achievements are wild. 6 4's in an over, 6 6's in an over, 200 runs with one person, 200 runs in a one day international etc. You can't do them in two player. The game gives you cheats to help you play the game, but you cant get achievements with them enabled. I was getting frustrated at the fact that according to all the ingame monitors, I'd timed the stroke right, I was the right distance away, I'd stuck the ball into the emptiest part of the field I could find, and yet it'd just go high and I'll get caught out. Gah.

EA, you are stupid pieces of shite. UEFA Champions League (rental) is a shit game. No tutorial mode to let you get used to the game, and this combined with the fact that the controls to this game are 75% different to every other single football game on the market leaves a lot to be desired. It's a load of shit, and EA needs a big kick up the arse. Stop releasing games early. Stop releasing games with bugs and glitches. Listen to your fanbase, get your head out of your arse. You ARE capable of releasing bug free games (The Sims), and some of them good (Madden). So why do you insist on releasing this horseshit?

/rant over.

So a nice enough week in all.

GS: 26660 -> 29560

ICC Cricket 2007: 0 -> 155
NBA STREET Homecourt: 0 -> 1000
At World’s End: 0 -> 125
Superman Returns: 0 -> 360
LEGO Star Wars II: 0 -> 70
BOMBERMAN Act:Zero: 15 -> 250
Football Manager 2006: 85 -> 320
Full Auto: 235 -> 335
American Wasteland: 0 -> 570
Crackdown: 740 -> 750

Completed XBLA:	7 / 19
Completed Retail:	17 / 55
GS Completion %:	44.82%
GS % (Non-Demo):	49.64%

Country Rank:	798/135815
World Rank:	4450/1137473

27th May: GS Update (1)

Well it's definately time for a GS update. Thankfully I've finished all my exams for this academic year, thus I can devote some time to 360 gaming =D In the past week, I've rented a few games and got pissed off at a few others.

American Wasteland (of the Tony Hawk fame) is my first attempt at playing a skateboarding game in quite a while. I've completed a few during the genre, so I looked forward to playing this. Sure enough, it's still classic Hawk. Lots of grinding, manual-ing and grabbing galore. There are two main modes - Story and Classic. Classic involves 6 retro skate parks, with 10 goals each (score, collect secret tape, collect letters, etc.). Story takes you through the new storyline - help build a new skatepark after coming to LA from HickVille. Sometimes the story line isnt clear, but its good Hawk and worth playing if you like the series. The achievements seem alright too - Every 10 goals in classic, playing each level online, getting a score above 1000 on each map in free skate, story mode, everything 100%. I've still a few maps to get and story mode to do, but 100% seems a bit of a bitch - you have to do every special gap and trick in the game. Blegh. But I'll enjoy this the longer I play it hopefully!

Full Auto again - I tried for some online acheives, but the people online were being assholes, purposely driving behind to get the kills. On one race, it was Class C restricted, but this guy got 70 seconds ahead in one lap. WTF??? Well I also did a section on single player, so still a lot to go, but it's fun.

Played the demo of Centipede and Millipede. It's classic retro. I didnt like it then, I'm still not keen on it now. If this game was 200MS points, then maybe.


Saw a few people on my list had Heavy Weapon, so I played the demo. It's quite fun - your standard 2D sidescrolling shoot and kill sort of game. Plenty of levels to choose from. This would be better if they'd made points = money to buy upgrades, rather than 1 upgrade per level. I'd get this from XBLA if I had some spare MS points, but I'm saving up for Undertow.

Small Arms is a 2D style fighting game along the same lines as Super Smash Brothers, but with guns. To be completely honest, even from the demo, they overcomplicated the controls. I'm not going to be getting this with my points.

I booted up FM2006 to see what else I could do. During playing, I got a message from someone random to try and get some online achievements. Did a few of those, and he told me that he got his ~500GS from the game was to basically take control of as many teams possible in a one division game, then leave it on overnight. I did so, but forgot to disable the option for the xbox auto shutting down after 6hrs. But I got a fair chunk of achievements during that time =D Need to do it a bit more for a few more GS.

Still on the quest for Catan achievements. I've done another 5/6 games getting the largest army card, so only a few more for that. Then it's a case of about 100 wins online (or 1000 points worth). Given that a full game can last 40 mins, that achievement is a long time away!

I tried demos of the new XBLA games Xevious and Rush'n Attack. Wasn't impressed, even for retro games. I've never heard of these games before, and they didnt want me to buy them. Come on MS, where's Undertow?

Tried some more single player CoD3. The controls are still giving me grief.



Another batch of Pro Evo. I'm now about 26 games into my Premiership Season - another 12 or so to go until I finish that achievement.

Might and Magic Video

Just found this over at Xbox360Fanboy:

Two Worlds Achievement List Released

Thanks to IGN, we have Two Worlds Achievements! I'm really think I'm going to like this game. The series of achievements gives no hint to what's ingame, and the large no. of achievement points for completing the game will hopefully drive a lot of people to get to the endgame sequence.

To Quote IGN:

Two Worlds is set to arrive on Xbox 360 July 18. In two months. Xbox gamers will have the freedom to wander a wide-open world, exterminating bears and bunny rabbits -- shirtless. Two months is certainly a long wait. To help alleviate the pains of waiting, we'll be bringing you new details on Two Worlds every Tuesday.

Over the next two months, we'll cover every vital aspect of Two Worlds. You'll learn about the magic system, mounted combat, how reputation works, and much, much more. Be sure to check IGN on Tuesdays for new info on Two Worlds.

We kick off our weekly Two Worlds coverage with a very important reveal. When a game is announced for 360, one of the first questions that comes to mind is: "What are the Achievements?" For Two Worlds, the question no longer needs to be asked. Here are all 41 Achievements, which you can begin earning in mid-July.

Achievement	Points
Learn 5 skills	5
Learn 10 skills	10
Learn 20 skills	20
Learn all skills	50
Reached Skill Level 10	20
Reached Character Level 5	5
Reached Character Level 10	10
Reached Character Level 20	10
Reached Character Level 35	20
Reached Character Level 50	50
Discovered 10 Locations	10
Discovered 20 Locations	10
Discovered 50 locations	20
Visited All Black towers	5
Visited All Graveyards	10
Visited 10 Undergrounds	10
Visited 20 Undergrounds	20
Visited All Undergrounds	20
Visited All Locations	50
Rode a Horse	5
Made Successful Teleportation	5
Created a Potion	5
Created a Permanent Potion	20
Created a Bomb	10
Created a Weapon Enhancer	15
Created Class 2 Item	5
Created Class 10 Item	15
Opened Hard Difficulty Lock	10
Killed a Dragon	10
Killed a Stone Golem	10
Used a Boosted Spell	5
Cast Chamber 5 Spell	10
Summoned a Creature	5
Found the Relic Frame	20
Found the Water Element	20
Found the Air Element	20
Found the Fire Element	20
Found the Earth Element	20
Delivered the Relic to Qudinar	20
Destroyed the Great Pentagram	25
Defeated the Grand Enemy	370

Assassin's Creed Video

Looks great =D Though it's not high on my list compared to Two Worlds and Blue Dragon, so I'll probably play the demo before shelling out some notes.

Note: Video from CTRL+ALT+DEL News Item.

Might and Magic coming to 360

From MyGamerCard.net:

• Ubisoft has revealed at their UbiDays event in Paris that Dark Messiah of Might & Magic will be receiving a port on the Xbox 360, labeled Dark Messiah of Might & Magic Elements. It will feature additional content, but other than that, it’s the same game released on the PC last year.

• For those who don’t know, Dark Messiah of Might & Magic is a first-person action fantasy game from Arkane Studios, running on Valve’s Source engine. It was met with average reviews after having been hyped pre-release, but was overall regarded as a solid action FPS for being set in a fantasy world, in which things aren’t as clear-cut as “here’s a gun, go shoot people hiding behind cover”. It’s definitely worth looking forward to [via Eurogamer].

I have M&M for the PC, but never played into it that far. Too tempted to put sv_cheats 1 and noclip on!

With regards GS updates, I have an exam friday, thus I've been postponing an update. Hopefully one will appear friday afternoon!

20th May: GS Update

Played some more VT3 - got to world rank 200. It still seems ok - the tournaments are getting harder though.


Some BF2:MC to start with. Played some single player and online multiplayer - didnt get far in single player, though enjoyed multiplayer. The server I was playing on just kept playing the same map over and over :S

Still trying to get some of the NHL 2K7 achievements. It's easy enough to play on Pro difficulty and win if you set the sliders the correct way, but for some reason, the 5 Pro shutouts in a row achievement wasn't unlocking. Got the Pro Season win/best record achievement though.

Also played some Pro evo. Still going through my England league, now 15 games in. Tried to also get my GK to no.1 on the scoring list. At the minute he's 3rd, behind by two strikers =D

I took FM06 out of the shrink wrap today, hoping it would be a good FM game. Now I'm the sort of person who enjoys his manager games, as long as they aren't complicated, and you can do a season in about an hour. Unfortunately, the controls on FM06 are appalling, they try and fit too much text on the screen, and it'll take a good solid 24hrs to do a season. Bleh. I did the easy achievements - win a game, keep a clean sheet, get a hat-trick. Also got messaged to play some games online, so I got the 5 games, win cup and win league achievements there too. This game has too many loading screens, and is not customisable enough.

Put in Tetris:Evolution for some good old single player. Its just like I remember - hours on end, just making some lines disappear. They've put in some new modes, which make the game better =D Though it is pretty easy on standard mode to go up levels, thus making it harder, quicker. I was able to get some of the achievements - a couple of golds and some bronzes - in a couple of hours.

Day results - Opened up a new game, and played some co-op.

My GS changed thusly: 26285 -> 26660

Tetris Evolution: 30 -> 185
Virtua Tennis: 60 -> 70
NHL 2K7: 235 -> 360
Football Manager 2006: 0 -> 85

Completed XBLA:	6 / 19
Completed Retail:	16 / 48
GS Completion %:	45.85%
GS % (Non-Demo):	50.73%

Country Rank:	1043/137696
World Rank:	5932/1141135

19th May: GS Update

Had a friend come over today, and we ended up playing some games on the *box. We set him up a new account as he'd never played the 360 before: NickHarkonnen.

Started with a hard one! Two player co-op was fun though, with one controlling the bot, and the other with the guns. Still no more achievements for me though!


TMNT is a great multiplayer game. Did a level to bring back the retro goodness =D I've completed all 200 GS on this already.


Put in Crackdown for some H3Beta, and BF2:MC, both for multiplayer. But With Nick not having Live Gold, we couldn't play either :(. But I got BF2:MC out of the shrink wrap, and I'll come back to it soon. I've played BF2 on the PC as part of a clan for a while, and pwn at BF2142 (300 hours gameplay in 3 months), so I should enjoy that =D

MUA is a great game for multiplayer, even if the small amounts of problem solving do get annoying. Started to get the multiplayer achievements as well as go through the story. Nick got the 3 arcade wins in a row achievement, but I haven't yet. Grr =P

Also got out Tetris: Evolution from the shrinkwrap. Its pretty much vintage tetris, just longer to load and more modes. Looking at the achievements, they seem pretty difficult! Nick and I only got one each - the one with getting at least one line on level 15.

Couldn't play CoD3 online, so just some basic one on one war. Thought about getting the revive achievement, till I realised that it had to be online. Almost had it the other day, until an idiot walked in front of my shotgun.

Some Full Auto was fun. Even with 2 players, we had a field with 6 CPU cars. Getting the shotguns out and ripping some wing mirrors from some cars is always top quality entertainment!

I had always read that Earth DefenseForce 2017 was a retro game that not many people liked. I <3. onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"


Virtua Tennis 3 is the other rental I got with Cars. Now, I'm a big fan of Virtua Tennis from the Dreamcast, but after playing the demo on XBL Marketplace, and losing horribly, I wasn't going to get it. So when I have the chance of free rentals, why not? Nick and I played a few games, and it was fun! I'm currently working my way through the Single Player mode, and its going very well (mind you, I'm on the easy stages =P). I'm going to have to rent this again, or buy it if it comes down in price. Got some GS today though.

Day results - Opened up a few new games, and played some co-op.

My GS changed thusly: 26145 -> 26285

MUA: 80 -> 120
Tetris Evolution: 0 -> 30
Virtua Tennis: 0 -> 60
Full Auto: 225 -> 235

Completed XBLA:	6 / 19
Completed Retail:	16 / 47
GS Completion %:	45.99%
GS % (Non-Demo):	50.99%

Country Rank:	1080/137712
World Rank:	6154/1139717

18th May: GS Update

Well apart from the Halo 3 Beta, I've been playing some regular games.

Played the Double Dragon demo. Its almost like what I remember from when I played on the Atari, except better graphics, and also the characters don't grapple as often with the enemies. Makes it a lot harder imo. I dont think I'll be buying this off XBLA soon though.

Loaded up 3D Ultra Minigolf to play some online for those achievements. No-one was on!


Robotron is still too hard!



Catan again. Got the one for finishing 10 times with the longest road. By playing on easy against AI, this one was easy as the AI will commonly swap 2 resources for one. I'll get the one for largest army 10 times soon.

Boom Boom Rocket. Still after getting all the firework types. Need about another 4, then I'll probably work on getting those A ranks.


Just some general messing on Crackdown. Did Los Muertos time trial on psychotic. Tried Volk, got a bit difficult =P Also captured some regular vehicles. And H3Beta of course.

Played some online games - got the top player in a map achievement, the 20 ammo achievement, and some single player ones. I was having fun, until some bastard kept running around in a tank! Well averaged 30 points each game, so 40000 only requires 1333 games -_-.

Pulled out BM:Z. Yes, it is a very crap game. No-one online, and only one single player mode. WTF? Took me 5/6 short games to get 1000 bombs, one of the easiest achievements to get, as well as the stage 10 achievement (Total GS: 15). This is bad play from Hudson/Konami. This is an XBLA game only, not worth the $50/25GBP it is currently retailing for. *spit*

Pro Evo was fun. Did the three easiest acheivements for 120 GS, then carried on with the English league I'm doing. Now I've got the hang of the controls, I was winning some games 14-0 in 5 minutes (on easy). As I'm not into football games for the challenge, the rest of the GS should be straight forward, and a bit time consuming.

I died within 5 seconds of starting my ultra-violent single player game, so tried some multiplayer. No-one online, so tried to get the 50 kills achievement locally. After 50 kills and no achievement, I looked online and realised that it does have to be XBL play. D'oh!

Dynasty Warriors 5: Empires wasnt a game I was thinking would be fun. But it was. Before my Xbox went to the dry cleaners, I was 860 odd GS in, with only 10% left of the game to play. In all honesty, it's the better version of Ninety Nine Nights. Well I played this for a couple of hours, to get the full 1000GS. Another game complete =D

Cars is officially my first game rental. I am now the joyous boyfriend to a wonderful girl who works at Blockbusters... which equals free games rentals for me. Or well, each game I rent I can only rent 2 days out of every seven. I picked up Cars as I heard it was an easy GS, and I've never seen a decent price on it. And sure enough, in less than 6 hours I had all 1000GS. I actually think Cars is a great racing game. Some of the big names could learn from this. Yes the story is short, and the achievements could be a lot harder, but for a simple few hours gameplay, I really liked Cars. Thumbs up. Now to drop it off back at Blockbuster!

Day results - 2 retail games complete, and 4 new games tested.

My GS changed thusly: 24835 -> 26145

Catan: 90 -> 110
Call of Duty 3: 105 -> 150
Bomberman: Act Zero: 0 -> 15
Pro Evolution Soccer: 0 -> 120
Dynasty Warriors 5 Empires: 890 -> 1000
Cars: 0 -> 1000

Completed XBLA:	6 / 19
Completed Retail:	16 / 43
GS Completion %:	49.00%
GS % (Non-Demo):	54.77%

Country Rank:	1089/137718
World Rank:	6211/1138611