21st October: GS Update

A busy week in terms of work, so not much gaming. But it was luck that a new shop opened this weekend: the second largest GameStation in Europe. They were having some bumper deals on the opening weekend, so I picked up six 360 games for not much money (some of which I havent played yet). I also bought Eternal Sonata, and imported Beautiful Katamari, which should be here next week.

borandi seemed really excited to play yesterday. Our current gamerscore is 51,949 . That is a profit of 10 points over last time! He rocked out to Eternal Sonata finishing 1 achievement, Puzzle Quest, Streets of Rage 2, and then he started getting all these friend requests because of high awesomeness levels.

And the games:

Battlefield 2: MC	210 -> 250 of 1000 12 of 46 Achievements
Open Season	0 -> 40 of 1000 2 of 46 Achievements
CM 2007	0 -> 365 of 1000 16 of 42 Achievements
Streets of Rage 2	175 of 200 11 of 12 Achievements
Puzzle Quest	0 - > 60 of 200 5 of 12 Achievements
Eternal Sonata	0 -> 10 of 1000 1 of 22 Achievements
DDR Universe	0 -> 190 of 1000 6 of 32 Achievements
Speedball 2	0 -> 40 of 200 3 of 12 Achievements
Halo 3	170 of 1000 14 of 49 Achievements
Bankshot Billiards 2	175 -> 200 of 200 12 of 12 Achievements
Ridge Racer 6	0 -> 5 of 1000 1 of 36 Achievements
NFS Most Wanted	0 -> 10 of 1000 1 of 15 Achievements
Call of Duty 2	230 of 1000 4 of 13 Achievements
Sonic The Hedgehog 2	125 -> 145 of 200 9 of 12 Achievements

I've done a little boosting on BF2:MC, getting some more of those online achievements. In particular, I got the Navy '5 water vehicle kills' and '20 C4 kills' while helping a friend from 10k get some other achievements.

Open Season was one of the cheap games I picked up this week. Looks fairly easy, though I didnt play it much - too many games, not enough time!!!!!

CM (Championship Manager) 2007 isnt a bad game. I'm always reluctant with Football Management sims as they usually are overcomplicated and take too long (or have an elaborate load/save system). So I started a season with Man Utd., and in a few hours I was winning lots (thanks to reloading after a loss) and got quite a few achievements fairly easily. Not many people have this game, and I'm already in the top 300 in the world for GS.

I started a new game on SoR2 on Hardcore, going after that 800k achievement. Basically it'll be like going after the Golden Axe one - beat an enemy without losing health, then save. If hit, reload. I'm halfway through stage two, with ~125k score.

Played a bit more of Puzzle Quest. It's annoying that it's different from the DS version - you cant infinitely raise your stats given enough money, and my favourite weapon has been dulled a little. However, I'm hitting for 11 for every 3 skull combo, and winning easy.

Eternal Sonata's graphics are awesome - they look better than Blue Dragon/Two Worlds/Gears of War. They look Cel Shaded, but its done in such a good way. I played the game for a little over an hour, and I cant help but feel that these new RPGs just aren't as varied as the Final Fantasies of yore. There's little to do with regards to side quests. What might be annoying with Eternal Sonata is that to get 1000GS, you have to play through it twice.

I imported DDR Universe - I had a feeling it might drop off the side of the earth soon. It's an easy game so far - if you start to fail you never lose, and can keep going. It's the only DDR game I've seen with a story mode (which is a bonus), which improves the game immensely over other DDR games/clones. Overall, it looks like an easy 750GS, but some of the challenges look immensely hard.

Speedball 2 came into XBLA this week. It's a game I've been waiting for a while, and one I used to play on the Commodore 64 and Megadrive. The XBLA port is a very good one - improved graphics with retro style as an option, and a much easier to navigate front end. Kudos!

Nellas and I played some social matches online. We came 1st/2nd on a king of the hill game, though a few online players were bunny hopping everywhere. Cheating b*stards!

I finally completed Bankshot Billiards 2. I turned it on, played a large number of games, then thought I had 20 left, so turned it off. Next day, I log in, play 2 games and that final achievement unlocked. =D Game Complete!

I opened Ridge Racer and Need For Speed: MW to get the 'Launch King' badge over at 360voice. I've had the games in my collection for ages, just never opened them. I'll take a better look at them at a later date.

I also went back to CoD2 - I still need to complete this game on Veteran (I've done it on easy on PC already), and it's still quite hard. Grind, grind, grind!

After watching a video online to get the Chemical Plant 1 quick time, I had a bash at it. Took around 15 minutes to get the correct path just right, and another 20GS.

GS: 51,629 -> 52,354

Completed XBLA:	12 / 34
Completed Retail:	24 / 125
GS Completion %:	37.84%
GS % (Non-Demo):	40.25%

Country Rank:	239
World Rank:	1,529

14th October: GS Update

This week has been a busy week! Where do I begin....

On Thursday, I organised and ran a Halo 3 on XBL night for the Hull University Computer Society (HUCS, for which I am Vice-President). We had 6 to 7 people on for most of the time, mainly playing some Big Team Battle. Eventually people logged off until we hit 4 players, then we started doing story mode on Legendary, till around the third stage.

On Saturday, I was at a HUCS LAN for around 10 hours. Lots of PC games (Quake Wars, UT3 Demo) with some Console play on the side (a 2 vs 2 Halo 3 Tournament - my team went out in the semi-final 25-24, some Wii Tennis and some Guitar Hero). Good fun had by all!

So, for my 360voice:

Pick it, pack it fire it up, come along, lets get borandi's gaming on! Gamer score is 51,609. That is a gain of 5 points over last time! He rocked out to Amped 3 finishing 5 achievements, Battlefield 2: MC, Pro Evolution Soccer 6, Blue Dragon gaining 1 achievement, and then borandi had to stop for a bathroom break or something... Humans really are bags of mostly water. Also, don't tell borandi I told you this, but we have now gamed 50 days in a row... he doesn't like to share that with others. If I understand the rules, I think we are getting a streak badge...

w00t 50 days ;)

Puzzle Quest	0 -> 40 of 200 4 of 12 Achievements
Blue Dragon	45 -> 50 of 1000 6 of 43 Achievements
Pro Evolution Soccer 6	840 -> 880 of 1000 20 of 23 Achievements
Halo 3	125 -> 170 of 1000 14 of 49 Achievements
Bankshot Billiards 2	120 -> 175 of 200 11 of 12 Achievements
Sonic The Hedgehog 2	45 -> 125 of 200 8 of 12 Achievements
Yaris	0 -> 5 of 200 1 of 12 Achievements

I picked up Puzzle Quest from XBLA for 1200 points. I like the 360 graphics, but gaming on the DS was easier (plus there was a bug to get easy exp). So far I'm level 23, about 10% into story mode - I spent a while grinding exp on an easy quest. The rest of the achievements bar one should be easy to get, the other one is a game on LIVE, which I'll probably do when I'm level 50.

I started a new game on Blue Dragon, this time going through with my guide to get all the items and achievements. I got the first button mashing one that I missed previously, and I've got to the Devee village this time so far. Instead of focusing on Generalist and Guardian classes, I'm focusing more on the Barrier class, as well as the Generalist, so I can use that field barrier to easily kill enemies.

PES 6 is still a slow grind - I won the 20 games or so left of Serie A to get that achievement, now I'm in the Dutch league as PSV Eindhoven, about 10 games in. So that makes around 140 games left until 1000GS.

Like I said previously, I've been playing some Halo 3 online with friends and as part of HUCS. I got the first 3 skulls, the triple kill achievement, and I'm also now a sergeant rank.

Bankshot Billiards is a slow game now as well - the only achievement left is the 'play 200 games', which is glitched such that you have to win 200 games to get it. I'm about 140/150 games into it, so several hours with the TV on should get that, and the full 200GS.

I've had Sonic 2 a while, but never seriously played it yet. This time, I went after the emeralds and the super sonic achievements - they're very easy with that save function! The only achievements left are to complete the game, complete the game fast, win 10 games online and Chemical Plant zone 1 in 45 seconds (which imo is quite hard).

Yaris is the free game on XBLA this week. It's a bit naff, and it looks like most achievements can be had online. I'll play more later.

GS: 51,359 -> 51,629

Completed XBLA:	11 / 33
Completed Retail:	24 / 113
GS Completion %:	40.89%
GS % (Non-Demo):	43.76%

Country Rank:	246/215083
World Rank:	1564/1563274

7th October: GS Update

I had to set aside my plans for world domination yesterday when borandi decided to game. Our score is 51,359 and always improving! That is a gain of 115 points over last time! He opened up Joust adding 1 achievement, Frogger gaining 1 achievement, SEGA Rally™ picking up 3 achievements, Bankshot Billiards 2 acquiring 2 achievements, Carcassonne finishing 1 achievement, and... hmmm... maybe that was all... it felt like we played more games.

I also want to mention that borandi's gamer reputation decreased somehow. I don't know who he ticked off, but that isn't good. I hope it was just a misunderstanding!

Lol yes I got my first 'negative feedback' today. I've been playing some Sega Rally online, and I'll explain a bit below:

Carcassonne	125 -> 150 of 200 10 of 12 Achievements
Bankshot Billiards 2	80 -> 120 of 200 8 of 12 Achievements
SEGA Rally™	0 -> 75 of 1000 6 of 44 Achievements
Frogger	15 -> 140 of 200 9 of 12 Achievements
Joust	0 -> 40 of 200 4 of 12 Achievements
Ratatouille	0 -> 145 of 1000 12 of 50 Achievements
Halo 3	115 -> 125 of 1000 10 of 49 Achievements
Juiced 2: HIN	0 -> 55 of 1000 8 of 60 Achievements
Conan	0 -> 115 of 1000 10 of 49 Achievements
Aegis Wing	75 -> 85 of 200 7 of 12 Achievements
The Darkness	295 -> 305 of 1000 24 of 50 Achievements
Hardwood Spades	0 -> 10 of 200 1 of 12 Achievements

Carcassonne, in reality, should be an easy game to get 200GS in - all you need is three people online. But not many people have the game! I managed to get the 5000 points achievement worth 25GS - all I have left is the 'win player match by 50points' and 'build a 9+ city in a 3+ player match'.

I've been grinding some on Bankshot Billiards - I was able to do all the golf tables under par. On some of the tables, it was necessary to foul in order to get through the tables with the least number of shots. I also did the 'Speed Freak' achievement - this is one of the hardest to do, requiring 12 tables to be finished in 12 minutes overall. Basically, if there is a lot of balls, put your first three shots at full power, then the rest with 3/4 backspin to stop the ball quickly. Now I have to do the '5 games of 8-ball without losing a turn', '50 games without losing a turn', and all the ones leading upto '200 wins' - I got the 25 wins in the last game, so only 175 to go :p

Sega Rally is a weird game - so I'm glad I only rented it. It's weird - there is no 'out of track' area, you just bounce off. It's like a true arcade version of DiRT - the faster you go, the better you fare. Cornering and breaking is necessary but not critical. I'm pretty sure I got my negative feedback for coming up on the inside of someone, not breaking in time - so he went into the wall, I bounced off of him, but as I had the higher speed I was pushed away faster and gained the position on the track. It's a weird game in that respect, and I'd suggest DiRT over it tbh.

I've also grinded some on Frogger - going after the speed achievements, the saving achievements and the level achievements. All that's left is the level 4, level 5, and the co-op achievement. Now I'm crap at Frogger, so to get the 30k co-op would be hard, given that I can't even get 15k.

I signed up a while back to receive 2 free XBLA games from Microsoft, and I got the codes through - One for Robotron (which I already have) and one for Joust (which I didn't have). Joust is a classic retro game - easy to start, but very hard very quick. Only 58 people have the full 200GS on this, so I dont think I'll be getting it any time soon. But I got to level 5 on my first attempt, and tried very hard to get the level 1 survival achievement. By luck I got the Pterodactyl achievement too.

I rented Ratatouille - it's a fun game, but someone got the coding wrong. If you die, you have to start at the beginning of a level, even if you were right at the end of it. Every level, there are 100 tokens to collect, and if you miss one before the story continues, you forfit that achievement. The camera is appalling too. Apart from that, it's your standard platform fare, regardless that it's a game of a film. Just some grinding at this game would result in 1000GS - the minigames are easy, just mild bits of skill here and there, as well as the collecting.

My journey on Halo 3 has been an eventful one. I'm going to quote what I put on a forum with regards matchmaking this week:

What a load of bollocks. Apologies for the colourful language, but the matchmaking system on Halo 3 is a F*&^$%G joke. Either that, or people intentionally reduce their rank to play the inexperienced.

For example: I'm on one particular map, rank 7, against four rank tens - and I do rather well. I then play the same map against rank 3/4, and get raped - full of bunny hopping fuckheads that always know where you are, one hit kill, then get you soon after you next spawn.

That was on free-for-all ranked - team ranked is even worse. It once put together a group of four rank 8s against four rank 3s. The 8s won by a nearly perfect margin.

What is this joke of matchmaking, seriously? I'm now being pared up in games where everyone else has a red ping - so when I goto punch, it doesnt register. FFS, there are 200k people online, and you're telling me there isnt a decent ping match around my rank in the UK??

Apart from that, Halo 3 is all well and good. Tune in next time for another episode of borandi's rants.

PS Wtf is the 'Steaktacular' Badge???

I started some Free-for-all matches which resulted in this rant - got a multikill and a melee achievement. This thursday I'm taking part in a Halo 3 game night, so hopefully I might get some achievements then!

I also rented out Juiced 2. It's a good driving game, but there are some flaws. The achievements are unoriginal - get to elite offline, get to elite online, get all goals offline, get all goals online. Online mode is a joke, and the creators thought that a lot more people would be playing it - each league has it's own lobby (which takes 20 seconds to log in or out), of which you're lucky if anyone is there. But offline it's straightforward - easy money by getting to league 6, going in the betting race, waiting until one racer has odds of 50:1, and you can get them to win. It's a long game for achievements.

Conan was also rented - it's a budget hack and slash, with the odd sight of boobies. Hack, Slash. Every-so-often, you will have to use certain moves to get achievements, but it's hack, hack, slash, slash. Just slightly better graphics than the PS2, but not pushing the 360 any.

I got my four controllers together to play Aegis-Wing, and make the four ship formation achievement. 60 seconds, easy to do. Couldn't control the combined ship though!

I rented the Darkness - not a lot of people online, and subject to very, very bad lag. Best if you host the game personally. I got a couple of basic achievements, didn't play the single game any though.

I played Hardwood Spades - it's still an odd game!

GS: 50,699 -> 51,359

Completed XBLA:	11 / 32
Completed Retail:	24 / 113
GS Completion %:	40.77%
GS % (Non-Demo):	43.63%

Country Rank:	235/213967
World Rank:	1527/1553389