9th June: GS Update

A new look blog, with some frustrating/fun gaming this week =D

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.

Wits & Wagers 165 of 200 10 of 12 Achievements 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'.

Rock Band 50 -> 245 of 1000 13 of 50 Achievements 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

NFS Most Wanted 10 -> 265 of 1000 11 of 15 Achievements 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.

Boogie Bunnies 30 -> 55 of 200 6 of 12 Achievements 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.

Spider-Man 3 50 -> 110 of 1000 7 of 43 Achievements 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.

GTA IV 550 -> 580 of 1000 36 of 50 Achievements 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.

Speedball 2 100 -> 130 of 200 9 of 12 Achievements 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.

Party Animals 720 -> 1000 of 1000 50 of 50 Achievements 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!

BOMBERMAN Act:Zero 350 -> 425 of 1000 28 of 50 Achievements 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.

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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

23rd September: GS Update

I didn't think I would see him yesterday, but borandi was back and ready for action. Total gamer score is 48,689 points. That is an increase of 215 points over last time! He rocked out to Blazing Angels, Marvel Ult. Alliance finishing an amazing 7 achievements, Guitar Hero II, EarthDefenseForce 2017, Carcassonne, Burnout Revenge winning an amazing 6 achievements, Smackdown vs RAW 2007 gaining 2 achievements, and then borandi went to get some food. I told him to bring me back something but I got seriously dissed.

Hmmm... I just realized... borandi must not have anything major going on in his life right now because we have gamed 30 days in a row! Can you believe it? Give us the badge for streaking! w00t!

Smackdown vs RAW 2007	860 -> 970 of 1000 27 of 29 Achievements
Burnout Revenge	0 -> 55 of 1000 6 of 36 Achievements
EarthDefenseForce 2017	0 of 1000 0 of 6 Achievements
Guitar Hero II	480 of 1000 32 of 50 Achievements
Marvel Ult. Alliance	120 -> 230 of 1250 18 of 58 Achievements
Test Drive Unlimited	360 -> 590 of 1000 32 of 46 Achievements
Pro Evolution Soccer 6	840 of 1000 19 of 23 Achievements
G.R.A.W.	145 -> 245 of 1000 10 of 43 Achievements
Aegis Wing	45 -> 75 of 200 6 of 12 Achievements
BOMBERMAN Act:Zero	250 -> 350 of 1000 20 of 50 Achievements
2006 FIFA World Cup™	500 of 1000 4 of 5 Achievements
PGR 3	35 -> 175 of 1000 7 of 25 Achievements
Chromehounds	120 -> 140 of 1000 6 of 49 Achievements
DEAD RISING	80 -> 140 of 1000 7 of 50 Achievements
DiRT™	370 -> 420 of 1000 24 of 49 Achievements

It's been retro game week this week. I looked through my played games list, and went through my list backwards a few for the games that I own.

Last time I played WWE 07 I had got to the point where I had to finish the last couple of belts by doing the challenges in the PC. I was having a lot of trouble - but I changed the settings so there was no ring-out or DQs, so I could get weapons out the side of the ring. That made most of the challenges easy, apart from the 2vs2 matches, as my partner would often get pinned in the first couple of minutes. The Kahli vs. woman match at the end was actually quite easy - I was able to keep doing grapples from behind to damage his head so it went red, then put him on the floor and kept damaging his legs till they were red, then it was an easy pin. I also went through the roster pinning everyone on hard mode, to get that achievement. Though I did it by choosing one wrestler to pin the next and so on, I should have got the 'win with every wrestler' achievement, but it didnt unlock (some sort of glitch). That hard mode achievement took around 3 hours to do though, so I might wait until next week to do the equivalent Legend mode achievement.

I took Burnout Revenge off my 'still to play' shelf and started to go through it. NickHarkkonen and I took turns in career mode, and I also did some online mode - which was very fun to play when I wasn't hitting random trees. EA have shut down all their sports '06 games servers, so I'm surprised they haven't shut down their Burnout servers yet. All the achievements in this game require a lot of playing, hence why I've only got a few easy ones atm.

Nick and I are on lvl 33 of EDF - another 20 to go until we finish easy mode. Health around 700 and it's very easy - we've even been doing some levels on the difficulty above easy to get some better weapons.

We also cranked out some GHII, with Nick starting his career mode on Easy. I did a couple of songs on Hard (I still can't get passed that one song, but I'm able to do the rest in that section) and one on expert.

Nick and I also did some Marvel Ultimate Alliance - a game I think is a lot better in co-op mode than single player. We've just been grinding through the main story - we've just started Act 2. It's a fun game, just a bit boring.

I got out some Test Drive Unlimited which I haven't touched in a while. My goal was just to get some easy achievements, but I also did the Island Tour race in my Koenigsegg CC8S - 118miles took only 44 minutes (I was doing 260mph in the straights) - which gave me 30GS. I was able to reach Champion level (needed 450GS) which unlocked a very easy speed race which gave $75k per win (so about $150k/minute). All that money has given me most of the collection achievements.

I'm now 20 games into Serie A on PES6. It's a long hard grind, but now only about 140 games to go until 1000GS.

I also played some GRAW which I haven't touched in a while. I was told of some cheats available for infinite HP, so I did the first 4 levels on hard :) Though there are still quite a few levels to go.

I played some Aegis Wing - using 2 controllers I got the 'combine with a friend' achievement, as well as the 'dont shoot for a level' one. I have 4 controllers, so I guess I can do the 4 ship formation achievement too.

Bomberman Act Zero is an annoying game, but I got a few of the Secret Panels now that there is a guide for them :)

Fifa 06 is an odd game - an easy 500GS and a very tough 500GS. The tough part is to do some challenges, and I was able to do another 5 this week. The hard ones are still to come though.

I've never played PGR3 seriously, so I went someway though career mode this week. I was able to get a platinum medal on manual for 60GS using the fastest car on the first speed track.

Also did some online with Chromehounds online, getting the '50 shots fired' achievement (i.e. 50 HOUNDs destroyed.

I haven't played Dead Rising since January 2nd - 5 days after I got my first 360. That was on a 13" SCART CRT, so now I'm using a 19" HDTV, it looks LOADS better. I'm able to actually do parts of the story - but I prefer mindlessly going around killing zombies :) I got to the gun shop with the psycho, but he killed me :(

I also did the online achieves for DiRT while I was still renting it.

GS: 47,769 -> 48,789

Completed XBLA:	11 / 28
Completed Retail:	21 / 104
GS Completion %:	41.89%
GS % (Non-Demo):	45.18%

Country Rank:	266/212000
World Rank:	1677/1543243

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