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

1st July: GS Update

It's been the final week of my degree course (with one more minor test type activity left next week), so after the exams were done, it's on with the gaming!

borandi really threw down yesterday. It was good to see! I wish you could have been there! Last time I checked, his gamer score is 97,689. That is an improvement of 925 points over last time! Welcome to 97,000!! He played Rock Band adding 3 achievements, Lost Via Domus finishing an amazing 24 achievements to master the game, Bionicle Heroes gaining 1 achievement, and then nothing... nothing at all...

Did I mention the gamerscore challenge that borandi is competing in? Bookmark this link now and check out all the action! 4 other people are also involved... which is madness. Current rank out of all those people is number one though. Everyone else is jealous... I feel their hate. I've made a wager with the 4 other Xboxes in the Challenge -- let's not blow this thing...

This week saw the arrival of Rock Band into my profile. At the equivalent of $90(45GBP), it's the most expensive game (just the game, on it's own) I've ever purchased. It's been part of a want for a long while, plus a personal gift to myself for finishing! I haven't got the instrument pack yet, I'll probably get that in a few months when a) I have the money, and b) it comes down in price. In the mean time, I've got my GH3 controller for lead and bass, and the wired headset for vocals. More about Rock Band below.

Besides Rock Band, there were a few completions this week, including an old-time grind, and another 'position to remember' completion.

So for the games:

Rock Band 0 -> 50 of 1000 5 of 50 Achievements I got this game Friday, and now it's Sunday night/Monday morning. What do I think of Rock Band? Well, it's a very good game. There's only so much you can say about this music genre type games, and I thought GH3 had done well, but Rock Band just takes it a step further with a bit of spit and polish to make everything look neat. The layout of the game itself is good and clean, and the repertoire of music tracks available are varied, with many more available on the Marketplace. My first experience of RB was one I was rather expecting - I was told that it was easier on GH3, so I stuck it on Expert difficulty straight away. That was fine, except when I played, the timings were significantly tighter than GH3. That's very good at least, means I have to play to a beat, rather than be slightly off. So far, I'm now at the final track on expert. I haven't had to repeat one yet to pass it, except this final one - it's a bastard. 9 minutes 49 seconds of Freebird style playing and me with a semi-broken wrist. One thing I notice with Rock Band on Guitar is a lot of the tracks have the same note repeated, quickly, for a long time. So my hand hurts. So when I got to this track, I got 80% through TWICE, and a solo kills me. Thats 8 minutes into the track, so you bet it's annoying that to go through it again I have to play though ALL 8 minutes. Pah. On the vocals side, I suck as I'm tone deaf. However, Roquey and Nellas seem to be pretty good - Roquey has been able to 95%-99% a few songs on hard, and Nellas has finished some on expert as well. It looks like I may be calling upon them to do my Vocal achievements, but we'll see and I'll practice. My vocal range is limited to C, C#, and some wierd falsetto, currently.

GTA IV 540 -> 550 of 1000 34 of 50 Achievements Not much GTA at all this week. However, the GTA 'kill a developer' achievement was released into the wild. Common thought was that this achievement was not viral, as in you would have to personally kill a developer to get it. But, it seems like it is viral, and spread like wildfire. I caught wind of this fact, and jumped into an online game of Cops and Crooks. I got the achievement on my first kill, so that was handy =D

Bionicle Heroes 940 -> 1000 of 1000 49 of 49 Achievements A grinders hardship can be summed up with Bionicle Heroes. For those that have followed my story, this is how it has gone: I got the game and starting playing it in the morning of 17th February 2007. I sat playing through every level, for almost 8 straight hours. I was 18 stages in (~83% through the game), when I received the following message: 'Autosave Failed'. I did not know what this meant at the time, but to sum up - this game, which does all the saving automatically, will not let you save in two places. If it fails to save, it will no longer save, and your previous save is corrupt. What this meant for me is, that those 8 hours of playing went down the tube. I had 800 or so GS in the game by this time, and the final achievements would require playing through those 8 hours again. So, over the course of the next 16 months, I played a level here, a level there, making sure not to play it for too long at a time. Until last night that is, when I blitzed 14 levels or so to get the final 19% of the game. It required completing each stage with a gold medal, and collecting every Gold and Silver canister (people have reported in online forums that this isn't necessary, but for me it was) to get the full 100%, and 5 million monies along the way. My Bionicle Heroes story is a weary one, and I'm glad to get this POS out of the way. Game Complete!

Lost Via Domus 125 -> 1000 of 1000 30 of 30 Achievements At first, I was saving Lost for a 8-week GS competition over at x360a.org. But then I dropped out, seeing as I will be moving in that time (stay tuned) and then used it for a 360voice 5-day auto challenge. Lost, in all respects, is a fairly easy 1000. No hard parts, a fairly quick game, but at the same time, dull. Not necessarily boring, but just dull. You don't get a sense of 'Why am I playing this?', but you also do not get the sense of 'This is fun and enjoyable!'. With the online guide at x360a.org (check the forums), it was fairly easy with minimal thinking. Game Complete!

Boogie Bunnies 0 -> 30 of 200 3 of 12 Achievements I bought Boogie Bunnies for Nellas this week, and also as part of my on-going quest for the 1* Puzzle badge over at 360voice. It's one of these 'match 3 in a row and try not to die' type games, apart from this game uses over the top cute bunny type creatures, who sound like they've been eating the defauly soundbites from every Worms game every made. I haven't had a serious go of this game yet, however the achievements look a bit tricky (Nellas has 6 atm, compared to my 3) and might require some proper playing time.

Jewel Quest 60 -> 110 of 200 8 of 12 Achievements Jewel Quest is also part of my 1* Puzzle gaining quest. This week I finished off the first playthrough, and gained the 500k score margin. Then I got 4/5 through the second playthrough, then I must've pressed a wrong button on a menu option, but I have to start my second playthrough again. Bah humbug.

Burnout Revenge 165 -> 200 of 1000 12 of 36 Achievements With it being the end of my degree and all, one night involving some mates and pizza, we started taking turns doing crash events on Burnout Revenge. The next day I decided to persue some more achievements, and ended up getting the ones for '250 takedowns' and 'perfect the 2nd stage'. This game is fun, albeit having a high difficulty curve to get the achievements. For crash events, it's better than Burnout: Paradise, but Paradise beats it on everything else.

Buku Sudoku 0 -> 200 of 200 12 of 12 Achievements Buku was one of the XBLA games released this week. I'm not usually a fan of Sudoku, but after having a look at the achievements, I decided to have a bash. Overall, this game is VERY easy. Achievements include 'win 25 online games', 'win one of each board', 'win one of each difficulty', 'win 200 games', 'get 10million points'. Now what makes this easy is that the helpers on this game make it simple to guess the number required. So if you turn all them on, and do simple 6x6 easy boards, the 200 wins is easy at 20secs/win. In the online modes, if you do co-op 6x6 boards on easy, both people get the online win, making that simple. With the points, if you mix some 6x6 easy with a few (12-15) 12x12 boards on easy which take 2 minutes to solve, the points are easy. Also something special worth noting - according to MGC I was: 10th in the World to complete Buku 2nd in the UK to complete Buku Not bad, eh? Game Complete!

Army of Two™ 340 -> 470 of 1250 18 of 47 Achievements Not much to say about Army of Two - I completed story mode, and got all the associated achievements, as well as killing 250 with machine guns and 30 with riot shield melee. The achievements left involve completing it on the hardest difficulty, some more 'kill with X weapon', and a couple online. EA released some FREE DLC (yes, that's right - free) for the game, but as this is my US copy, I need to use my US account to get the DLC. But the DLC is currently only for Gold members, and my US acc is Silver, so I'll have to wait a bit.

Call of Duty 4 770 -> 940 of 1000 35 of 37 Achievements I am now done with CoD4. When I saw in Blockbuster that I could get Rock Band for 15 quid if I traded in CoD4, I leapt at the opportunity - after I'd finished all the achievements first. If you may remember, I was stuck on 'In the War Room' on Veteran difficulty and could not get past it, so I did the final 2 levels on Easy. Well this time, I did the final level on Veteran (for an achievement), then 'In the War Room' on Hardened to get the 'Complete on Hardened or Veteran' 90GS achievement. To be honest, Hardened difficulty was very, very easy compared to Veteran. Well apart from that, I had to collect all the intel on every level (x360a.org guide for that, quite easy). That leaves me with two achievements which I have resigned myself to never getting - 'Complete In the War Room on Veteran', and 'Mile High Club'. I also wont be getting them as I traded my copy into BlockBuster. But they didnt get any Rock Band in on their next delivery, so I got a full refund and bought it from GameStation (hence the $90/45GBP price tag). Game Complete? Not quite, but game finished with.

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GamerScore:	96,139 -> 97,749
Zone:	Pro

Completed XBLA:	23 -> 24 / 58
Completed Retail:	46 -> 48 / 200
GS Completion %:	45.28% -> 45.65%

Country Rank:	73 -> 73
World Rank:	534 -> 515
Completion Rank:	1,072 -> 1,026