2nd December: GS Update

Lots of gaming this week:

Joined a 3 day challenge on 360voice for the viral achievement. It was quite fast paced, but unfortunately a couple of people pulled out some easy games (NBA 2k6, Avatar, College Hoops 2k6), but I came in a respectable 5th out of 17 with 1864GS gain.

Signed up to an account on Guitarhero.com, which keeps track of all your GH3 career progress and so forth. Check it out here.

Here's what my 360voice said yesterday:

Pick it, pack it fire it up, come along, lets get borandi's gaming on! Gamer score is 62,061. That is an increase of 1,090 points over last time! That was enough to cross the 62,000 mark! Good stuff! He made some progress on Crash Of The Titans winning 3 achievements, Cars: Mater-National acquiring an amazing 13 achievements to finish the game, LEGO Star Wars: TCS adding 2 achievements, Guitar Hero III acquiring 1 achievement, Eragon acquiring an amazing 11 achievements, MLB 2K7, Assassin's Creed picking up 2 achievements, and then I basked in the warm glow of post gaming. Mmmm warm...

borandi also wrapped up a gamerscore challenge today. Remember? borandi didn't manage to get enough points to win... we had to settle for a comfortable spot at number 5. We may have lost, but we're no quitters. Nothing is over until we say it is! We're going to dust off that controller, hold our head high and get our game on! We're marching right into another challenge and this time, we'll be taking home the gold! At least I think that is the plan...

And the gamage:

Blue Dragon	50 of 1000 6 of 43 Achievements
Guitar Hero III	160 -> 215 of 1000 23 of 59 Achievements
Kane & Lynch: Dead Men	0 -> 70 of 1000 5 of 47 Achievements
Boom Boom Rocket	100 of 200 9 of 12 Achievements
Assassin's Creed	0 -> 40 of 1000 2 of 44 Achievements
MLB 2K7	0 of 1000 0 of 33 Achievements
Eragon	150 -> 270 of 1000 11 of 37 Achievements
LEGO Star Wars: TCS	0 -> 40 of 1000 2 of 42 Achievements
Cars: Mater-National	0 -> 1000 of 1000 16 of 16 Achievements
Crash Of The Titans	133 -> 333 of 1000 21 of 47 Achievements
Mass Effect	135 -> 170 of 1000 8 of 45 Achievements
Beautiful Katamari	640 of 1250 31 of 40 Achievements
Blacksite	0 -> 409 of 1000 26 of 44 Achievements
PES2008	0 -> 55 of 1000 3 of 28 Achievements

I only stuck in Blue Dragon for a few hours this evening, but I'm getting a bit further (I restarted in the middle of Disk 2 because I'd missed a lot). I'm now at Talta Village on the first disk again, though using the barrier has weakened my characters compared to before. I need to beef them up :D

Some success in Guitar Hero 3! I'm now 3 songs away from completing Hard, and it's pissing me off. Started co-op career, and did some boosting online for wins and streaks. Need to start looking for a second wireless guitar though. I did play some with the controller. It's do-able, but not natural.

Currently renting Kane & Lynch, If you haven't heard, Jeff Gerstmann, GameSpot's (now former) Editorial Director, was seemingly fired after his review of Kane & Lynch, to which he awarded 6/10. To be honest, he's not far off. The gameplay is exceedingly linear, and the controls are sloppy. Story line is a bit weird too. I tried to play online, but I could barely connect to any game. When you cant connect, it kicks you to the front menu, thus having to select multiplayer, and search again for a game. Bad planning = not a fun game. I've robbed a bank though, and that was fun.

I downloaded the (free until mid december) extra song pack for Boom Boom Rocket, and its a continuation of the 'classical remix' style of the game. Playing it again has made me realise just how much they've missed out on with the possibility of the game. Dedicated controllers, more tracks, etc. Could have easily made a retail game, with different skylines and firework types. Still, I didnt get any more achievements (yet).

I also rented Assassin's Creed, but didnt play it much. I got it with a couple of games for the 360voice competition, thus spent more time on the easy games. Though what I did play of Assassin's Creed was quite good. Most reviews label it as 'awesome gameplay, though repetitive'. I havent played it enough for the repetitiveness, but the gameplay was great. Graphics are awesome, though as a chemist I must point out that the onscreen molecules while loading make no sense chemically (cheapskate designers). The controls are simple enough, though to be honest I really need to play it more to have an opinion.

I fired up MLB2k7 for the gamerscore challenge, did what it said on a guide to get most of the achievements, and not one unlocked, as well as the game couldnt see my hard-drive. I spent 3.5 hours editing stats for nothing. Load of bollocks.

Also, Eragon for the achievements. Last time I played this game, it was boring. It still is, and as such only played a few more levels.

Also rented the new Lego Star Wars. Reviews about this game are quite similar - 'polished graphics, but no improved gameplay. Also have to do the episodes from the last game for the achievements'. I agree to a certain extent - nicer graphics, but I didnt like the gameplay from the last game, so having to play ALL those levels again is going to be a bitch. So I didnt play it much. But they have made the achievements for this game more amenable - none of this 'complete the level without dying' crap. Nellas actually bought the game, so we'll play it later maybe. Added benefit is online Xbox Live play too.

Cars: Mater-National was the main game I rented for the 360voice challenge. It seemed easy enough looking online at the achievements, and seemed to follow the stylings of the other Cars game. Well, it took me around 10 hours to complete, as there are quite a few races and minigames, as well as some basic collection achievements. To be honest, I preferred the previous Cars game over this one. Nevertheless, game complete!

I noticed a couple of people on my friends list have the full 1000 on Crash of the Titans, so I rented it again. Got to level 8 in the time that I had it, and it's still an easy enough game. Just will have to keep plugging at it. Though I've started it on easy, so I'll need to replay it on hard to get ALL the achievements. It'll get easier when I have maxed out stats.

Mass Effect is still an awesome game. I completed another section of story, and its quite riviting. Only downside is that it's not got a 'Pick up and Play' story mode. Good thing you can save most of the time.

This week I picked up some US Microsoft Points so I could get the extra levels of Beautiful Katamari. The extra levels are easier than the main game, but they do help towards the achievements. I didnt play the extra levels long, so I'll need to focus a little to get the achievements.

I also got a chance to play Blacksite: Area 51. It's a run of the mill FPS - main storyline takes around 3 hours to complete, and is regarding genetic modifications the US makes to its 'KIA' soldiers. Quite interesting, the graphics are good, but the game is too short. Its not as good as CoD4 or Bioshock, better than Perfect Dark, in the same region as Timeshift.

Put in Pro Evo 08 for the first time this week. Its much like Pro Evo 6, but a bit easier and the achievements look quite easy. Just need to put some time into it. I won the first few games of a new league though.

GS: 60,107 -> 62,131

Completed XBLA:	15 / 38
Completed Retail:	28 / 144
GS Completion %:	38.99%
GS % (Non-Demo):	41.40%

Country Rank:	155
World Rank:	211

Boom Boom Rocket Update

I've always been a sucker for BBM, and now it has a nifty gifty update:

Boom Boom Rocket Title Update
- Guitar and dancemat peripheral support.
- Japanese and Korean language support.
- Tweaked scoring system to make grade awarded more fair (now purely based on accuracy).
- The huge loud "noise" which popped up occasionally on endurance mode is now gone.
- Occurrences of scores getting overwritten with a lower score when playing with 2 profiles signed in is now fixed.
- Display updates when viewing the game through a VGA cable.
- Friends leaderboard now shows extra information such as grade, accuracy, etc.
- Multiplayer endurance mode fix for player colours swapping sporadically.
- Slightly bigger and better explosions (updates to firework rendering).

So now we can use the GH guitar properly, and the gradings 'should' be easier to get. When I get my GH3 (pre-ordered it, should be here the 23rd - UK release date), I'll fire this baby up and try and imporve on the 100GS I've had on it for a while. 3 achievements left - A on a hard track, A on 10 medium tracks, Hard track on endurance for 5 loops.

19th June: GS Update

It's been a very DiRTy couple of days. What a game.

DiRT™	0 -> 315 of 1000 17 of 49 Achievements
Boom Boom Rocket	75 -> 100 of 200 9 of 12 Achievements
Forza Motorsport 2	186 -> 271 of 1000 20 of 44 Achievements
Gears of War	80 of 1250 7 of 57 Achievements

DiRT is the rally version of Forza, albeit with less options. It drives and handles like Forza, but gives that rally element of crashing into trees while only doing an average of 60mph. I like it also because on Rookie difficulty it's fairly easy to win =D Though I've done most of exhibition apart from the big 6 rally tournament, 20% of Career, and a few online games. Online is fun and just what I sort of imagined it to be - up to 100 people in a lobby, vote for a track, everyone does a time trial at the same time on it. Quickest time wins. That's all well and good, but I never came near the top in a 20 man lobby, so goodness knows how I'm going to get that achievement. Though apart from the online ones, the offline ones seem kinda easy.

I picked up some Boom Boom Rocket today, and finished off three songs to get all the firework types. I also found out that along with the ABXY buttons you can also use the D-Pad. *d'oh!* Though it really helped with the final song on hard. The last 3 achieves will need some work on though!

Still doing some Forza 2 even though DiRT is here. Got to level 40, so I was able to get some gold cups and the level 40 achievement. Also managed to buy/sell 10 cars in the auction house for that achievement. I also got out my best car, headed to the easiest Nissan Raceway track on Career, stuck all the difficulty settings as high as they would go, and win to get the Natural and Hardcore achievements. Using the Nissan Raceway meant that I only had to change gears to go up, and using the best car meant that even on the highest difficulty, I still had a 50kph+ advantage.

Yes, I still suck at GoW. No matter how many Annex games I play. Though I'm probably up to 50 global kills now, probably a 0.1 kpd ratio and 5 hours played online. I might aim for a boosting group this weekend if we can get enough people together.

GS: 33191 -> 33616

Completed XBLA:	7 / 20
Completed Retail:	17 / 68
GS Completion %:	42.21%
GS % (Non-Demo):	46.05%

Country Rank:	587/151831
World Rank:	3298/1170328

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

14th May: GS Update... and Xbox returned!

Well it finally arrived today, about 10:30. Didn't come in the packaging I sent it in, but it did come properly packaged back, nice and safe. The report I got back was what I suspected, a DVD drive problem. Though they were kind enough to send me a free month of XBL Gold with it though. <3! MS did definitely get one thing right!

On the otherhand, I was able to start playing the stock pile of games I've amassed! I got straight on XBLA for some Boom Boom Rocket, then Catan, 3D Ultra Golf, Doom, Totemball (I got the XBox Vision Camera last week), Robotron: 2084 (came free with the camera). Also opened out of shrink wrap for EA Fight Night 3, and TMNT.

I loved the two games of Catan I played today =D The only gripe would be if the turns would be quicker. 3D Ultra Golf was great - got a bit annoyed with the power stoke thing... seemed a little too variable. Doom is classic Doom =D Totemball was interesting! Was able to just sit back in my chair, and my shoulders ended up in the middle of the screen, thus resting my arms. Robotron was truly retro, but not worth the 1200 MS points on XBLA though.

I got all but one achievement on EA FN3 in just over 3 hours. For some reason, the final achievement seemed a little off - for the fight, I lost 90% of my health with a little jab, thus lost in about 30 seconds. I dont know how many fights I have to go through to get a shot at that achievement again though.

TMNT was quite fun - your average linear platformer, with specific fighting areas, and lots of wall to wall jumping. I think I'm going to like playing that one.

Overall, my GS changed thusly:

21550 -> 22794

Robotron:
0 -> 50

Totemball:
0 -> 10

3D Ultra Minigolf:
0 -> 30

Catan:
0 -> 40

Boom Boom Rocket:
40 -> 75

Doom:
0 -> 30

EA Fight Night 3:
0 -> 900

TMNT:
0 -> 139

5500 MS Points to spend

I'm expecting my *box back today, and in the past month, got hold of 5500 MS points. Question now is, what to get?

Well I have the following:

Uno
Worms
Backgammon
Gauntlet
Texas Hold 'em
Wik
Outpost Kaloki X
Geometry Wars
Boom Boom Rocket
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Hexic
Bejeweled 2
Robotron: 2084

These either due to Live Arcade Unplugged, bundled with something I bought, or I bought with MS Points.

So what can I get for 5500? I was thinking along the lines of:

400 Galaga
400 New Rally-X
800 Doom
800 Catan
800 3D Mini Golf
800 Crackdown DLC

Thats 4000 MS points there. Given that I want Undertow, maybe I'll save 800 for that. This leaves 700 - should I get Double Dragon? Paperboy? will they release new tracks for Boom Boom Rocket? These choices are sent to test us! =D