9th March: GS Update

From the shackles of work, to an easter break full of gaming. I've done quite a bit this week - a couple of new games, a near completion too on a favourite.

There are people out there who think video games are violent. But after borandi played yesterday with his gamerscore of 79,081 points, there wasn't any violence at all. A little drooling maybe but definitely no violence. That is an increase of 530 points over last time! That puts us above 79,000 points! He rallied NEW RALLY-X winning an amazing 12 achievements to finish the game, Guitar Hero III gaining 1 achievement, Guitar Hero II, Bee Movie Game, Catan, G.R.A.W., Small Arms acquiring an amazing 8 achievements, Forza Motorsport 2 acquiring an amazing 6 achievements, FC Instincts Predator, as well as stared off into space... thinking about the one that got away.

This week, I picked up two games - Bladestorm and Virtua Fighter 5. Bladestorm I believe holds the record as the biggest demo on the XBLM at 1.9GB - it was an alright demo, lots of hack and slash. I last played VF5 as a rental, and thought it was a lot better than DoA4. I found it cheap, so I picked it up. I also received in the mail a lot of MS points - 12600 to be exact. I managed to find them at a 20% discount, but haven't figured what to spend them on yet. So far, Small Arms and New Rally-X. But I'm also thinking some Pac-Man too.

Forza Motorsport 2	665 -> 930 of 1000 42 of 44 Achievements
Small Arms	0 -> 110 of 235 8 of 14 Achievements
Bee Movie™ Game	0 -> 560 of 1000 37 of 50 Achievements
Guitar Hero III	295 -> 310 of 1000 32 of 59 Achievements
NEW RALLY-X	0 -> 200 of 200 12 of 12 Achievements
Speedball 2	40 -> 100 of 200 7 of 12 Achievements
Burnout Revenge	55 -> 165 of 1000 10 of 36 Achievements
DEAD OR ALIVE 4	245 -> 295 of 1000 20 of 45 Achievements
Poker Smash	70 -> 80 of 200 6 of 12 Achievements
BLADESTORM	0 -> 300 of 1000 6 of 18 Achievements
Eternal Sonata	10 -> 20 of 1000 2 of 22 Achievements
Marble Blast Ultra	70 -> 75 of 200 6 of 12 Achievements
Halo 3	735 -> 745 of 1000 23 of 49 Achievements
Marvel Ult. Alliance	230 -> 250 of 1250 19 of 58 Achievements
Mass Effect	270 -> 395 of 1000 15 of 45 Achievements

It's been a brilliant week for my Forza gameplay. To start, I finished all the arcade races gold, then I was fortunate enough to get given 10million from ZACHSP8 10K. That was just enough to buy every car in the game. Now, I'm sending them to Roquey (my brother) so he can get that achievement too. All I have left is to get 1,000,000 credits online, and complete the time trials. I've tried a few of the time trials though, especially that one at the 147-corner Nürburgring - was 30 seconds off pace. Might need to practice that one.

I purchased Small Arms, hoping it was an easy set of Gamerscore. Well, 110GS was. The rest consists of getting 50 kills in a survival mode, and winning 100 matches. Some simple grinding should get all but the 50 kills.

I got the Bee Movie Game from LoveFilm this week. I'd heard it was an easy 1000GS. I've so far done the story, now it's a case of doing the specific missions. The jobs were long and arduous, now I'm after concept art, and the human encounters. Sooner or later, 1000GS should be mine.

After many weeks of trying to get 200k on Cult Of Personality in Guitar Hero III, I finally achieved 201k! I just picked up the game, and got the achievement. No warm-up necessary, though the 499 note streak at the beginning helped :)

New-Rally X is defined as one of the easy arcade games. I'd just not been in a position to get it. An easy 200GS, I got it in about an hour. I found getting to level 16 harder than the 100k score target. Game Complete!

I boosted the online achievements for Speedball 2 - also got the 'injure 5 people in one match' achievement. I still need to get the achievements related to the leagues and knockout tournaments.

Burnout: Revenge is a game I haven't played in ages. I tried joining some online games, only to find I was booted for not having a mic, or not being in the right region. Bunch of bastards. In the end, a couple of friends and I got together and we played online for a while. Lots of takedowns involved.

I helped Roquey boost a little on Dead or Alive 4. We got his win streaks, as well as gold/silver/bronze stars. On the way, I got my 50 wins. I also left the 360 on overnight, and got the 5hrs and 10hrs played achievements.

I managed to finish the Poker Smash puzzles, netting 10GS. Tried going online for the achievement - played a couple of games which lasted 10 minutes each, but I didnt get a win.

I fired up some Bladestorm. It's quite fun - hack and slash meets RPG/Dynasty Warriors. 150GS for creating a character (takes 5 mins), then another 150GS in the first 5 hours. The premise of the game is that you're a mercenary during one of the many English/French wars. You can accept jobs from the English or the French, after all a mercenary should have no ties.

It an effort to go after that 3* RPG badge over at 360 voice, I fired up Eternal Sonata. It looks like I've only played the game for 3 hours, so I put another couple into it, and netted one 10GS achievement. I should put some time into this game - its quite fun.

I opened up Marble Blast Ultra for a little while - did one of the advanced levels, and also hunted down the easter egg achievement.

Roquey still needs the legendary Halo 3 achievements, so this week him and I (with another friend) went through a level or two of the story. I also found a skull, thanks to the guide that was put on Inside Xbox.

Also for the 3* RPG Badge, I did a little of Marvel: Ultimate Alliance. The game really is a bit boring, and much better when in co-op.

I managed to complete the story for Mass Effect. It looks like the I didnt get the 'play through most of the story with X ally' achievements - I would have to do most of the sidequests to get those. Thus, only 3 more playthroughs to go!

GamerScore:	77231 -> 79081
Zone:	Pro

Completed XBLA:	16 -> 17 / 47
Completed Retail:	37 / 182
GS Completion %:	40.63% -> 41.02%

Country Rank:	123 -> 111
World Rank:	801 -> 779
Completion Rank:	2,001 -> 1,894

6th November: GS Update

Update is a bit late this week - I've been tired for some god awful reason.

Go ahead... call me a wussy... but I almost started crying when borandi turned me on yesterday. 55,557 points of raw gamer score are making you jealous! That is a profit of 215 points over last time! He rallied Puzzle Quest, UEFA CL 2006-2007 finishing 3 achievements, and laughed with joy and glee the whole time. I like making people happy.

What is really good is that every day played is another chance to catch up to rican ninja89 and that 56,682 score... Make it happen borandi!!

Did I mention that I like it when people like us? borandi's gamer reputation increased yesterday proving that he is an all-around nice guy.

And the games:

The Simpsons™ Game	0 -> 75 of 1000 8 of 44 Achievements
UEFA CL 2006-2007	10 -> 350 of 1000 6 of 31 Achievements
Sonic The Hedgehog 2	145 -> 190 of 200 11 of 12 Achievements
E4	15 -> 35 of 200 3 of 12 Achievements
Halo 3	170 -> 230 of 1000 16 of 49 Achievements
Yaris	5 -> 35 of 200 4 of 12 Achievements
Clive Barker's Jericho	0 -> 110 of 1000 6 of 42 Achievements
Virtua Fighter 5	0 -> 55 of 1000 5 of 32 Achievements
Quake 4	85 -> 90 of 1000 8 of 50 Achievements
Eternal Sonata	10 of 1000 1 of 22 Achievements
At World’s End	550 -> 1000 of 1000 30 of 30 Achievements

The Simpsons Game was released this week, and after playing the demo last week, I rented it as soon as I could. In general, it's a fun platformer. It's your stereotypical platformer/Simpsons combo, with humour (i.e. it informs you when you hit a game cliché) typical to the Simpsons. People who aren't fans of the game will just see it as another platformer, and gamerscore whores will find it annoying due to the collection achievements. At times the graphics are really poor, but in general hold up to a mid-range set of 360 standards. I'll rent this again in due course, to at least complete the main game.

Long time readers may remember my last encounter with UEFA CL: It was appalling. I was so used to Pro Evo, I couldn't stand this game. I rented it again, given that ZACH SP8 10k had just purchased a copy and wanted the online achievements. He directed me towards the easier achievements - win the UEFA cup once, then three consecutive times, on any difficulty. Each win of the UEFA cup - that's about 18 matches at 2 min halves, including loading times, took just over an hour. I've learned how to adapt to this game now - it requires proper skills, unlike the bombing down the pitch like in Pro Evo. I'm happy to have about 1/3 of the GS on this game, but I'd have to focus for the other achievements.

I loaded up Sonic 2, aiming to complete the single player mode. It was quite easy in retrospect, with the final boss requiring some finesse and active saving. The only achievement left is the 10 XBLA wins online, and as no-one plays this, I'll need to boost with someone.

I fired up E4 again, this time to play with the predetermined music supplied with the game. As a result I hit a couple of achievements. This game only lends itself to 30 minute sessions, so I'll come back to it to grind out a couple more achievements.

Thursday was another HUCS gamernight, and we played Halo 3. I say 'we', it ended up being Warmish Hot Tub and I. Thus, we played through some more of story mode on Legendary (Warmish has done it on Heroic, so he knew what he was doing). As a result, in 3 hours we got through 4/5 levels, and I got another couple of achievements. Well I'll get to the rest some other time :p

I fired up Yaris so get the online achievements, and hoping to get a few more levels in. Fat chance! I need more coins to beef up my car. Got the online ones though, but still stuck on level 3.

I rented Jericho. I posted this on my 10k forum:

Rented it, played it, its quite fun. Not on the same level of Bioshock, but the story is compelling nonetheless. I dont see how the countries that banned it (Aus/Ger, cant remember which) could do so - I've seen more gore in GoW! So far going through on hard is quite easy actually, as it's kind of a CoD system with very frequent checkpoints. You're also in a squad of 7 initially, that can resurrect each other as needed.

Worth a rental, not much to do on if after completing it on hard though I reckon. I got 110GS in around an hour, just going through the story line, done 6/30 missions. Some of the 'go through without getting incapacitated on hard' might be a bit difficult.

I'll rent it again. It was fun.

I also rented Virtua Fighter 5. Its a lot more fun than Dead or Alive 4. Kudos. Worth another rental.

Also a boost with Rican Ninja89 on Quake 4 - I got the 100 points in multiplayer matches achievement. We worked primarily on the excellent and impressive achievements however.

I played for an hour on Eternal Sonata too. I'm awaiting a guide for it (as I get with all my RPGs) just so I dont miss anything. I could do it without the guide, but in general I find it less fun if you miss 50% of the side quests.

Heh I decided to grind At Worlds End! Got the full thousand - completed the game, and went after the 100 souls. I did Port Royal, and in the first tavern fight keep using Jacks special to earn skulls, then used 1 skull at a time away from the enemies then cut them down except the main guy. Rinse and repeat! I actually finished that level with 99 souls total (bleh), but I had a few levels with 0 souls (Davy Jones' locker) so I did it then.

GS: 54,442 -> 55,632

Completed XBLA:	13 / 36
Completed Retail:	26 / 131
GS Completion %:	38.37%
GS % (Non-Demo):	40.70%

Country Rank:	200
World Rank:	1,328

- Thats top 200 in the UK. w00t ;)