31st March: GS Update

Games have been plentiful abound this week, though I have been keeping back the GS so that a couple of friends of mine can win the Viral badge over at 360voice.

borandi showed up yesterday and we were like a superhero team together. I make a great sidekick! Gamerscore stands at 83,621. Up up and away right? That is an improvement of 60 points over last time! He opened up Winning Eleven 2007 picking up 1 achievement, N+, Brain Challenge™, Burnout Paradise picking up 1 achievement, Forza Motorsport 2, and it's a good thing he stopped there, otherwise the concentrated awesomeness could have blown out my circuits.

This is really good stuff... the more we play, the more chances we have to leave TheWings977 in the dust. Call me crazy, but a 73,076 point cushion is not nearly enough for me...

Oh, guess what? Our gamerscore challenge is going strong... If you are curious, follow along over here. 2 other people are throwing down in this challenge. If I do the math correctly, it means that 2 players X 3 days means a whole lot of trash talk! Currently borandi is hanging on to the number 3 spot. However there are still 2 days left to score achievement glory. Let's get to the top of that challenge board! Go!

Let's see what's happened this week... 360voice has now increased their watcher limit to 100. I trawled through the appropriate threads on the forum, so now I'm watching 50 or so people. If you want to be watched (and if at all possible, please reciprocate =D), send me a message or comment on my 360v blog.
Xbox.com has had a new facelift. The new style is A LOT quicker than the old one, but now is more minimalist. I love it with lots of info on one screen, but they've had to change it to reduce load on their already bursting servers. Fair enough - although now my friends list is split into sets of 15, and often I have more than 15 friends online at the same time, so I have to click more links to find some of them. Bleh.

MS has also started going after gamesavers. Good on them. There are plenty to look for and cut down, so hopefully I'll be able to shoot up the rankings somewhat. All my score is legit, with some boosting and cheat codes thrown in (GUN, GH3), but I've never used someone elses saved game and claimed it as my own.

In other news, there has been lots and lots of Forza. See later for more info! Also, I was delighted to be presented with 6 new games this week by Nellas, after her trip back home to the US for 3 weeks. These were: Army of Two (US), Winning Eleven 2007, Fifa 07, Medal of Honor: Airborne, The BIGS and History Channel: Civil War. Four of these are US only releases, so I'm glad to have them.

Now onto the gamerage!

Army of Two™	0 -> 65 of 1000 3 of 37 Achievements
Forza Motorsport 2	930 - > 970 of 1000 43 of 44 Achievements
N+	55 -> 70 of 200 5 of 12 Achievements
Burnout Paradise	340 -> 360 of 1000 24 of 50 Achievements
Winning Eleven 2007	0 -> 240 of 1000 6 of 23 Achievements
Chromehounds	140 -> 160 of 1000 7 of 49 Achievements
Guitar Hero III	325 - > 365 of 1000 35 of 59 Achievements
Thrillville: OTR	0 -> 130 of 1000 9 of 50 Achievements
A-Train HX	0 -> 640 of 1000 16 of 24 Achievements
College Hoops 2K7	0 -> 165 of 1000 8 of 49 Achievements
Splinter Cell D.A.	100 -> 125 of 1000 6 of 38 Achievements
Big Bumpin	30 -> 40 of 200 3 of 12 Achievements
Halo 3	780 -> 800 of 1000 30 of 49 Achievements

I haven't really started in Army of Two yet. I've done the training, then was called into a 4 player online game with rican ninja89, mingo21, and Chewy027. We went after the quick online achievements (play an online match, win an online match without buying any weapons, collect 20 mini-objectives) but the big one is the 'Earn one billion dollars online', which in reality will probably take 250-300 twenty minute matches. That's a lot of $$$.

Ah yes, Forza 2. Almost complete =D I finished all the time trials - the last one on the Nurburgring had me almost tearing my hair out. After 25 laps of 7.5 minutes each lap, I finally beat the 7:09 time requirement. Now, my last achievement is the 1 million credits online, which is incredibly slow. You get next to nothing online, expecially if you're not first. At the start of the week, I had 250k. After a 4-player 75 lap Nissan Speedway win (120k for winning), ZACHSP8 10k managed to rustle up 8 gamers for some boosting - we all got a 75 lap Nissan Speedway win
(150k win). I also did some public matches and won 2x5-player 25 laps and 1x4-player 75 lap race. Now I need only 126k for the achievement. Why am I doing Nissan Speedway? It's an oval, requires minimal thought, and with the Ford GT40 I can do it at 248mph = 35.3 seconds a lap. Now though, most public servers dont like the GT40, so I use a TVR Speed 12, which does a lap in 36.0 seconds. Failing that, I've just purchased and done up a Mercedes CLK-SLR, which does 39.0 second laps and has near perfect cornering.

N+ is also doing my head in. Sometimes it is just so unresponsive. Thus I got the 1000 deaths secret achievement. I'm also upto Chapter 23 or so. Did some online races and co-op campaign, so maybe those achievements might pop soon.

I haven't been playing much Burnout Paradise this week - just the odd race here or there. I'm several races away from my A license, and I also got the achievement for a 10x multiplier in showtime.

Winning Eleven 2007 is the US version of Pro Evolution Soccer 6, which if you remember I have the full 1000GS in it. So I started on the easy achievements on WE07. I've played about 40 games so far, but still have all the leagues and all the online to do yet. Fun =D

I did a little Chromehounds too this week - just 4 or 5 deploys with rican ninja89. I got my 'Capture 100 COMBAS' achievement, so nothing major. This is another game on my 'to do' list.

Ah yes, some GH3. rican finally got the German song 'Erten Was Wir Saen', and we did some rocking - with me on bass, both on expert. Without any effort, we hit 900k, getting the '700k co-op' achievement. In actual fact, only the host got it, so we had to do it again with the other person hosting. We also got a terrific achievement - 2000 note streak! We had planned to do this on Through the Fire and the Flames, but we tried it on this German song, with me on Easy lead guitar, rican on expert bass (no guesses who the better guitarist is, lol), and on our 4th attempt, we got a 2150 note streak. =D

Thrillville is one of my LoveFilm rentals for the time being. As far as I can tell, it's an 'easy' 985GS according to rican, with one 15GS achievement that is stupidly hard. It's like the new version of Theme Park, so I'm looking forward to getting to grips with it.

I've been looking forward to A-Train HX for some weird reasons. One, it was released in Japan ages ago, and now makes it to UK shores. Two, it's not out in the US. Three, most people have played it (in Japan) have the full 1000GS. So I got my LoveFilm rental (minus a manual), and had a go. Without the manual or a guide, it's startling of what you have to do, as there is no tutorial. Online websites have no help, as almost no-one who speaks English has the game. So I fiddled with it, then posted an easy 'Quick Start Guide' over at x360a.org for everyone to enjoy. Within minutes of posting, it was made a sticky, so result! I'll post it here after this post. (Which reminds me, I didn't look at Zero Punctuations post this week, or last week... I'll post those too).

I had my US 360 out for a while this week. So I put in some College Hoops 2k7, a semi-easy game if the guides online have anything to go by. The good thing about this game is the sliders - it makes the game somewhat easier :) However, with any basketball game on the 360, the blocks are the problem achievements. I put the slider up for free throws, and managed the hard free throw achievement =D I need a proper thrash of this game.

I boosted a little on Splinter Cell with rican - just a couple of levels as one of the sides. Nothing too serious with this game yet.

Some Big Bumpin as well - given that there was some promise in boosting it this week. That didnt materialise, but I managed to get that achievement for the middle competition in single player mode which didn't unlock last time.

Yes, I did play some Halo 3 again this week. More specifically, I played through a level to get the skull and the points achievement for it. I need 2 more gold skulls, several online achievements and all but 1 points achievement.

GamerScore:	82246 -> 83701
Zone:	Pro

Completed XBLA:	18 / 51
Completed Retail:	38 / 192
GS Completion %:	41.62% -> 41.13%

Country Rank:	106 -> 104
World Rank:	735 -> 707
Completion Rank:	1,767 -> 1,773

24th March: GS Update

Woah my sleeping pattern is so screwed up this week. 14 hour nights, various hour days. Nevertheless, during the uptime, lots of gamerage:

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 82,246. That is an increase of 105 points over last time! He opened up N+ picking up 1 achievement, Guitar Hero III, BLADESTORM, Burnout Paradise finishing 4 achievements, as well as stared off into space... thinking about the one that got away.

Hey, I almost forgot! The gamerscore challenge that borandi is competing in is on day 2 and we're doing our best to win this thing. There's so much action in this one, you may pay for the whole seat, but you'll only need the edge!!111! Witness the spectacle. 2 other people are also involved... which is madness. That doesn't matter though because borandi is beating them all! Number one baby! Only one day left too! This is good stuff!

This week I managed to get the Viral badge over at 360voice. I'm passing it on to friends and family first, then onto the masses at large. Along with that, I've bought an XBLA game, opened up Burnout Paradise, and done some boosting.

N+	0 -> 55 of 200 4 of 12 Achievements
Burnout Paradise	0 -> 340 of 1000 23 of 50 Achievements
BLADESTORM	350 -> 550 of 1000 11 of 18 Achievements
Halo 3	745 -> 780 of 1000 28 of 49 Achievements
Need for Speed™ Carbon	130 -> 240 of 1000 19 of 50 Achievements
Assault Heroes	0 -> 50 of 200 4 of 12 Achievements
DEF JAM: ICON™	390 -> 540 of 1000 24 of 37 Achievements
Looney Tunes: AA EUR	370 -> 680 of 1000 28 of 44 Achievements

I bought N+ this week. There was a lot of hype around this game when it came out - apparently is was a hit Flash game on the PC before it came to the 360. Well I played the demo, and saw the video on Inside Xbox, so I took the plunge. Now the concept is quite fun - play the demo to see what I mean. But I'm about 15/50 chapters in, and some sections are tearing my hair out, just because the controls are a bit unresponsive at certain times. At least you can view the best times from the leaderboard if you're unsure what to do.

I bought Burnout Paradise this week, after seeing it on offer and having a voucher for it. Now I played the demo, and thought the game was great - imaging the free roaming aspect of Test Drive Unlimited with the classic stylings of Burnout. Now the reviews of this game are mixed - some people love it (i.e. those that love free roaming games) and some people hate it, as it doesnt conform to the regular Burnout style. However, I love the game. The free roaming is great, online is fun (when you're in a room where people know what their doing) and the achievements are varied enough to get everyone involved. There is a couple of downsides - after doing a race, if you fail, you have to drive ALL the way back to do it again. The other downsides are the pricks online. In this game, if you're online and you have the camera, if someone takes you out, it'll take a photo of you to send to the other person. Some people abuse this, and you get a myriad of middle finger style positions (these people get negative feedback of course). Now the only competitive element online is the racing - most of the online is geared towards helping each other. If you loved TDU, you'll love this. I am, and I'm over 15hrs into it.

I played Bladestorm this week for a simple, laid back game. Little did I realise, that after 30 mins more play I had 150 more GS. Now I'm almost at 3* fame, with most of my books at 20%, and a few at 40%. Its the fun sort of hack and slash that Ninety Nine Nights isnt.

Yes, that's right. I got some Halo 3 achievements - *shock*!. Among them was a skull or two, and some online achievements. I looked through the achievement list, and saw what I could do in the campaign. Now there are plenty of videos showing where skulls are too, so I took care of them. Roquey and I also went through a level, to a) get me a skull, and b) get Roquey a level score achievement. I could probably go after those level achievements now, given that I have the three skulls ideal for it (according to the guide at x360a.org). Roquey and I got our score achievement with 8.5x multiplier btw.

NFS: Carbon is still one of the worst games I've played. Nevertheless, Zachsp8 10k and I did some online boosting - I'm XP level 13 now. Level 50 is going to take ~1200 races to do, which involves a lot of time into this game. It'll probably be in the same boat as the Quake 4 achievements, and the Dead or Alive SS rank achievement.

This week, Assault Heroes achieved 'XBLA Hit' status. This means a reduction in price, from 800MSPs to 400MSPs. This was probably the first XBLA game I ever played the demo of, so I took the demo for a spin again, then purchased it. On my first ever run through, I managed to get to the final boss (but died, unfortunately). I'll come back for the achievements to this game at some later date, but it is a fun game =D

Some more Def Jam: ICON boosting this week - mainly just the online wins. It didnt take that long to boost with Zachsp8 10k for the 200 wins - but at 100GS for that achievement, it was worth going for. I could still try the career mode on this game, but I'd rather send it back to LoveFilm.

I finished the story mode on Looney Tunes: AA (EUR) - it was relatively simple. I also got the level 12 combo achievement (which is apparently one of the hardest). The achievements left involve beating the par times on the races, collecting tropies, playing co-op offline, and some online co-op. But like Def Jam, I'd like to send this back to LoveFilm.

GamerScore:	81006 -> 82246
Zone:	Pro

Completed XBLA:	18 / 51
Completed Retail:	38 / 186
GS Completion %:	41.28% -> 41.62%

Country Rank:	109 -> 106
World Rank:	758 -> 735
Completion Rank:	1,866 -> 1,767

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