1st September: GS Update

From my 360voice today:

borandi had to choose between watching TV and playing with me and I am happy to say I won... this time... Gamerscore is at 44,769 points. That is a gain of 165 points over last time! He rocked out to Pocketbike Racer gaining an amazing 8 achievements, Transformers: The Game finishing an amazing 11 achievements, Guitar Hero II gaining 1 achievement, and then it felt like he threw my controller and I was like, TAKE IT EASY SHEESH and we stopped.

Now for the gaming:

Guitar Hero II	470 -> 480 of 1000 32 of 50 Achievements
Blue Dragon	10 -> 15 of 1000 3 of 43 Achievements
Transformers: The Game	0 -> 155 of 1000 11 of 42 Achievements
Pocketbike Racer	125 of 200 8 of 12 Achievements
Bomberman LIVE	60 of 200 5 of 12 Achievements

I finished all the extra songs on GH2 (the ones you buy from the shop) for that achievement, and continued on with HARD mode. Finally beat the song that was driving me mad yesterday, and now I'm 19/48 in hard mode.

I decided to keep a save of Blue Dragon at the caravan bit, and continue on the story. 20 hours in and now on the 2nd disc - story is just getting better and better! I did a button bashing achievement for 5GS, and left another save at where I thought was another achievement. I'm expecting another 30hrs+ on this, and another playthrough (with a guide).

I rented Transformers for a couple of days. What a load of shit! Example - aiming device is always in your line of sight, often obscuring stuff, and you cant make it transparent (lack of options in the game). Levels and missions are poorly planned out; driving controls are poor and loose; story mode is crap. I got the easy achievements - that's all it's good for.

I continued with the GP races with Pocketbike Racer. Slowly but surely.

Same thing with Bomberman LIVE and costume balls.

GS: 44,574 -> 44,774

Completed XBLA:	10 / 27
Completed Retail:	21 / 98
GS Completion %:	40.87%
GS % (Non-Demo):	44.02%

Country Rank:	316/209641
World Rank:	1994/1526614

My profile is back in the UK region. Top 350 sounds nice :)

8th August: GS Update

Long time since an update. Well there is news! I have acquired a US 360 in my travels into the United States, and with this gives the benefits of playing the US only, region locked games, as well as importing those releases that take a while to get to Europe. Go me!

I bought 5 games while in the US - Cabela's African Safari, Cabela's Alaskan Safari, College Hoops 2006, NCAA Football 2007, Major League Baseball 2k6. There are around 15 on the US only region locked list, and I'm sure there will be more in the future.

So on with the sporadic gamage these past few weeks!

NCAA® Football 07	345 of 1000 23 of 50 Achievements
Call Of Duty 3	150 of 1000 7 of 26 Achievements
Sonic The Hedgehog	200 of 200 12 of 12 Achievements
Big Bumpin	30 of 200 2 of 12 Achievements
Boom Boom Rocket	100 of 200 9 of 12 Achievements
Pocketbike Racer	125 of 200 8 of 12 Achievements
Sneak King	25 of 200 3 of 12 Achievements
Golden Axe	190 of 200 11 of 12 Achievements
Carcassonne	125 of 200 9 of 12 Achievements

One of my new games, as mentioned, is NCAA Football 07. Finally I'll be able to get that last achievement for Madden 07 :) The NCAA version itself is not bad - it's a cut down version of Madden (i.e. without names) but includes all the college stadia, and the different college version of Franchise mode. A360P rates the achievements for this game a 7/10, but I think that's because one of the achievements is 'Sim 60 years of Dynasty Mode', which according to the FAQ, takes 8 hours. OUCH.

Call of Duty 3 is still a bad game with the joypad. Did some online multiplayer, nothing too stressful.

Sonic the Hedgehog is an all-time, classic, retro game. Get it now!!!! :D This is the original Master System game, which I remember taking me around 4 hours to complete when I was 5. So I was happy to get the 'complete in 40 minutes' achievement! The time trial achieves took some practice, and the 'complete without dying' achievement requires extensive use of the new save function <3. style="font-style: italic;">that bad. It's what you'd expect from BK. Sneak King is the only one that seems like it will take a while, though one of the Big Bumpin achievements didn't unlock when I should have got it. I'll play these at some later date with severe intention in getting these achieves.

Boom Boom Rocket is like crack - so fun to pick up and play :p

Golden Axe is another awesome retro game, although it's very short. Still need the complete online achieve, but the rest were fairly easy except the 'complete in one continue' achievement - it required constant saving, then reloading if I lost health. The final boss took 20 units of health, so be careful.

I played Carcassonne so long ago, I can't remember what happened the last time I played it!

GS: 37,634 -> 39,029

You may notice below that my country rank has dropped, and the amount of people in the UK has risen by 600,000. This is not true, just a side effect from playing a 360 in the US. It'll all be sorted out soon :)

Completed XBLA:	8 / 23
Completed Retail:	17 / 86
GS Completion %:	40.43%
GS % (Non-Demo):	43.90%

Country Rank:	1534/828821
World Rank:	2750/1502797