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

30th August: GS Update

From my 360voice today:

When borandi was walking by I pretended to be off. I think it tricked him into turning me on for a few games. Gamer score stands at 44,493. That is a boost of 179 points over last time! He rocked out to Streets of Rage 2 adding an amazing 8 achievements, Blue Dragon, Saints Row, Puzzle Fighter HD finishing 5 achievements, and then the lightweight went to bed. Freakin' wuss.

LoL! And onto the games I played these past few days:

Guitar Hero II	430 -> 470 of 1000 31 of 50 Achievements
Puzzle Fighter HD	0 -> 120 of 200 9 of 12 Achievements
Spider-Man 3	50 of 1000 4 of 43 Achievements
Saints Row	110 of 1000 10 of 43 Achievements
Blue Dragon	10 of 1000 2 of 43 Achievements
Streets of Rage 2	130 of 200 8 of 12 Achievements
MotoGP 06	0 of 1000 0 of 24 Achievements

I managed to get through and complete EASY on GH2, as well as get all 5 star. Very boring, but now onto HARD mode. I've got 3/48 tracks done there, so some grinding is needed :)

I picked up Puzzle Fighter HD from the marketplace on wednesday - the demo seemed ok and I had a friend to boost on the online achievements. Most of them are easy (due to unlimited continues) and if you pile up alternate sides of the screen each round. The '25 block' achievement gave me a headache (and a sore toe as I threw my controller to the floor in anger and missed) for a good half-hour, but I've only 3 achievements left - 'complete arcade without a continue' (could be hard) and '5x combo', '7x combo' (which are nearly impossible). It's a nice puzzle game for the 360, but there are better games on XBLA worth their 800 MSPs.

I received my winning copy of Spiderman 3 through the mail on wednesday too - and played it a little. I'm going to need a session and a guide to do these achievements (as well as a tranquiliser... probably), which I may attempt in the near future.

More Saints Row done (though no achievements) - its nice and easy-ish so far, but sometimes the damage factor gets raised 1000x for a couple of seconds, resulting in death by those 4 Los Carnales on my tail. Bastards.

I'm at a point in Blue Dragon where I have to protect a couple of carts from monsters. If I manage it without any damage to the carts, I get an achievement and 30GS. The only problem is, it's f**king hard to not get hit. Monsters appear in the same spots everytime, however, up to 3 appear at once, often far away from each other, and the monster circle attack (right trigger) doesn't always pick the bastards up as they spawn. I spent a good 30 mins on it last night, and got quite distraught.

I also got Streets of Rage 2 on the marketplace. A retro game from yesteryear, vastly improved by the save function! I got most of the achievements, including the 'complete without using a continue' and 'complete without a special attack' (do it on very easy settings :p). I'm just lacking the 10 wins online and the two achievements for HARD difficulty - which sound very, very hard.

Moto GP 06 is an annoying game. While my UK 360 is at the cleaners, I'm limited to driving games it seems, thus I took Moto out of it's shrink wrap and stuck it in. First corner, and I'm flying off the track. It seems that every corner requires a maximum of 4mph to go around it, and the controls vary from corner to corner - sometimes too responsive, other times like steering in treacle. It's a WTF situation, and it pissed me off. I can see why it didnt sell too many copies.

GS: 44,314 -> 44,574

Completed XBLA:	10 / 27
Completed Retail:	21 / 97
GS Completion %:	41.09%
GS % (Non-Demo):	44.29%

Country Rank:	1149/840261
World Rank:	1993/1524920

Good News Part 1: I won a game!

Well I woke up this morning to find the following email from a moderator at xbl10club:

Congratulations you have won a brand new copy of Spider man 3 for the Xbox 360. To claim your prize simply reply to this e-mail with your shipping information. Please check back with us as we are drawing very near our Grand Prize giveaway. Thank you for your support.

I was amazed to see this - I'd entered the contest just for the hell of it, and I've only been a member for around 5 to 7 days. Result!

Shame it wasn't GTA 4, or some MS Points really :p

11th June: GS Update

EA blows. Make a f*cking good football game, would ya?

Forza Motorsport 2	0 -> 50 of 1000 8 of 44 Achievements
Spider-Man 3	0 -> 50 of 1000 4 of 43 Achievements
FIFA 07	0 of 1000 0 of 11 Achievements
LEGO Star Wars II	250 of 1000 7 of 29 Achievements
UNO	200 of 200 12 of 12 Achievements
Shadowrun	60 -> 70 of 1000 7 of 50 Achievements

Forza 2 is a great driving game. It's joined TDU as one of my all time favourite car racing games. So far I'm in Career mode, and the ability to get another driver to drive your car for you is a great idea =D I'm only playing it on the easy settings, but to be able to get most of the achievements this way is great, as I generally suck at racing games! I've done about 80% of my races legit, with the others being when I'm going to the bathroom etc. I've done a couple of personal designs, but nothing major to shout about. Well I rented it at 5:30pm, and its 2am now and I'm still playing it - it's that good!

I rented Spiderman 3 again. I thought I'd spoken about it before, but I cant find it in my blog. Well all in all it is a poor game. Too much 'roaming' for missions, not enough linear action. All there is to do outside the main game is little bouts, and nothing on the scale of GTA or Saint's Row. The achievements are somewhat annoying for doing silly things like stopping bank raids or collecting items and so forth. They could have made this game great, like the original Spiderman on the PSX, but they didnt - and I'm giving it a thumbs down.

Fifa 07 is another shoddy release by EA. Why oh why can they not take a leaf out of PES and design something half decent. Fifa 07 is just as shite as UEFA CL. Also, their latest update does not allow you to sim the manager mode for the manager achievement. The controls are sloppy, and even on easy, you get tackled every 10 seconds by six players that come out of nowhere. Any straight line run gets cut down, and any shot on goal held for more than a blink of an eye goes wide. Yet the CPU scores almost every shot.
There is no training mode, like UEFA CL. So if you can't get into the controls, you dont have a flying fig newtons' chance of going anywhere.
EA, stop producing this mass shit, and get some real programming done. Do some f*cking market research and stop relying on the licences to sell games. PES6 blows you out of the water. FACT.

Lego Star Wars II is still a game I'm plugging at. I've just bought the x2 score multiplier while going after some gold bricks, so I'll get the Ben Kenobi ghost soon for some non-death achievements. Still a way to go though, only 43% complete so far.

I ran Uno so it would show up on my http://my360stats.com page. If you haven't got one, it's a great site to monitor your stuff.

Shadowrun was fun when I rented it, but online can be a nightmare if you're on a crappy team who don't know what they're doing. All in all it is an ok game, but without the global stats like on BF:MC I'm sure it'll die quickly and out of view. Dont get me wrong, it's fun for a few hours. But I ended up starting each round getting the same sort of things - resurrect, wired reflexes, then a third optional skill. The gusty ability does seem a bit pants to me. If I get the game, I'll probably get it on PC as I'm better with the mouse and keyboard for this sort of game.

Overall, GS: 32865 -> 32945

Completed XBLA:	7 / 20
Completed Retail:	17 / 67
GS Completion %:	42.03%
GS % (Non-Demo):	45.92%

Country Rank:	598/149865
World Rank:	3361/1152672