2nd March: GS Update

An up and some week with a myriad of games and gamerscore.

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 77,026. That is a gain of 80 points over last time! That was enough to cross the 77,000 mark! Good stuff! He rallied Guitar Hero III, Poker Smash adding 2 achievements, Undertow, Two Worlds, Mass Effect acquiring 2 achievements, and after we were done, borandi hugged me with his eyes. It was one of those platonic hugs... you know...

Oh and it is time for a gamerscore challenge update... listen up... If you are curious, follow along over here. 4 other people are also involved... which is madness. Currently borandi is holding the number 3 spot in the group... decent. And while we have 5 days left, let's not procrastinate. Pick up that controller and get to unlockin'!

On the bright side, I ordered 6 Xbox Live 2100 Microsoft points cards this week, at the fantastic reduced price of 12.97GBP each. They normally sell for 16.99/17.50 each, so I thought this was a bargain =D Hopefully I'll be able to stockpile on some easy XBLA games and get some that I've always wanted.
On the flip side, I was expecting Kingdom Under Fire from my LoveFilm subscription. Instead, they decide to send me the ~30th game on my list - Superman Returns.

And the gamerage this week consists of:

PES2008	55 -> 130 of 1000 5 of 28 Achievements
Guitar Hero III	285 -> 295 of 1000 31 of 59 Achievements
NBA 2K7	545 -> 655 of 1000 33 of 50 Achievements
Mass Effect	210 -> 270 of 1000 13 of 45 Achievements
Poker Smash	40 -> 70 of 200 5 of 12 Achievements
WARRIORS OROCHI	110 -> 140 of 1000 6 of 29 Achievements
Eragon	540 -> 660 of 1000 27 of 37 Achievements
Superman Returns	360 -> 1000 of 1000 18 of 18 Achievements
Rapala Tournament	40 -> 90 of 1000 3 of 30 Achievements

PES2008 should be an easy 1000. Apparently, according to online forums, we're looking at around 150 hours or so. The main achievement requires 500 games worth, plus some online bits. At 5 minutes minimum a game, thats some serious time. On the other hand, I did 8 or so games of the first league. That netted be 10 straight wins and the 100 goals achievement.

Looking at my GH3 achievements, I realised I'd missed an obvious one - 5 star all songs in all easy songs. Turns out I needed to do that final Slayer song. Also, that annoying fact that it didnt award me the lefty/righty achievement when I was working on it last.

I last played NBA 2k7 in July 2007. The main problem I was having then was that it was almost impossible to block a CPU team. However, this time, I was able to get most of the online achievements. All that's left on that front is the 10/20 wins online, which shouldnt take much time. I just need an easier way to get blocks.

I also continued doing some Mass Effect. I'm now on Ilos, and finished the Paramour achievement. Level 34, on easy. Died once on Matriarch Benezia, but kept it together. I'm still plotting my next two playthroughs of this - currently on 20 hours and in the last dungeon, so it shouldn't take longer than Blue Dragon for the full 1000GS.

I went out of my way to get two Poker Smash achievements - the 'triple smash', and the conservative 'get to level 7 using only triples' achievements. Both were relatively easy - I did get slightly annoyed with that last one, as I got to the end of level 6 and bodged the last triple with a full house. But within 20 minutes, it was done =D

Warriors Orochi is still getting the grinding done - now more than 40 levels of abilities. Havn't really tried going to complete the story modes yet, as I got my ass handed to me last time.

I still cant stand Eragon. Maybe 3 or 4 levels at a time until it gets done. And when it's done, I'd like to get rid of it. Bleh.

Ah, this weeks annoying rental - Superman Returns. Last time I played it, I complained that the story mode didnt go as fast as I wanted. This time, I spent 60 minutes on my save file and I'd completed the story mode. Nice and easy. I then worked on the Bizarro minigames, which did somewhat annoy me when the controller would not pick up the combo I was doing (RB, X+A) and decided to pick up something else (X+A) which wasted time. The 100 kittens took two hours, and that left me with 10000 miles, 12 hours, and 10000 tons needed. I used my girlfriends hair band to hold RB and one of the analog sticks, and left the Xbox on overnight (~10 hrs). When I came back to check, I'd done 19hrs total and 10500 miles. I restarted a new game and went to WarWorlds to pick up the big apartment type buildings for an hour to get the 10000 tons achievement. It needed 300 pick ups of those big things. Ah well, now I can send this game back. I wonder what they'll send me next. Game Complete!

Rapala is still fun ;) I managed to finish the first tournament - quite comfortably. The second lake challenge was quite easy - I just kept casting where I started, and five pike later, I ended the day around 30lbs ahead of the competition. I also emailed Activision Value, the company that produces this game. Why? Well, achievements are glitched. The max GS on this game is 720. So they should either a) fix it, or b) reduce the maximum. So get on with it already.

GamerScore:	76106 -> 77231
Zone:	Pro

Completed XBLA:	16 / 45
Completed Retail:	36 -> 37 / 180
GS Completion %:	40.0640.63%

Country Rank:	120 -> 123
World Rank:	813 -> 801
Completion Rank:	2,125 -> 2,001

27th May: GS Update (2)

I've now done Bomberman: Act Zero single player =D The trick is to stay alive until level 20, where I got about 15 lives in that level alone. Then keep plugging away, and every 15-20 or so levels you can get another 15 lives. Most of the levels I went through, I had block pass, bomb pass, blast through wall bombs, infinite bombs, line bombs. Get an enemy in a corner by doing a line bomb up and across from the middle of the level, and it gets them every time. I was able to do the 100 levels in 100 minutes, thus got those achievements as well. What annoyed me however, was that after 100 floors, I still did not have the second bomb placement achievement - 10000 bombs set. Note, that one achievement to this game is 1,000,000 bombs placed, and 1,000,000 blocks destroyed. There's a reason why no-one has these achievements =P.

I started Lego Star Wars II this week. Its a fun game, dont get me wrong. But it does get boring after the first two stages. Its just the same thing over and over - run through the level trying to pick up studs (cash) and kill everything you come across. Achievements for this game involve completing each chapter, doing each level without dying, getting all the special pickups and buying everything from the shop. According to online forums, this is about 20 hours work if you're good, but I'm bored after an hour. Bleh.

I rented out Superman Returns this week. I'd played the demo, and thought it was alright for a Superman game. It's what you'd expect - fly around really fast beating the snot out of everything. In the full game, this is fun for about two hours. Then you realise that all you're doing is boring missions until you've enough experience to go up a level, then something story related happens. Each mini mission can take 5 minutes at most, and you have about 7-15 to do to get up a level. Boooorrrriing!!! Also some of the acheivements are annoying - complete all minigames, save 100 kittens, fly for 10,000 miles. According to online forums, a decent play through the main story line nets you 2000 miles, and the only way to get the rest was to use an elastic band on the controller overnight. Bleh!

Pirates of the Caribbean: At Worlds End is another rental. I played the demo, thought it was OK. Saw that Blockbuster had this in stock, so picked up a copy. It's a good, linear game. Easy enough to do the stages, but the achievements require some proper searching around the levels or planning in order to get. Thankfully there are now guides popping up over achievement forums =D I didnt have enough time to play this thoroughly though, so I'll rent it out again at some point.

NBA Street Homecourt - rental. I'd seen a few people from my friends list who were in the US play this, so I thought I'd pick it up. Quite honestly, it's the best NBA game on the market for gameplay. The weird querks, like stylish dunks and so forth, make this game fun. Being able to go up for a dunk after launching off someones back and ending up with a triple dunk after perfectly holding down the button for a given time gives a sense of achievement =D Speaking of achievements, 10 hours netted me the lot. Go through career mode with one player, then half way through with another. In total, about 120 games of basketball. Length of each game depends on your squad and skills and what sort of game it is (dunks only to 7, any shot to 11, gamebreaker to 3, first team to lead by 5 points, etc.). Then find a buddy for the win 10 online in a row. NBA Street Homecourt is a great game if you love basketball. And acheivements.

Helped a friend so a lot of achievements co-op style on Crackdown, and let him see what the extra DLC was like. Got the repo 100 cars in the process. Also found a few orbs, so now I have 450 agility without using a guide =D Also working through the time trial psychotic achievements - done Los Muertos and Volk, now Shai-gen left. The Volk boss took me 15 minutes, so I'm dreading the Shai-gen boss. Co-op anyone?





Initialised these games after playing around with http://my360stats.com - nothing I tried to do worked :S Though I did the online achievements for 3D Ultra Minigolf to get 200/200 on it.

Another rental - Brian Lara's ICC 2007. What a bitch of a game. It's a gret cricket game as cricket games go, but the achievements are wild. 6 4's in an over, 6 6's in an over, 200 runs with one person, 200 runs in a one day international etc. You can't do them in two player. The game gives you cheats to help you play the game, but you cant get achievements with them enabled. I was getting frustrated at the fact that according to all the ingame monitors, I'd timed the stroke right, I was the right distance away, I'd stuck the ball into the emptiest part of the field I could find, and yet it'd just go high and I'll get caught out. Gah.

EA, you are stupid pieces of shite. UEFA Champions League (rental) is a shit game. No tutorial mode to let you get used to the game, and this combined with the fact that the controls to this game are 75% different to every other single football game on the market leaves a lot to be desired. It's a load of shit, and EA needs a big kick up the arse. Stop releasing games early. Stop releasing games with bugs and glitches. Listen to your fanbase, get your head out of your arse. You ARE capable of releasing bug free games (The Sims), and some of them good (Madden). So why do you insist on releasing this horseshit?

/rant over.

So a nice enough week in all.

GS: 26660 -> 29560

ICC Cricket 2007: 0 -> 155
NBA STREET Homecourt: 0 -> 1000
At World’s End: 0 -> 125
Superman Returns: 0 -> 360
LEGO Star Wars II: 0 -> 70
BOMBERMAN Act:Zero: 15 -> 250
Football Manager 2006: 85 -> 320
Full Auto: 235 -> 335
American Wasteland: 0 -> 570
Crackdown: 740 -> 750

Completed XBLA:	7 / 19
Completed Retail:	17 / 55
GS Completion %:	44.82%
GS % (Non-Demo):	49.64%

Country Rank:	798/135815
World Rank:	4450/1137473