25th August: GS Update

Ahaha! I am back! *BIG FANFARE* No really, its all about the gaming.

Are you ready for a recap? I know I am! Giddyup: If your Xbox is depressed, try playing seven days in a row like borandi did last week. It has a way of making you a bit giddy... The gamerscore increase was just insane. I didn't think it would be possible to get 1730 points in such a short span of time but we did. Who knew 209 achievements could be worth that much? Ok I knew that...

For the record, we played 11 new games over the last week. They were Beijing 2008, Braid, Bully Scholarship Ed., ET: QUAKE Wars, Fable® II Pub Games, Guitar Hero: Aerosmith, NFL Tour, SEGA Superstars Tennis, SOULCALIBUR, Summer Athletics, and Universe at War. They were all fun... in their own little ways. Also, I think we can all agree that borandi's favorite game last week was ET: QUAKE Wars. He played it on 3 of the days.

Lots of games played - some completed, some bought, some traded, some rented. Some fun, others not so much. Let me explain...

SOULCALIBUR 0 -> 200 of 200 12 of 12 Achievements I've got the original in the Soul Calibur series (Soul Blade, PSX), and even though I'm not too keen on fighting games, the Soul series is the best. Though this XBLA version is a cut down copy of what was originally released - campaign mode has been cut. That was the best bit!!! But I heard this was some easy GS, so I got it and completed it. With the x360a guide, it was a cinch. Easy stuff. Game Complete!

Unreal Tournament® 3 0 -> 290 of 1000 12 of 50 Achievements I had some HMV credit and had two options - wait a little while and get Too Human (where the demo was OK), or get UT3 which I know would be a little grindy but FPS fun. Well I got UT3 :) My brother and I blitzed the campaign mode in co-op, and I done a little in multiplayer. What's best is me + 15 easy bots, hyperspeed, small map, automatic weapons. There's a reason I got 457 kills in 20 minutes, 380 ahead of 2nd place :)

NBA 2K8 0 -> 210 of 1000 12 of 50 Achievements I bought NBA 2k8 and NHL 2k8 from Gamestation a couple of days ago in the 2 for 20 range - bargain!!! So I got the easy achievements out of the way - 15 three pointers, 60 points in the paint, etc. The achs are almost identical to NBA 2k7, so we'll see how it goes. The hardest part is the blocks, which I'm working on.

Guitar Hero III 430 -> 455 of 1000 40 of 59 Achievements Only one achievement of note on GH3 - the 250k notes hit in career. It came randomly, during a track which I failed - so even failed tracks count. I'm on my way to getting the 100mil total score and the $300k total across career.

Rock Band 245 -> 265 of 1000 14 of 50 Achievements Not much to report on Rock Band - I got the Jet by doing Expert Guitar/Easy Vocals myself. However, my brother came over this bank holiday so we could go after the Endless Setlist (he can do expert bass, I've done expert guitar). We got upto the PR Firm, and we need another 200 stars to get into the Hall of Fame, then another 300 stars to get to the setlist (or something like that). Anyway he'll be back late September, so I'm hoping to get some more achs then.

The Simpsons™ Game 75 -> 185 of 1000 14 of 44 Achievements It looks like a lot of people have the full 1k in The Simpsons Game, so I bought it to spend some time on it. I've only played a little so far, but I'm well on the way to completing the story mode. Will get back to you when I do!

WCP All In 0 -> 10 of 1000 1 of 39 Achievements My brother bought this game, so while he was here we popped it in and I got the achievement for playing a year of career mode. This meant skipping 52 weeks. Easy GS, though the game could look better. I'll borrow this off him and play it more some other time.

Fable® II Pub Games 200 of 200 11 of 12 Achievements I've never played the original Fable. But apparently I missed out. Like I should be put in front of a firing squad sort of missed out. So in order to get into the mood, I got the Pub Games, an XBLA game so people can try and get gold for their character in the main game before it comes out. Or, they could put their character in debt. Either way, the Pub Games consist of 3 games of chance, and a myriad of easy achievements if you've got a turbo pad. Seriously, for most of them, hold down A and bet away! Eventually, some skill is required, like the 'get a jackpot on each game' achievements. THe only one that was hard was the Keystone jackpot, which took 4 hours to get. I haven't completed it yet - still one achievement related to linking the game to a Fable 2 character. I'll get that soon when the game comes out :)

Beijing 2008 0 -> 300 of 1000 15 of 50 Achievements I traded in a load (about 8) DS games for some credit, and with it I got Beijing 2008, Bully and The Simpsons. As a fan of Olympic style games, I was wanting to love Beijing. After playing it, yeah I like it, but the developers could have done it in a much nicer way. There are lots of events, but the control system is terrible, and the starting system in races is poor. The achievements are really hard (as in you need a perfect to get them) and they really could have looked at older track and field type games and thought 'what could we improve' rather than 'what could we screw up'. Wait until its a tenner, then buy it. A borandi top tip!

skate. 170 -> 390 of 1000 20 of 44 Achievements I decided the other day to go take the task of getting all the games from my MGC.net profile, and get them 'above average' GS. Well skate. was the closest game which I own, so I went online. The easiest achievements seemed to be the online ones - get 600EXP in trick events and 600EXP in races. I was already 300/300, but it took 4 or so hours to play ~60 events to get 600/600. Though to be honest, it was fun. It's a shame single player mode is bit gay (but the control system is nice).

Devil May Cry 4 0 -> 20 of 1000 2 of 46 Achievements DMC4 is supposedly a great game worth playing. Well I got it from LoveFilm, and I find it a bit meh. Most of the game is unlocked as you play (so it's not pick up and play), and generally requires 3 or 4 playthroughs. Each playthough is ~21 stages, each 10-20 minutes long. Well, I have a thing against games with those long stages if you can't save in the middle. It's a hack and slash type game revolving around stylistic fighting with a theme towards the dark and dreary. Maybe I just need to play it more - I'm upto stage 5.

Braid 0 -> 80 of 200 7 of 12 Achievements Braid has been the centre of some controversy in the XBLA market. Some people hate games that cost 1200 MSPs (like Braid) purely based on price. Others say it's too short. The rest say its a pure masterpiece and worth every penny. Overall, the game lasts 4-5 hours and is a brilliantly made 2D platformer that is visually stunning as well as innovative to the genre. 1200MSPs = ~$10 for 4 hours play? That's a bargain compared to going to see a film. Try the demo, make up your own decision. I love it.

SEGA Superstars Tennis 0 -> 290 of 1000 16 of 45 Achievements This game has been out a while, so I was glad to get it for 15GBP from GAME. It's a brilliant tennis game mixed with every fabulous SEGA franchise under the sun - Jet Set Radio, Channel 5... all with real tennis and real minigames. A great game in single player, and superb for versus mode.

Summer Athletics 0 -> 1000 of 1000 37 of 37 Achievements After Beijing being a little disappointing, I was glad to hear that Summer Athletics' achievements would be a lot easier. Well, suffice to say, they were. As a vet of these type of games, this was easy, though some people over at x360a are having problems. Using the x360a guide (and helping add to it a little), the achievements fell. Overall, the game is lower quality than Beijing and could seriously take some hints. I'd suggest people buy Beijing over this. However, Game Complete!

Bully Scholarship Ed. 0 -> 150 of 1000 7 of 38 Achievements Bully is a game I've been wanting to play for ages - if not just for the 'Kiss 20 boys' achievement. It's been out on the PS2 a while, and came to the 360 (with some extras) about 5 months ago. I found a copy cheap, and it's a brilliant game. Rockstar have excelled themselves again, and I should really play this more. BRB...

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 ;)