Would You be my Rival? / An Afternoon in the Dying West

Would You be my Rival?

I came to the realization last night that I'm starving for achievement rivals. You know, the people you engage in friendly trash talking with, and regular banter about who has more points in what games. Bishop and Silva would be perfect if my score was closer to theirs, but they're both 30-40k ahead of me... so that won't be a friendly "rivalry" any time soon. MR BLACKMAGIC on my friends list has potential, as he's one of the few people in the state of Minnesota with a higher gamerscore, but again, 30k difference, and we almost never talk. Ducky x360a used to be a great one. Back when we did our first GSL, our gamerscores were both 20-25k. We stayed close for a long time, then I opened up a 42k+ lead on him. He needs to kick as in x360a's GSL to make things remotely interesting again. Derek or Buck? I passed them a while back, and neither is on much.

Xylofreak03 is my Obi-Wan Kenobi... my only hope for a good rivalry. We trash talk periodically. He vows to catch my gamerscore. I tell him to keep dreaming. He's only 8k behind me. So, I do have one friend who is legitimately interesting to track from a "rivalry" standpoint. I could use a few others.

Do you have a gamerscore in the universe of 140,000? (Not many do, let's just be honest with ourselves) If not, do you think you have a realistic shot at catching me? Want to see who can hit a milestone first? Who can be better than who at a specific game or genre? I'm receptive to "rivalry" ideas. It's been too long since I've had 3-4 people whose cards I routinely checked. Existing friends of mine are free to tell me how we are in fact "rivals." Hope to hear back from you and get the smack talk rolling!

An Afternoon in the Dying West

I've been pogo-sticking through my collection of games lately, playing whatever I feel like playing more than sticking to a set few. The two games that have benefitted from this approach to gaming, Record of Agarest War and Read Dead Redemption, are both games that are challenging and time consuming to complete, but would make impressive completions on my card. In Red Dead, I have about 27 hours total playtime, so I will be updating Raptr with that game once Dragon Age is finally correct.

My personal play style for Red Dead has been to focus on the story first, and handle all the activities second. While I have allowed myself to get distracted from time to time with the stranger missions, it's mostly been off on one mission after another. I've loved it overall, but I think I agree with the reviews I've read that say the Mexican civil war aspect of the story drags on too long and isn't as interesting as it could be. John Marston allows himself to be errand boy for far too long before a nugget of information for his primary quest shows up.

Yesterday was a productive day in Red Dead, with over a dozen story missions completed. After looking at the achievement guide again on x360a, I'm feeling the glimmer of hope that I may actually complete this game, but I have some questions:

Who wants to help boost 3 straight FFA wins?
Who wants in on some Advanced Co-Op missions?
Who else is getting the Legends and Killers DLC?
How will I manage the 8-player posse?