ThrawnOmega's Blog on the Gaming Life

The Blog Has MOVED!!!

2011-04-18T15:58:00.000-05:00

The blogger chapter of ThrawnOmega's blog has come to a close, but the good times are far from over. This blog is pulling up stakes and going over to Wordpress. I'm doing this for a few reasons:

1. Easier to customize the look and more options.
2. Can set up auto-tweets for when I post (need to do that yet).
3. Easier to add media (pics, video, etc) to posts.
4. Better dashboard.
5. I like the stats page better.

Please update your subscriptions, bookmarks, feeds, etc. as needed. The new site is easy enough to remember... as it's http://thrawnomega.com. Seriously, you can't mess that up.

Best of all, NOTHING will be lost in translation (except maybe my hit counter). All 300+ posts have been ported over, so you can continue to read or reread favorite posts, or anything in the back catalogue. As always, thanks for sticking around and enjoying games as much as I do. Plenty more to come!

It'll Be A Grind! Surprise?

2011-04-06T18:49:00.000-05:00

I've heard a lot of good things about Dynasty Warriors 7, so I took the plunge and picked it up, despite nightmares of Orochi 2 grinding and the fact that I didn't really like DW6, despite the fact that I'm a big fan of the series.

DW7 is, thankfully, far better than the last installment. The gameplay feels more old-school, along the lines of DW4 or 5. I like that characters can use two different weapons, as this has allowed me to use alternatives for characters whose main weapons I don't like (like the fan). The new story mode structure is a welcome change, though Conquest mode has held almost all of my attention so far. It's cool to choose the order you do battles as you progress across a sprawling map of China.

The one thing that hasn't changed, however, is how time-consuming the achievements are. With the new uber-easy "Beginner" difficulty, 1k-ing this game looks to be utterly simplicity, if you're willing to invest the time. (Note: I'm not stooping to playing on Beginner until it's hyper grinding time)

What makes this game take so long? Well, you have to beat every character's legendary battles in conquest mode to unlock them as a playable character, and unlock one of their wallpapers. That's not so bad since you need to clear every stage for another achievement anyway. However, you must also make every character your sworn ally, which involves helping them across a few missions before they'll join you. With that done, you then have to max out their bond with you for an achievement and some of their voice data for another. That means using each officer again for multiple battles (I did find a level that can be consistently done in under 1 minute, which will speed along THAT grinding session).

The last voice data comes from unlocking all the skills for a character, and this has to be done with every character. This can only be done by playing as that character and killing officers. WHile there are skills that can speed this along, and it could be combined with leveling up someone's bond, I'm projecting this game in the 60-80 hour completion time range right now. I'm going to do what I can to minimize the grinding time,but we'll see. I love you Dynasty Warriors, but make your achievements more organic and less of a grind...

Thrawn vs. Xylo: March 2011

2011-03-31T17:35:00.000-05:00

Another month gone, and time for another update in the score war. And hey, I actually scored some points this month. Here's how things looked at my last update, on March 1st:

Raw Gamerscore:
Thrawn: 149,254
Xylo: 146,349
Lead: Thrawn by 2,905

TrueAchievements:
TA Totals:
Thrawn: 208,427
Xylo: 215,190
Lead: Xylo by 6,763

And now, for your March 31st standings, as of 5:18pm

Thrawn:152,350
Xylo: 148,704
Lead: Thrawn by 3,646.
Change: Thrawn +741

Really, considering I broke out Backyard Football '10 for a cheap 1,000 points, I have to call Xylo the winner for the month for keeping his lost progress under 1,000 points.

TrueAchievement Numbers:
Thrawn: 212,961 (off 151,960 score)
Xylo: 219,637 (148,704) <-- Xylo's is still accurate
Lead: Xylo by 6,676
Change: Xylo -87

Xylo did lose a little ground in the TA war, but not much. Sad day that I only ate 87 points out of that lead, but oh well. I'm sitting at 940 in Mafia 2, with just 3 achievements left to get until I have the original 1000, and then I'll download and complete one DLC pack at a time to finish the game. It was an interesting month!

Over-Extended

2011-03-30T18:49:00.000-05:00

It feels SO nice to have a day off. Since Saturday, I've worked 47 hours, and I have just today and tomorrow off before I return for another 36 over three days. Not trolling for sympathy here, just stating a fact.

When I have off, I've heaped too many projects upon myself. I'm attempting (not very well) to make a gaming website, I want to launch a podcast, I've resumed working on my novel (which is currently in the planning stages), and two other projects I'm not going to discuss over the internet. I've put too much on myself, and made my back catalogue ever-larger over the last few months.

It's time to refocus.

My novel and the podcast are going to take priority over the site, and I'll fit work into that in when I can. There's only so many hours in a day, unfortunately. Story writing has been my passion since grade school, and I'm determined to get my novel done to prove to myself I can. Right now, I'm using three programs to make it happen: PersonalBrain for universe building and mind-mapping, SplashNotes for plot outlining and structuring, and yWriter5 for the actual composition. I recommend writers check out each of those programs. Together, they've been a big help so far.

One the gaming front, I'm going to attempt something that goes against the grain of my famous game ADD. I'm going to try to buckle down and plow through one or two games at a time until they're maxed out, then continue on. As always, my unfinished back catalogue is frighteningly large, and I want to try to put a dent in that. It's good for my wallet and my completion percentage. I'm playing some Assassin's Creed II now because I rented it, but after that, the first two targets of this focus are going to be Homefront and Mafia II.

With Mafia, the struggle is going to get through how terrible Chapter 14 is. SPOILER ALERT: They make you earn a shit-ton of money to pay off a debt, and there's no fun way to do this. Either rob stores or steal a ton of cars. Both options get boring quickly. Thankfully, Within Temptation released a new album this week, and I plan on using the custom soundtrack feature to listen to it while I grind through this ill-concieved slog.

If you've never heard of Within Temptation, that's too bad for you. Their music is EPIC. Here's a few YouTube links to go educate yourself with, which showcase two of the first three tracks off their new album, The Unforgiving. =) If nothing else, I think my bro will like them, though Within Temptation is MAINSTREAM compared to the stuff he listens to these days. I mean, I purchased my copy from WALMART, who don't have a reputation for the obscure.

Shot In The Dark
Faster

FIRST!

2011-03-14T21:04:00.000-05:00

I'll admit that I'm one of those people who sometimes wants to be the first to complete a game. Most of the time I don't care, but every once in a while I'll get it in my head to chase being the first to complete a game. Now, being listed first on x360a does not necessarily mean I was the first to do so, simply that I was the first to do so and post to the completion club that I had. So, I was the first person who cared enough to finish and be listed in the completion club. For laughs and giggles, I thought I'd showcase my few completion club highlights:

1st to 200 Battle: LA on XBLA
I'll admit, I wanted this 1st, once I saw how easy the achievements were. Completed everything but the last 1/3 of the game on normal. Went to see the movie. Came back and finished the game. Posted for credit.

1st to 1000 Darkest of Days
Aided by a free review copy and the fact nobody cares about this game. I even had to play through twice because I was stupid and still was the first to do it, when others figured out you only needed to play through once, and be smart with saves.

1st to 1000 Jurassic: The Hunted
I love me my dinosaurs, what can I say. My Family Video had this game on release day (to my surprise) and I quickly beasted it out. Again, not a game many people care about.

1 of only 4 to finish Deadly Premonition
I wasn't first or 2nd, but only 4 people have come forward to claim completion in the clubs. Probably because of the suffering involved in completing this wonderfully quirky but mechanically shitty game.

2nd to 1000 Rogue Warrior
Review copy + lack of public interest. See a pattern here? Horrible game. Glad to have the 1k over with.

2nd (of only 7) to 1000 Warriors Orochi 2
Longtime readers may remember my ranting and raving about how much grinding is needed for this 1k. There's a reason only 7 people on x360a have done it.

2nd for the Original 200 in The Maw, and the River Redirect DLC for it
Downloaded the game early on release day morning and plowed through. I think Hayden beat me because I was also writing the achievement guide while I played =)

So, I have 3 x360a firsts under my belt, and 3 seconds. I'm pretty satisfied with that. I don't know when (or if) there will ever be another. I don't look at a game in advance and say "I will be the first to complete it," rather it's just a sudden impulse with some games to see how fast I can chow down on the points. I usually only care about firsts on obscure games or games I don't like. I'd never chase first on a game like Deus Ex when that comes out, as those games I want to take my time with and enjoy the hell out of 'em.

Gaming Overload. Again.

2011-03-13T10:05:00.000-05:00

I've enjoyed the first two of my three days off playing a good amount of video games. In fact, I so over-indulged the last few days that today is the day I now have to get all that "responsible adult" stuff knocked out of the way, unfortunately. On the bright side, it's given me plenty of material for a long-overdue update.

Work has progressed on my gaming site, thegaminglife.org. While it's not a beauty to look at yet, the site is fully functional and has some content on it, at least. If you haven't already seen the review for Battle: Los Angeles, check it out. I also got the forum set up, at tglforum.org. No site gets large (or even medium-sized) overnight, but these moves are steps in the right direction. Bishop has posting access, so future content will be coming from him, as well. Besides cranking out reviews for the games I play, and periodic new pieces, my next major project is to get the Podcast up and running. On the content front, I can't promise new content daily yet, as it's still 99.5% a one-man operation right now.

I've acquired so many games post-tax return, that I could forgo any further purchases for quite a while and still be entertained. For the PS3 I have Killzone 3, Demons's Souls, Cross Edge, Ratchet and Clank, and Resistance. I've recently picked up Mafia II, Torchlight, and Beyond Good and Evil for the 360. Add to this I'm still working Divinity II towards my first RPG completion of 2011, and Bulletstorm, and I have plenty of options to choose from, without dipping into the back-catalouge,which is as large as ever.

Progress is great in Divinity II, but I have to advise anyone playing the game to SAVE OFTEN. I lost 40 minutes of progress yesterday when I got over-confident and then the game surprised me with a tough confrontation. I've logged close to 20 hours in the game thus far, and I earned the "You're Going to Die, Charlie" achievement that's worth a whopping 1 point. It's nice to have a gamerscore that ends in a "normal" 5 or 0 again, so I plan to enjoy it while it lasts. Once I complete the game, my numbers will be broken again. I blame Infinite Undiscovery...

Divinity II's character system is pretty nice. You can pick any ability you want from four different trees (priest, mage, ranger, and warrior), with the only requirement being that you have to meet the base level requirement for an ability to pick it up. My character is primarily a ranger, relying on bow and arrow to take out enemies. I have an explosive arrow ability that can significantly damage or kill whole groups of enemies. From the Warrior tree, I have Reflect, and ability that at is current level reflects back 44% of damage dealt to me back at the enemy, too. From the Mage line I took a powerful fireball spell, and the ability to charm enemies I got from the priest line. I love being able to mix elements from each class archetype.

After breezing through Battle: LA in one afternoon, the supreme easy of that 200 gamerscore awakened in me a need to bust out some easy points. I found a used copy of Backyard Football '10. I completed it in 40 minutes, which I hear is pretty slow on my part. Now I plan to return the game later today. I realize I just "wasted" an acheivement gem for score contests, but I'm pretty retired from that scene. I play the game I want to play now, and go for all the points I can, except for my periodic dips into "easy score land." With those two completions done, I stand at a whopping 2 points thus far in my annual completion challenge. Hardly impressive, but at least they're points on the board.

With all the stuff I have to do today, I probably won't get to working on my overdue Bulletstorm review, so that's likely a project for Thursday. Reviews are also plannet for Torchlight, Beyond Good and Evil, Killzone 3, and Homefront, so content is coming... I just need to sit down and write it all. Can't announce what Bishop's working on yet... mostly cause I don't know. Bishop, join the forum, and I can give you access to the staff board so we can talk shop =)

Okay, enough rambling for one day. Going to watch Netflix for a bit, then dive into the day's work. I really shouldn't save it all for my last day off...

Anarchy Master Made Easy

2011-03-05T16:14:00.000-06:00

Has that achievement for getting 50,000 points in one wave of Anarchy got you down? Well, my brother, Bionik Kommando, and I have discovered an easy way for a 2-person team to reach the gamerscore promised land. And no, it won't have you reviving each other over and over again.

Set up your match for the Grand Central Station map. In the middle of this map is an electrified fountain that awards the "Make a Wish" skill shot. If one player kicks/slides/leashes an enemy into the air, and the other player uses their leash to pull the enemy into the fountain, both players will get the Team Shocker, Team Yoink, and Team Make a Wish skillshots, for a grand total of 425 points PER KILL, times the two of you = 950 points per kill. While this is less than the amount advertised in this guide, this method requires no guns to be purchased, and you don't have to worry about ammo. It's important, of course, to stay on opposite sides of the well, so you can pull enemies across and into the water. Upgrading your leash reuse ability as fast as possible will make this even easier. Combine Whiplashed and Bossed together for a regular 600 points per miniboss. With these two tactics together, and completing the team challenges as they arise, it's quite easy to get 50,000 points on Wave 20.

This may also be the best way to grind experience, as by the end of our run (in which we never failed a wave), Bionik Kommando and I both gained over 200,000 experience. This is a more fun and easy way to get Anarchy Master than relying on the 50 points per revive, so I recommend giving it a shot.

Oh, and give us a shot when the ease of it blows your mind =)

Thrawn vs. Xylo: March 2011

2011-03-01T08:55:00.000-06:00

As I started last month, I shall continue the monthly trend of examining the status of the only fun and currently competitive achievement rivalry I have, that with Xylofreak03. Here were February's numbers:

ThrawnOmega: 147764
Xylofreak03: 144164

Lead: Thrawn by 3,600

Now, let's take a look at the standings for March 1st (8:45am Central):

Thrawn: 149,254
Xylo: 146,349

Lead: Thrawn by 2,905

It was a good month for Xylo, as he shaved nearly 700 points off of my lead. I've decided to also take a look at our comparative True Achievement scores, and that result is more depressing (for me).

TA Totals:
Thrawn: 208,427
Xylo: 215,190
Lead: Xylo by 6,763

So, despite leading by about 3k "real" score, Xylo has almost 7k on me in TA score. While raw score is the official metric I'm using for our rivalry, I'll continue to report the TA score as well, because I know a lot of achievement junkies out there (myself too) find it an interesting statistic. So yes, Xylo, your score has more "nerd cred" lol.

Battle plan for March:
I'm working on finishing Divinity II before the remastered version, with the expansion, comes out. I'm looking at 50+ hours for my remaining 760 or so points, which is hardly lucrative from a score or TA standpoint, but plays into my goal to complete several RPGs this year. Most of my other points will come from Bulletstorm, the PC version of RE5, or Test Drive Unlimited 2, once the patch goes Live (should fix the notorious corrupt save issue). TDU2 is a good game to play to narrow the TA gap, as it's currently worth over 8,000 TA points! I'm planning to get Beyond Good and Evil HD, so there's a possible 200 points there too.

Life After MGC

2011-02-27T17:29:00.000-06:00

With the sad demise of MyGamerCard.net, I find myself wondering if there are any other places out there on the web that offer services similar. Where can I go to replace my now-broken gamercard link on this blog? Where do I find out how I'm doing in the RPG or Shooter genres? It'd be rather hard now to strike up an RPG genre rivalry with DarkTharen, without easy means to track our progress. I'll admit I took MGC for granted, and now that it's gone, I'm not sure how I'll find all that achievement info I loved to look at, or if it's even possible.

I happened to notice that Divinity II: The Dragon Knight Saga finally has a release date for the 360. With that in mind, I've started over on the original version, aiming to have the game complete before the remastered version's April 12th release.

I'm also kicking around thoughts on if I want to attempt another lockdown on buying games until I've finished more of my stuff. I have Dead Space 2 unfinished, Test Drive 2 unfinished (and I won't play it again until the patch lands... my save corrupted and I don't want to risk that again). Plus, who can forget my already massive back catalogue? With Dragon Age 2, Homefront, Crysis 2, and Divinity II: DKS all on the horizon, it'll be hard to say no. But with 1-2 games (minimun) per month coming out that I'd like to buy and often a few more in the want to rent column, I'm going to have to learn to.

Another idea I've had but not committed to is (yet again) trying the Rule of Four.Perhaps tying it into a "no buying" lockdown by saying that if I can complete a set of 4, I can get 1 new game, and then create a new set of 4 to tackle.

For laughs and giggles, we'll call this the "Theoretical Four"
1 - Divinity II
2- Bulletstorm
3- Test Drive Unlimited 2
4- Dead Space 2

Or perhaps I go for a 2-for-1, where I get a new game when I complete to. This mixes things up more, but still slowly shrinks my back catalogue.

Knowimg me, am I likely to actually run with any of these and stick with them? LOL probably not...

A Hail of Bullets

2011-02-23T09:06:00.000-06:00

Tuesday marked the release date of People Can Fly's new game, Bulletstorm. What an awesome day it was. With the exception of some necessary breaks from the game, I played it nearly all day. Here's the skinny so far for those of you who haven't played it much yet.

The campaign does a good job of mixing up the environments, keeping gameplay fresh, which is nice, as the "kill with skill" system can start to feel repetitive in places, so the change in scenery helps. The story is the definition of meh, but I highly doubt anyone plans to pick the game up for the story anyway. As much as the story underwhelms, I do enjoy the banter between characters. Bulletstorm may steal away Rogue Warrior's title for Most Profanities Ever in a game (it'll be close) but at least here they feel natural to the characters, and can be rather amusing.

In the evening, I had the opportunity to play some Anarchy mode with Xylofreak, Sabre, and Bishop. Since success in Anarchy depends so much on teamwork and communication, I'm glad I could play with 3 of the 6 people I game with most on Live (Silva, Bionik Kommanda, and DarkTharen being the other three). We're able to coordinate what we're doing, call out who will do what skill shot, and make sure we're setting things up as a team. Of course, if we're faced with setbacks, we're able to carry on without playing petty blame games or getting frustrated, which can ruin other teams. As a group, we were able to clear all 20 waves, though our 40,500 score on the final wave wasn't good enough for the "Anarchy Master" achievement. We'll get it.

In general, scoring for each wave went in the following order:
1. Bishop
2. Thrawn
3. Sabre
4. Xylo

I may have progressed farthest in the campaign, but Bishop had me beat on point scoring nearly every time, though we were often close. Xylo, despite regularly scoring near the bottom, was a strong team contributor. First off, he'd never played the game before we started Anarchy, nor had he tried the demo. So, he had to pick up everything on the fly, and successfully learned a lot of skill shots quickly. Xylo also had a role in the completion of many of the Team Challenges as we went, so scoring 4th isn't really significant.

I think most of the fun in Anarchy is in how if FORCES teams to communicate and cooperate to succeed. Firefight or Horde can be successfully achieved with much less communication, if everyone knows their roles. Not so in Anarchy. I might use my leash to fling an enemy closer to a man-eating plant, then call out Xlyo to kick or fling him the rest of the way there for the Team Feeder skill shot. We laughed or cheered virtually every time we set up the team Nom Nom Nom skillshot for feeding an enemy to our level's skull dinosaur. It's hard NOT to cheer or laugh when your team succeeds in executing over-the-top kills, and that's the heart of what makes Anarchy fun.

While I don't want leveling to 65 in Anarchy to take forever, I do hope the journey is long enough to provide us plenty of entertainment along the way, and possibly that we'll keep playing it even after we've gotten there. Bishop, Sabre, and Xylo, I had an absolute blast playing with you guys, and hope we're able to do that again soon.

25x a Nerd

2011-02-21T09:42:00.000-06:00

I've decided to have a little fun with tonight's blog post, and do something totally random... list every single reason I can think of that I'm a nerd. The list is going to be extensive, no doubt, and probably make me undatable except for the rarest and most special brand of women out there; the ones who appreciate my off-beat sense of self-depricating humor.

How am I a nerd? Let me count the ways:

1. I'm writing a blog about videogames...
2. My gamerscore is astronomical, and in the top 1,500 in the US, according to MyGamerCard.
3. I have played games like Hannah Montana and My Horse and Me 2 to inflate that gamerscore.
4. I have participated in Gamerscore Leagues, competitions between nerds trying to tack up more video game points than other nerds.
5. For extra bonus points, I once captained a team in such a competition.
6. I was up til 3am on a Saturday night once, boosting the online achievements in Viva Pinata Party Animals... with three other grown men.
7. I have an anime poster in my living room, and an (AWESOME) Aqua Teen Hunger Force rug over my TV.
8. I play World of Warcraft.
9. I did university research about World of Warcraft.
10.I preordered Record of Agarest War.

11. I often play PC games by hooking my laptop up via HDMI to my surround sound system, so I can play games in HD on my TV with great audio. Easy and awesome, but also nerdy.
12. I have a Barnes and Noble membership card.
13. I have read 83 Star Wars novels, and have 2 more waiting to be read. Yes, I took the time to actually count.
14. I have watched every episode (over 200) of Stargate SG-1 and all five seasons of Stargate Atlantis. I own both SG-1 movies.
15. I repurchased both SG-1 movies when Blu-ray versions were cheap enough.
16. I can name every bounty hunter sent after Han Solo in "Empire Strikes Back."
17. I picked up Avatar on Bluray the day it came out... and then later picked up the 3-disc extended version too.
18. I use an iPod Touch as a productivity tool at work. I genuinely appreciate my boss being OK with that.
19. I've read books based on the games Mass Effect, Gears of War, Halo, Resident Evil, Starcraft, Magic: The Gathering, and Splinter Cell. Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six does not count, as the book came before the games.
20. I know what an Otaku is.

21. I've attended a video game convention (PAX rules).
22. My ipod contains more J-punk than probably anyone else in Minnesota. Worst case scenario, I'm top 10.Do yourself a favor and search Garlic Boys on YouTube.
23. I've watched more Dragonball Z than is probably healthy.
24. On the same vein, I've watched every episode of Ah My Goddess and Tenchi Muyo. Oh, and I own all their movies.
25. I co-hosted a gaming podcast, and I'm looking to start another

Podcast Reboot

2011-02-17T12:05:00.000-06:00

Before I get into the meat of this post, let me just announce quick that I've upgraded to a Windows Phone 7 and can now check Live from anywhere... oh, and grab those nifty things called achievements. Still waiting for my phone number to port over, and I haven't been able to get the app marketplace to open up (no idea why), but I was able to watch and episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer via Netflix on my phone, and that was pretty awesome.

IF I can find a solid group of people to work with, I want to start up a podcast again. There are numerous factors that contributed to the short lifespan of the Hand of Thrawn Podcast, and I aim to learn from those mistakes.

What I seek to create is a podcast that has a vibe matching the last section of this blog's title: "The Gaming Life." Games of all genres and platforms are open for discussion. Non-gaming activities that gamers would find interesting are a go. I don't want to box us into the niche of achievement junkies, though of course that will be a part of the show too. And I have some ideas on how to spice things up to make this show different from the other gaming podcasts I've been listening to.

I say IF I can find a group of solid people because, honestly, this won't work as a solo venture, or if I have to do 90% of the work. I need to find people as enthusiastic as I am about the project, willing to put in some hours, and want to make a kick-ass show. These individuals will be valued for their creativity, as well as their ability to accept direction and feedback to keep our show hovering around my overall vision.

What I'm looking for (someone could fill multiple roles, I'm sure I'll be filling some of them as well)

1-2 Charismatic Co-Hosts Talking to myself for an hour or more would make for one boring show. I want 1-2 others who are gamers with a wide range of interests and gaming experiences, who are able to hold a conversation. One of the things that bogged down the HoT Podcast was too many lapses into long silence, where nobody said anything. No offense to anyone, but it made editing a chore, as I'm sure Bishop can attest. We as a group need to be able to keep a conversation flowing for the length of the show, and keep it interesting.

A Sound Guy/Gal Someone able to ensure quality of audio recording, and responsible for necessary editing of podcast, as well as creation of segment soundbites and working on the faux-mercials (explained below)

Website Guru Responsible for creation of website and forum, giving us a platform to interact with our fanbase and provide content beyond just the podcast. We'd work together to flesh out our vision for the site.

Co-Content Creator / Research Monkey Probably a role assigned to one of the co-hosts. Responsible for coming up with content for our regular segments, and keeping up on the happenings of the gaming industry and other areas of interest so we have ample material for discussion.

What's in the show? Well, here's my rough first rendition of some of the features you might see. You'll notice I'm going for a mix of the serious and the random. Not necessarily in order:

1. What we're playing - Pretty standard. Everyone does it. Good conversation starter and no reason NOT to include it.

2. News of the Week - Telling news from the assumption most people have already heard it elsewhere. We're not providing the news, rather commenting upon it.

3. Podcast Reviews, demo impressions, etc.

4. Faux-mercials - Fake commercials indended for humor, sacrasm, or parody. Will take the creative efforts of all of us plus a good sound person to pull these off. I'd like 2-3 per show.

5. The Chrystal Ball - Similar to "Top Analyst" in the CAG-cast, we make predictions for the future, and track how we do.

6. Mailbag - Once we actually have listeners, read out listener mail and answer any questions.

7. Random Nonsense: Any random gaming topic of conversation we come up with. Who would win in a fight between Bowser and Ganondorf? What's the dumbest thing you've seen while playing WoW? Has a game ever made you cry? We'll come up with and discuss random topics that don't fit into the other categories.

Of course, I'm open to other ideas as well.

Interested in helping to build the show? Contact me via email at ntg_to @ yahoo.com (without the spaces), or via xbox live. Let me know what position you're looking for, and how you think you can contribute. We'll go from there. Hopefully, through working my contacts, I can get the right people together to start the new show.

The D20 of FATE

2011-02-13T20:34:00.000-06:00

I hate my game ADD. I really, really do. How I have managed to (barely) keep my completion percentage over 50% I don't know. I marvel at my ability to play and love a game for 10 hours, then suddenly lose interest once the next "Oooh Shiny!" game comes along.

In the last 30 days, I've picked up Dead Space 2, Venetica, Kingdom Under Fire: COD, Test Drive: Unlimited 2 (I need at least 1 good racer in my collection even if I don't usually play the genre) and Stacking off of XBLA. Good news is I'm more balanced now between my MMO play and console gaming. Bad news is I'm not finishing anything. Halfway through Feb almost and I'm not even close to having a completion. Oh, and did I mention I have Bulletstorm pre-ordered?

What I'd ideally like to do is rip through several games in by back catalogue, to build up my "trade in" pile. Then, next time Gamestop is offering sufficient bonus credit, I trade the whole stash to get something else. Say what you will about trading in to Gamestop, they're far more convenient than Ebaying games, and frankly most of the time I haven't observed the pay to be dramatically different (though selling Deadly Premonition used for $18.50 on Ebay was brilliant).

So, in since I have such a huge backlog of games and recent additions, I've come up with one of the craziest means of picking what I play next: random chance. This is not a long-term committment type system, just a way to decide what I'm playing when I don't have a pre-planned gaming session, or don't feel passionately about what I play. I will roll a 20-sided die (D20) and play the game matching the number I've assigned to it. Note that since I'm not intending to actually juggle 20 games at once, I have assigned games multiple numbers in line with how much I want to work on them.

1. World of Warcraft
2. Dead Space 2
3. Venetica
4. Stacking
5. Test Drive Unlimited 2
6. WoW
7. DS2
8. Venetica
9. TDU2
10. WoW
11. Fallout: New Vegas
12. DS2
13. Venetica
14. TDU2
15. WoW
16. Enslaved
17. Sacred 2
18. Dead Space 2
19. TDU2
20. WoW

Any game finished gets removed from the roll. I reserve the right to change the numbers and games whenever. Again, this is only to get me to pop something in the tray (or log into a game on the PC) if I can't make up my mind what I'm playing on any given night. Yes, I really have a 25% chance of rolling WoW.

Score War: Thrawn vs. Xylo

2011-02-03T16:02:00.000-06:00

Decided I'd take steps with this blog to make the rivalry between myself and my friend Xylo (Xylofreak03) more interesting. The plan is to make it one of the few (if only) documented achievement rivalries in the blogosphere, just for trash talking fun and random shenanigans.

Each month (more often if there are sudden interesting changes of fortune) I will have a Score War post, detailing the situation between myself and Xylo. Future posts will show the change in the lead over the previous month.
,
Every Score War post will begin with an objective statement of facts. My score. His score. The change in the point gap between us. Where the major points came from.

After that comes the opinionated commentary. I'll discuss what I was playing over the month, and my overall "strategy." I'll lay down some smack talk for laughs and giggles. If Xylo wants in on the commentary, I'd be happy to post up his monthly commentary on how things have gone, so the readers can hear from both of us. Hopefully this will evolve into an amusing periodic feature. Who knows... more rivals could be added over time if I pick up any, but for now it's Thrawn vs. Xylo.

As of 4pm on 02/03/2011

ThrawnOmega: 147764
Xylofreak03: 144164

Lead: Thrawn by 3,600

Despite spending most of January in MMOs, I don't believe I've lost much ground on Xylo. Recent points have come from Borderlands, Venetica, Dead Space 2, and Kingdom Under Fire. All gains combine are under 1,000 points. When I've seen Xylo gaming, it's been Texas Hold 'Em, and he'll never catch me that way. =)

Game on, amigo! Let's make our rivalry more interesting, shall we?

Mega Game Day

2011-01-30T00:14:00.000-06:00

This being my Golden Weekend - the one weekend in six my work rotation gives my Friday through Sunday off - I have largely thrown responsibility to the wind on this off-stretch and tried to have some gaming fun. I'll start with my video gaming exploits, and then conclude with my Magic: The Gathering event, even though that was chronologically first. That way, those of you who don't care about MTG can punch out after I'm done talking video games.

I've started coming down from my MMO obsession, to the point where I think I'll begin to see a fair balance between EQ2 and WoW and the rest of my gaming. It only took a combines 120 hours or so LOL. In the theme of working on RPG completions this year, I picked up obscure RPG Venetica, and have been working on that. Mediocre is the word I'd use to describe it. It's not a bad game, and the mechanics work just fine, though it's marred by some translation issues with the subtitles and speech. The gameplay is fine, but the story hasn't "wowed" me thus far, and the action-RPG combat system feels pretty generic and too simple. Since it's a Western RPG, I'll probably finish it, as my track record with western RPGs is OK... it's the JRPGs that murder me.

My brother and I have also run through the Robot Revolution DLC for Borderlands. With the levels and quests were entertaining enough, and I liked the return of old bosses, the DLC was far too easy, as nothing scaled to our levels. Since we had already hit the old level cap of 61 in the Knoxx DLC, we were overleveled for Robot Revolution, which seens odd, considering RR is newer DLC. Now, I'll just need to farm for the stupid collectable achievements, and my Bro and I have some unfinished business in the Knoxx DLC. Looking forward to 1750 on that game.

Adding to the game list, I recently picked up Dead Space 2. I had $40 in Best Buy reward zone cash sitting around, and with Deus Ex delayed, I needed something to use it on before it expired. Dead Space won over waiting for Dragon Age II. As amazing as I'm sure that game will be, I have enough other RPGs to try to wrap up at the moment, and I just picked up Venetica. I'm still in Chapter 1 on Dead Space, so I can't say too much about the game yet. Only had about 30 minutes in it before setting it aside to run Borderlands with the bro.

The day's gaming started with a prerelease tournament for the newest Magic: The Gathering set, Mirrodin Besieged. The format was sealed, with 3 boosters Scars of Mirrodin, 3 Mirrodin Besieged. I pretty much only play limited at this point, as I have no interest in spending the obsurd amounts of money needed to build a tournament-winning calibur deck. If I play competitively, I'll stick to limited, where the financial investment is the same for all, and deckbuilding and strategy skills become more critical that spending a lot of money to build the decklist you found on the internet.

With Mirrodin Besieged, the booster packs are actually split between the set's two warring factions, the Mirrans and the Phyrexians. Each booster has cards specifically to that faction's playstyle. I went Mirran (the good guys) and I'm glad I did.

Part of the fun of prereleases is that the cards aren't "out in the wild" yet. Power levels are mostly unknown, and everyone is discovering new combos as they go. My sealed pool presented me virtually no black, blue, or green, but more than enough white and red to run with it.

I had a few cards that became keys to victory. Prototype Portal lets you copy an artifact and keep putting copies into play (play the converted mana cost of the artifact and tat the portal). Pairing it with a Shriekhorn is a devastating milling attack in sealed. (Shriekhorn costs 1 to play. Comes into play with 3 charges on it. Remove a charge and tap to mill opponent top 2 cards of their deck.) Potential 6 card per turn mill attack that way. I could pair the Mirror with Tumble Magnets for an unending ability to tap my enemy's creatures, or keep pumping out copies of an artifact creature.

Thopter Assembly is so good it's broken. For 6 mana, it's a 5/5 flying creature with the ability: "At the beginning of your upkeep, if you control no Thopters other than Thopter Assembly, return Thopter Assembly to its owner's hand and put five 1/1 colorless Thopter artifact creature tokens with flying onto the battlefield." Basically, throw him out, and at the beginning of your next turn, he bounces back and you have 5 flyers. Twin this ability with a creature or two with Battle Cry (Whenever this creature attacks, each other attacking creature gets +1/+0 until EOT) and the results are crippling. I also got three Koth's Courier, a 2/3 creature with Forestwalk. This was a blessing, as 3 of my 4 apponents were playing green.

As a matter of fact, 3 of my 4 opponents were playing Black/Green decks, primarily based on Infect. The lack of variety bored me, but my deck beat 2 of those 3, so it's all good.

My first match was against someone who was coming back to the game after not playing for a long time. I stomped him without much difficulty, despite being severly land-jacked in game 2. That game, I never had more than 4 lands, and only drew my first mountain two turns before the end of the game. Yes folks, I won a tournament game on 3 white mana. My deck relied on cheap cards and removal spells, with a splash of expensive cards to break any stalemates. His deck was far too expensive, allowing me to build up a lot before much of his stuff hit the table. No idea what his deck was trying to achieve. I killed him too fast to see.

Round two I got rick-rolled by another Green/Black infect deck. Since the guy finished in the top 3, I don't feel too bad about it. Seriously. I. Got. Destroyed.

In round 3, I was paired against one of the co-owners of the card store where I played. He was my only opponent not playing Green/Black, inspead rolling black/blue. The first game was almost comical, as we both had land-flush hands, and then kept drawing nothing but land. After we each had seven turns, we both only had one nonland permanent in play, and we were STILL playing land from our hands. Once the action really started, I was able to build up a creature army and utilize removal as needed before rolling him over. Game two turned out to be even easier, as he had no counters to what I played.

The final round was (yawn) black/green again. I won it in three games. I finished the tournament with an overall 3-1 record, 6-3 for games. That put me at 5th place overall in a field of 22 players, which felt like a pretty good achievement to me, especially since I hadn't at first thought my sealed pool was very good. The 5th place finish won me an additional 3 boosters.

All in all, I'd say it was a pretty awesome day of gaming.

The RPG Master List

2011-01-28T11:56:00.000-06:00

Borrowed off of x360a the complete list of RPGs (retail) for the 360. I will be updating this post over time to add in new ones, and insert in my progress in each game. For now, if the title is bold I have completed it. If it is in italics, I have completed the storyline, but not yet every achievement. I've done a little duplication for multiple stacking versions of a game, but only if I'm currently able to stack them, so not all possibilities are listed.

Let me know if you see any titles missing from this list.

Alpha Protocol
Arcania: Gothic 4
Blue Dragon
Borderlands
Dark Messiah of Might and Magic: Elements
Divinity 2: Ego Draconis
Dragon Age: Origins
Elder Scrolls: Oblivion
Enchanted Arms
Eternal Sonata
Fable 2
Fable 3
Fallout: New Vegas
Fallout 3 (360)
Fallout 3 (PC)
Final Fantasy XI <--- Not going to ever botherFinal Fantasy XIII Infinite Undiscovery
Kingdom Under Fire: Circle of Doom
Last Remnant
Lost Odyssey
Magna Carta 2
Marvel: Ultimate Alliance
Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2
Mass Effect
Mass Effect 2
NIER
Phantasy Star Universe
Resonance of Fate
Risen
Sacred 2: Fallen Angel
Spectral Force 3
Star Ocean: The Last Hope
Tales of Vesperia
Two Worlds
Two Worlds II
Venetica

SPRG:
Spectral Force 3
Operation Darkness
Record of Agarest War
Zoids Assault

Enjoy the Silence

2011-01-25T22:20:00.000-06:00

I said in prior posts that 2011 would be the year of the RPG, and it absolutely has been... just not in the way I originally thought it would be. The RPG playing has been of the Massively Multiplayer variety, as I crossed 100 hours total playtime in World of Warcraft, and have now added Everquest 2 to the mix as well. I don't know why I do this to myself, when the Old Republic is coming down the line. How can I say no to a Bioware Starwars MMO? But I can't afford 3 MMOs (cost plus time committment) so we'll see how that ends up.

Anyway...

After an overdose of MMO play, I might be inching back towards what will become an balance point between that and console play. I love the variety of things that can be done in an MMO, and the sense of having a vast world to explore. It's possible to solo if you just want to play alone, but there are always people to ask questions or group with on a whim. The random shenanigans and unscripted adventures MMOs can provide are fantastic. However, after all that play, something has dawned on me:

MMOs are NOISY.

I'm not talking about audio volume here, but rather the feeling of being bombarded by information. In terms of gameplay, there's a quest log full of things to do, abilities to learn, enemy info to assess, and much more. Look at screenshots from WoW and you can see how much information people try to pack onto their screens. Then there's other players flying around, combat text, guild message scrolling across the screen, General channels... WoW is actually QUIET compared to EQ2, as WoW gives each zone its own channel. EQ2 has channels for level ranges, which the community has used to turn the level 1-9 channel into the de-facto server-wide chat channel. And it's one damn noise channel if you don't opt out of it. Guarantee less than 1% of it has anything to do with the level 1-9 game.

The realization of how noisy MMOs are didn't come to me while I was playing them, but rather, once I had my hands on an Xbox controller again. It was refreshing while playing some Operation Flashpoint with my brother (that game may be the first to push us on our coop skills) or enjoying Venetica on my own, it felt nice to play a game and not get bombarded with a constant stream of information. When not playing MMOs, I do intend to keep chipping away at my console RPG goals, and Venetica is a start to that. I was in the mood for an RPG that I could pick up and start fresh, not delving back into a game I'd already logged more than 50 hours into (which will be the case when I return to New Vegas, Lost Odyssey, Eternal Sonata, and Dragon Age), or restarting a game from scratch (Divinity II, possibly FFXIII).

Will share more thoughts on Venetica, possibly in the form of a review, as I get farther into it. For now, let me just say I'm enjoying some gaming in a "quieter" atmosphere.

Where's the Motivation?

2011-01-17T19:39:00.000-06:00

On the Xbox front, it's been a silent year so far. This blog has seen little love, though I have done a little writing on Unending in Azeroth. It's January 17th, and I have yet to load up my xbox to do anything other than play a DVD or watch Netflix. What gives?

There are numerous reasons for the absense. One of them would be some real life things that are going on. Too early to share on those, but if anything develops for real, I'll let the audience know. Let's just say for now my attention has been elsewhere.

My collection of games hasn't inspired me to pick up the controller, either. Even with my goal to do better in RPGs this year, like finishing New Vegas, I've had no interest in playing any game I own. Believe me... I flipped through my collection for almost 20 minutes today waiting for any game to inspire me to want to play it. No success.

Right now, World of Warcraft is pushing all my buttons for what I want in a game. There's tons of quests. I can be social or a lone ranger as I choose. There's a million things to do. Heaven help me, I even signed up for another Everquest 2 account, on that game's free-to-play model. It's a great game, though I found it lacking in solo content at the higher levels. Totally worth getting back into for no charge. So, we'll see how I juggle two MMO games.

Does this mean I'm hanging up the controller? Retiring from Gamerscore? Not at all. I'm just in a gaming place right now where I want those massive game worlds, sprawling with an insane amount of things to do. After I've logged more hours in these games, perhaps my console titles will regain their appeal again. I know I want to get Bulletstorm, Gears 3, Mass Effect 3, Deus Ex, and Dragon Age 2 this year, so you can count on me still being online, though it may be a while before I wane on the MMO desire and the balance shifts towards more console gaming.

There's Now a Second Blog

2010-12-27T20:48:00.000-06:00

I love blogging. As I've said before, I don't plan on stopping anytime soon. As a matter of fact, with Xmas behind me and Wednesday through Friday off, I may finally have the time to sit down and start writing content again.

For now, I wanted to announce to everyone that I have started a second blog, titled Unending in Azeroth. This blog is a World of Warcraft blog.

I decided to make a second blog to talk about WoW to keep my audiences distinct. Most of you who have followed me for so long for my thoughts on achievements, the Xbox 360, or console gaming in general (plus my random ramblings) may not care one bit about WoW, so why push in front of you content you don't want? Likewise, are most WoW fans going to care about my thoughts on New Vegas's Hardcore mode? Unlikely.

Now, there's still a reason to follow my WoW blog, even if you don't play the game. That blog is not primarily intended to be a journal of my exploits in the game. While it will do that, I want to use it as a place to discuss social dynamics in-game and other social aspect that come with playing an MMO. So, if you're looking for some educated opinions (I got a degree in Sociology) about the largest Virtual Environment in human history, keep your eye on that blog.

I just threw it up tonight, so it doesn't have all the bells and whistles I want to add to it. That's a project for another night.

ThrawnOmega: Achievement Guide Ninja Assassin Editor

2010-12-22T21:01:00.000-06:00

While my review writing pace has slowed down considerably over the last year, a new avenue to assist x360a has opened up for me. There's little glory to be had in the position (your average viewer will never see what I do), and it's not something I could easily toss on a resume when trying to get into the gaming industry, but I'm still happy to be doing it, and helping out the site.

I have been brought into the x360a Guide Team to assist, primarily as a guide editor. As I understand it, the job entails taking the best from any and all written guides for a game, tweaking or improving descriptions as needed, and preparing the guide to be posted to the main site. Unlike the guide authors, my name won't be splashed on top of the guide credits. The editing task is virtually invisible to the outside viewer.

Total disclosure: I JUST got access to the guide team yesterday, and haven't actually done anything for them yet. I'm just starting to learn the ropes and expectations. My actual contributions probably won't start until January, when my work schedule lets up a little. Not even sure if they really consider me "Guide Team" yet LOL. I probably have to actually do something to earn the title =)

The position is a good fit for me. I love working on guides, but have written relatively few for the site myself. I can only count The Maw and the Side Quest and Trading Card guides for Deadly Premonition to my credit (and the side quests was co-authored). I have the writing talent to do guides, but I don't like the competition that comes with being "first" and the attention they get during the writing process. Where a review is one-way (MY way), the guide writing process is collaborative, and trying to deal with 1,000 other people isn't my thing.

However, I love editing. Always have. I edited other people's papers in high school and college. I had to edit my own work constantly, considering how much writing goes into English and Sociology degrees. I've had to edit as a creative writer and a review writer. I have fun taking a set of works and making their message even better. Some of you may understand that, other probably won't. So I was excited to hear I could help on the guide team without actually having to write guides. This role suits my skill set just fine.

I'd like to thank the mods and admins of x360a for the opportunity to contribute, and I look forward to helping out... next year. I still have to survive the build up to Christmas, the day-after shenanigans, and then getting the store back in order. Fun!

Thrawn Got WoWed

2010-12-14T23:01:00.000-06:00

If you've seen my automatic daily tweet from Raptr, the secret is already out. I've taken the plunge on an MMO again, giving the biggest of them all a shot.

I traded in a few crap old games and a 20GB hard drive in exchange for the World of Warcraft Battle Chest, which had the core game and first expansion. It was basically free, since I just got rid of stuff I didn't care for. This is almost like a glorified 30 day trial.

Fear not, blog readers. No matter how into the game I get, this blog will not become a WoW blog. If I choose to write about WoW, I will make a seperate blog for that, as the two audiences are likely very different. Mentions of WoW here going forward will mostly be in discussion of how the game fits into the larger world of games.

I have parental controls turned on myself, limiting my play to a max of 12 hours a week. I don't want to get too sucked in, or neglect all other gaming. (Yes, this could turn into a total joke, as I set my own limits and could easily change it any time. It's up to my self-discipline not to.)

Why get into an MMO again? I have several reasons:

1 - The appeal of a persistent character. The coolest thing about MMOs is having an alter-ego that you can spend hundreds of hours adventuring with and not get bored. There's tons of things to do, and always some way to improve. I enjoyed thins in EQ2 more than your regular RPGs, as the sensation of growth lasts longer than even the longest offline RPGs. I've always enjoyed the growth more than being Godlike at the endgame.

2 - The social aspects. With my work schedule, I have a lot of weekdays off, which aren't the best days for having a social life. Add to that that most of my friends are at least an hour away, and it's an infrequent treat that I get to spend time with my friends. While I try to establish some local relationships (bonus points if I don't work with these people), it's nice to have an online group of people to BS and have fun with when there's nobody else around to hang out with. I've been disappointed with the level of interactivity I've had with people over Live. Nobody talks in MP. I'm never in any party chats (I'm sure I'm partly to blame for that).

3- It's cheap entertainment. I can't get the complaining about subscription fees for MMOs. These games are ungodly expensive to maintain. I think I read somewhere (don't quote me), that it costs in excess of $15 million a month to keep WoW going. Yes, I know they make that back times a jillion, but still, there's upkeep involved. In my books, if you play the game just 30 minutes a day (15 hours a month), you're getting your money's worth, as that's just $1 per hour. Lool at the other games in your collections. How many of them cost $1 per hour or less for the entertainment they provided? Probably less than 25% of them, unless you're a true bargain bin raider. I'm starting to try to save money like a bastard (partly as proof to myself that I actually CAN), so dropping the more expensive Gamefly and trimming other game purchases to the true AAAs that I want is a way to start. I can always rent from Family Video if I want to check out a different game.

Or borrow it from Silva. That man buys EVERYTHING.

4- Curiosity: WoW has over 12 million players. It's been around the block for six years, and has a huge number of player blogs and sites surrounding it. It has its own norms and internet sub-culture. It has its own collective history. As someone fascinated by the sociological implications of things, I live for this shit. I spend an entire semester researching WoW from the outside (and I got paid for it, by the way), and now I'm curious to observe these types of social dynamics from within.

So yes, I'm dipping my feet into WoW. We'll see how that goes. You'll still see me on Live plenty. I'm not about to retreat into an MMO cave of obsession or anything. I promise. (Oh, and this way I'll probably be the only one who hangs out with Sabre LOL. I rolled my character on his server so we could chill. Helps to have one person you know in the game with you.)

The Math of Gamestop's PowerUp Rewards Program

2010-12-13T19:49:00.000-06:00

Game retailer Gamestop has recently unrolled a new version of their Edge card program. The old version of the program came with a year subscription to Game Informer Magazine, plus 10% bonus credit on trade-ins, plus periodic special offers and coupons. These deals are still in place, but there's now an additional points that customers can earn, and redeem for the rewards of their choice.

Best Buy has a similar deal with their Reward Zone, where you earn points for dollars spent, then receive a gift certificate for a certain number of points (roughly $250 spent = $5 gift certificate). Unlike the Reward Zone program, Gamestop's PowerUp Rewards program offers much more than just gift certificates. Customers can redeem points for strategy guides, controllers, microsoft points, and more.

They're giving 10 points per dollar spent on New games on consoles, 20 points per dollar on used games or refurb systems. Obviously, the system is designed to reward players more for buying the products Gamestop has a much, much higher margin in. Customers also get 20 points per dollar for items they trade in, again this makes sense for Gamestop since they make the bulk of their profit in secondhand sales.

Basic enrollment is free, while for $15, you can get a year subscription to Game Informer, plus additional benefits. I know there will be those out there who disagree, but I think 12 issues of Game Informer is worth the $15. The ambiguous part is exactly how much I'd be rewarded for my frequent purchases at Gamestop.

A 1600 Microsoft Points card costs 20,000 Gamestop reward points. Let's assume you only accumulate points for preplayed games and trade-ins (20 points per dollar). Your $20 value reward costs $1,000 spent/traded to obtain.

Below are some more rewards and how much would need to be spent to obtain them, assuming always the higher 20 points per dollar:

360 Wireless controller: 35,000 points, $1750
Turtle Beach X11 Headset: 38,500 points, $1925
$5 off a Preplayed game: 4,000 points, $200
360 Afterglow Controller: 18,200 points, $910

Good news here is that as long as you retain your card (only need to make one purchase a year to retain your points in I remember right), so it's not like you're in a hurry to use those points. The bad news: To get anything decent, you have to spend quite a lot of money. Of course, there are bonus point offers from time to time, but you're still obligated to spend a lot for any rewards.

Would this program get me to shop there in place of my 10% associate discount from Walmart? God no. However, for customers without a store discount, Gamestop's rewards plan is equal, or sometimes a better dollar-for-dollar deal than Best Buy's Reward Zone. For Best Buy, $250 = $5 back, simple as. This dollar for reward ratio is about the same for costs in PowerUp, though slightly better if you go the preplayed game route (Note: It's only on-par if you go exclusively preplayed games).

Would this program make you more likely to purchase from Gamestop, or purchase there more often? Do you find this a good way to give a little something to repeat customers, or is it just a gimmic to try to drum up more sales?

Let's Crank This Blog to 11

2010-12-08T21:56:00.000-06:00

I've been making a lot of personal changes in my life lately, all with the goal of rejecting old bad habits and aggressively striving to improve myself. (This tangent will lead to videogame related material, bare with me)

In November, I called myself out on my two-faced approach to writing. I say my dream is to write a novel, yet when push comes to shove, I've put no effort into actually writing one. So, I rose to the challenge and wrote over 50,000 words in one month (that story is available as-is to anyone who provides me an email address to send it to. I'm not posting it online). While it's not a complete story, and there's a ton of editing to do on what's already there, I proved to myself that I could write if I put the effort in, and learned that putting out a decent word count in not NEARLY as hard as I thought it was. Those 50,000 words were really written in only 15 days!

For the last two months, I've finally had enough of being the cliche overweight, out of shape gamer. I'm better than that. So, I've gotten smart about what I eat, renounced soda, and practically go Super-Saiyan on each of my days off with how hard I work out. I mean, my workouts are INTENSE. My motto is, if I can still stand at the end of the workout, I wasn't working hard enough (and that's almost how hard I push myself). The result? I've lost 8 pounds in 5 weeks, and workouts are getting noticably easier. I'm starting to see the payoff, which makes staying motivated to keep going easy.

As I continue to solidify my success with these two tasks, I am already turning my attention to new frontiers. One goal of mine is social in nature, which I'm not going to talk much about until some progress has been made. The other is professional.

Again, it's time I kick my own ass into gear (nobody else is going to) and actually chase what I want, instead of just talking about it. Throw myself out there, instead of waiting to be discovered. Find ways to make myself useful to x360a (I haven't written a review for them in months), or find someone else who wants what I have to offer. Or both. I need to work what few industry contacts I have, and keep myself in top form by continuously writing content.

So, new goal: If I have the day off, there shall be a blog post (there will, of course, be some exceptions to this. Life happens.). And not all of them will be "what I've played" posts, either. I need to get back into review form, so I will be writing a review of every game I finish, no matter how long ago it was released. (Even if you don't care what I have to say about Enslaved: Odyssey to the West, I'm going to write that review for my own benefit, at least) I also need to sharpen my editorial skills, and provide creative features, so look for that too. Special topics will be a part of this blog again if it kills me.

I'll be spending a couple hours each off day working this blog or putting myself out there, chasing my goal of getting into the industry on a paid basis.

You can help. I want to completely overhaul the design of this blog, including taking it off blogger and developing my own site if I have to. Unfortunately, I lack the skillset for this, and the effort required to make a nicer looking blog or website would probably be better spent actually making content. So, if there's anyone reading this who thinks they can help me launch an improved blog or my own small gaming website, I'm receptive to your ideas, and willing to work out a deal to compensate you for your efforts. I'm not expecting a freebie here.

To my kind believers out there, who have been supporting of my desire to get into the industry, you can help me out too. Be my viral marketing team. Talk me up. Retweet my tweets you think others would care about. Link to a blog post you like in the various forums you post to. Basically, if you like what you see (and what will be coming) spread the word. The more people who find out about this tiny little corner of the internet, the more likely it is someone with the power to hire me will take a gander.

I'm tired of being passive about my dreams. I've had enough of looking around myself and thinking "This is good, but I could do better." In my apartment, I have a motivational poster on one of my walls. It shows an eagle soaring over a mountain top, and reads "Achievement... only those who fly high can land on a mountain top." I'll keep pushing on with stubborn determination until my goal is met. No more half-efforts and crapping out.

It's time to crank this blog to 11.

Not a Multiplayer

2010-12-07T17:24:00.000-06:00

If you were to study my gameplay history, the games I play, and how long I play them, there's an overwhelming trend pointing to my preference for single player experiences. Where I do engage in multiplyer, it's cooperative far more often than competetive.

The idea for this blog post popped into my head during a round of Call of Duty: Black Ops (a game I enjoy in moderation, though I can't get my K/D ratio to even to save my life).

A recent editorial on x360a (I believe Dan wrote it) talked about how more and more formerly single-player only franchises are branching off into multiplayer, as well. So long as the SP doesn't suffer, I don't really care. But I'd rather see more games go the cooperative Horde mode or L4D routes with coop than throw in competitive MP modes that will be popular for the first few months after release, then quickly fade to obscurity, with only small communities (if any survive). For example, will anyone be playing Dead Space 2 MP six months after that game's release? What's the shelf like of AC: Brotherhood? (Don't know, haven't played it, to be fair.)

I perfer single player for a variety of reasons:

1- It ends. Once I have completed a game and the end credits roll, I feel like I've accomplished something. Or finished something, at the very least. Multiplayer never 'ends.' Sure individual matches are won or lost, but there's no real end point, no final threshold to cross to say "I've done it." To go along with this, when I'm playing multiplayer, I'm often thinking about the other games I could be working on, unless I'm working toward an achievement or, heaven forbid, I actually like the MP.

2- No online douchebags, racists, kids rapping in the mic, etc. etc. etc.

3- I find no satisfaction in online play, win or lose. I won! So what? I'm not even going to remember that match tomorrow, unless it was something rare and epic indeed. Playing with a bunch of random people who don't talk against other random people holds no thrill factor for me. Playing with some friends who communicate is more entertaining. Playing with one group of friends against ANOTHER group of friends is when multiplayer kicks ass, because I know the players and there's a little actual rivalry. Sadly, that rarely happens, as most of my friends are fellow achievement junkies, who you have to prod into any non-scoring gaming session, or I don't have enough people around who have the same game. So, 95% of the time I'm with randoms, against randoms. YAWN.

Coop is a different beast. It's like single player in that there's an ending, but you can take a friend along for the ride. Halo, Gears of War, L4D, Rainbow Six Vegas, Borderlands - all are great games that I played in coop. But coop, like MP, is only fun if I know who my partner or partners are. Playing Borderlands with my brother - awesome. Joining a random session - not-fun-city.

I'm not opposed to joining groups for some MP shenanigans from time to time, so don't hesitate to send an invite if you're considering it, I'm just saying, 95% of my time I spend in single player, and that isn't likely to change.

Imperial Gaming Network (the OTHER IGN)

2010-12-06T00:11:00.003-06:00

So, I'm dabbling with the concept of live streaming gameplay footage. I can do this to show people parts of games thet have seen little public hype, to offer game walkthroughs or achievement tips, broadcast some multiplayer shenanigans... you name it.

I've set up a show called the Imperial Gaming Network on UStream for my broadcasted content. I already have one video up, showing the end of Chapter 9 and all of Chapter 10 of Enslaved. It's a great game that hasn't seen mass sales, so it's the right type of game to use to start this project. I understand the video quality leaves a lot to be desired. I'm looking into ways to improve that with what I already have available to me, and may invest in tools to make this even better if the idea becomes popular.

Since videos are currently being filmed using my laptop's webcam, I cannot chat and stream at the same time. I will need to acquire a second camera to do that.

Future streaming sessions will be announced via this blog and twitter. All sessions will be recorded so you can catch the action later if you missed it.

What sort of things would you like to see me stream? How can this effort entertain and/or inform you? I'm open to any and all feedback.

On a seperate note, does anyone know how to make multiple pages for the top of the blog? I seem to be too dumb to make more beyond the "Home" tab, and I'd like to make more to reorganize the blog. Look at how Stallion's blog is set up. I'm aiming for something similar, though my categories would obviously be different.

Questing and Boosting

2010-12-05T09:59:00.002-06:00

I'm looking for a group of players to help me boost a few specific games, hopefully in the next three days (sun-tues) if possible. Rather than previous posts where I offer up a long list of titles I could use help on, I thought I'd drop the specific titles I'm ready to roll on RIGHT NOW.

First, Ghostbusters. The extremely-late but still appreciated patch has made the full 1000 possible, so I'm looking for 2-3 Ghostbusters to work with me to complete the multiplayer aspect of the game. I eventually want to go back and snag the full 1k, but at this point, I'm not bothering until the MP is complete. I own the game. If anyone else owns the game or decides to rent it, message me over LIVE. We'll be working on virtually every MP achievement.

Second - Bioshock 2 (360): I need to find a group of people who all own the Rapture Metro maps, so we can work on the virtually impossible (legit) achievements for public play and a public win on the new maps. (2K, you suck SO MUCH for not making a special playlist for these. Seriously, WTF!?) WOuld rather not run the session if I can help it (swear to god I have to run 95% of the boosting sessions I'm in... it gets old), but I'd be happy to help gather the troops.

Third- Bioshock 2 (PC): Want a group to boost the Little Sister capture achievement. The rest of the achievements are easy to obtain legit. Almost nobody plays CTS anymore on Bioshock 2 PC, thus the need for a boosting group.

When not boosting, I'll be continuing to work on the same assortment of Games I've been playing lately. Expect to see me online working New Vegas, Enslaved, and either version of Bioshock 2. I may also spend some time with games newly purchased via Steam during their week of deals, including Mount and Blade or King's Bounty.

I've also decided I'm changing (yet again) the rules for my annual completion challenge, starting 2011. The rules include an expansion of what games count, and a change to the "40 hour rule."

Starting 2011, ALL games count toward the completion challenge, not just 360 games for achievements. 360 games will be considered complete if all their acheivements are unlocked. Non-360, non-GFWL games are defined as complete once I have finished the game to the ending credits. I don't care about Steam achievements, so games with achievements on steam don't have to be maxed out to be considered done.

The 40-hour rule is changing to make for more completion points with the super-long titles out there. The old version is, once I've played a game for 40 or more hours hunting its achievements, it's automatically worth +1 completion point, and +1 more for every 40 hours after that. Next year, I still have to play a game for 40 hours before I see the first +1 for the time involved, but after that, it's +1 every 24 hours, not 40 (excluding the 48 hour mark). This way, I would be seeing bonus points at 72, 96, and 120 hours, not just at 80 or 120. There are a few games I'm looking to finish next year that are long enough to profit from this rule revision.

A Winner Is Me

2010-11-30T21:24:00.002-06:00

It's over... it's finally over! After a month long, epic quest, I have crossed the finish line of National Novel Writing Month, having written over 50,000 words in one month. Considering that not a single word was written on a day when I worked, I truly wrote 50,000 words in just 15 days! This is a monumental personal achievement for me.

I've always wanted to write a book, but I've sat around an not actually done anything with that dream. This year I decided to give NaNoWriMo a solid effort to kick myself into cranking out some words, no matter how bad. At least I would have something to go back to and expand upon and edit later.

The final leg of the journey was brutal. At 32,000 words, my writing sputtered, as I reached the limit of what I could write without any prior plotting or planning on where the story was going. I staggered on, writing segments of the story in a random order, just putting to the page any scene that popped into my mind. I padded my word count by writing some fake news stories that I hope to eventually use as chapter openers. I wrote one seen only in response to a dare from my friend Sandra, who also is doing NaNo this year.

Still, all my sputtering only got me to 42,000 words. 8,000 words short, I was dead in the water. At that point, I just let go. I stopped caring if what I wrote would be usable in the future or not. I even stopped caring about my plot. I forceably put the story in a setting I was comfortable with, and carried on writing by stream of consciousness (I turned a speculative fiction story into full-on alien abduction sci-fi with a snap of my imaginary fingers). I kept my main character, but just wrote the first thing that popped into my head, no matter how wierd or stupid it seemed. To my great surprise, those last 8,000 words were among the most fun to write, and actually aren't all that bad.

Once I passed 50,000, I submitted my manuscript to have the word count validated, and it said my story was actually almost 600 words shorter than it really was, so I had to go back and write some more. I took the easy way out, having my main character relay to a few newer characters everything that had happened in the novel so far. It was a cheap and easy way to boost my word count over the finish line I had honestly already passed.

While those last 8,000 words won't survive to the final novel, I'll be copy/pasting them into a different document and saving it, as there might be a story concept in there for the future. While my novel isn't actually complete, I'm going to take a break from it for a little bit, and focus my attention of fleshing out the rest of the story before coming back to it to complete it.

I couldn't have managed this accomplishment without the support of my friend Sandra. Thank you, thank you, thank you Sandra! Her encouragement, ideas, and inspiration kept me going every time I was about to crap out. I hope I've pulled my weight in returning the favor. I've just won. Sandra, you better be coming behind me =) Victory is sweet. Victory shared is even sweeter.

I plan to celebrate by cracking open a beer and spending the rest of tonight playing games, and I plan on having a massive game marathon tomorrow. New Vegas and Enslaved are begging me to play them. So far, Enslaved has been might impressive. I'm just two chapters in, so we'll see how the rest of the game goes.

Hit List 2011

2010-11-23T09:24:00.002-06:00

I tried this last year, making a list of games I "would" complete the next year, and the goal fell to pieces quickly. However, since my annual completion challenge rose from its ashes, I'd say that worked out for the best. Next year the completion challenge continues, with the additional RPG rule:

All retail RPGs are worth a bonus 2 completion points just for being RPGs. They still get the 1 base point, plus they fall under the 40 hour rule (extra points awarded for how long the game takes). So, no retail RPG could be worth less than 3 completion points under this system.

Since I want 2011 to be the Year of the RPG, I've gathered my thoughts and decided which games I plan on trying to finish on my way to earning a medal better than Bronze (12 completion points).

The "I WILL complete these games" List
Note that I've listed games in the general order I intend to complete them.

Fallout: New Vegas
Fallout 3 GOTY (PC)
Divinity II: Ego Draconis
Final Fantasy XIII

Round 2
With those first four under my belt, I will be moving on to these games. I'd like to make a dent in this list too, though I'm not sure I'll get all of it.

Lost Odyssey
Sacred 2: Fallen Angel
Blue Dragon
The Last Remnant
Dragon Age: Origins
Eternal Sonata
Infinite Undiscovery

The "Go Forth and Buy" List
If I successfully complete my current collection of RPGs, it's time to go out and pick up some new ones. Here's my intended order:

Divinity II: The Dragon Knight Saga (should be out by then on 360 in USA)
Resonance of Fate
Fable II
Nier
Arcania: Gothic 4
Too Human
Fable III

Will I get to all that? Surely not, but it's nice to have plenty of targets. I'll probably be spending most of my gaming time through the rest of the year working on the two Fallout games, getting them ready to go. I will also be working on the PC version of Bioshock 2, and continuing to play Black Ops off and on.

Completion Themes

2010-11-18T12:17:00.002-06:00

Anyone else out there have goals for their achievements (or gaming in general) that don't necessarily relate to one genre, but still span across more than one game? I have several completion themes I'd like to go for on my gamertag. Today, I'll fill you in on what those are, and how badly I want them or are currently trying for them.

Oh, and check out yesterday's post too, if you haven't already. It's #300. Kind of excited about getting to that number.

Complete all Koei Warriors games on the 360

I want to do it because I like the Warriors games, and also as an F-U to Koei, whose achievement lists suck and are far too time intensive. I'm a long way from there, and I'm still burned out on them after Warriors Orochi 2. The best I can do is say I've completed every Warriors Orochi game.

Earn Every Fallout Achievement

I want every achievement that I can possibly add to my tag from a Fallout game. I already have 1550 in Fallout 3 for the 360. I'm working on Vegas, and I'm currently downloading the PC version of Fallout 3. For the record, I will actually be playing FO3 again for those achievements, NOT typing them in. So respect that completion when it arrives, bitches =) If Vegas was GFWL and stacked, I'd probably buy that game twice too, LOL. The Fallout games are that awesome.

Max out Every Halo

Unlike Call of Duty, I've purchased every Halo game, which is kind of funny, since I like COD's multiplayer better. Since I have them all, I'd like to max them all out. I have completed non of them and probably won't any time soon though.

Grow a Reputation for JRPG completion

If my brother is reading this post, and is drinking anything, he just did a spit take. My career with the JRPG branch of RPGs is filled with the corpses of unfinished games. While I've had success with Final Fantasies 4, 8, and 10, the other games I own in that series (1, 7, 9, X-2) never got finished. I completed Dragon Warrior Monster and Dragon Quest VIII, but failed Dragon Warrior III and Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker. I've failed Legend of Dragoon, Wild Arms 3, every JRPG I've played on the 360 except Enchanted Arms... I just struggle with this genre, yet keep trying anyway. I really want to use the completion challenge rule update in 2011 to hit this genre hard.

Max Out Bioware's Games

That would mean Mass Eddect (done), Mass Effect 2, Dragon Age, and Dragon Age 2 when it comes out. Got a lot of work to do yet with ME2 and Dragon Age.

Max Out Rare's Games

Similar to Bioware, but tougher, since there are more of them. It's something I'd like to eventually do, but haven't worked on at all lately. I'm sick with Fallout Fever.

Obscure Glory

I take pride in completing games relatively few people ever do. The rarer the completion is, the more I love having it. Two examples on my tag would be Warriors Orochi 2 and Deadly Premonition.

Those are some of the completion themes I'm working for. What are yours?

300

2010-11-15T21:36:00.003-06:00

It's here! The mightly (long, epic, self-congratulating, fill in your own description here) 300th post has arrived. First and foremost, THANK YOU to all my readers. Thank you for the comments and feedback you've provided my since I began. The vast majority of my posts have at least one comment. It's great to know I have a readership and that you all are willing to share your opinions with me. I hope you've found some small bit of information, entertainment, or enlightenment from my rambles on gamerscore, gaming, and nerd life in general.

Reflections on the Blog

This blog is nearing its 2nd birthday, and that's quite the achievement. Constant readers know my track record for starting goals and quickly discarding them for something else, or just not even trying. But through it all, this blog has still survived.

Here's some interesting stats:

Since Blogger started stat tracking (May 2010) the most viewed post on my blog has been The Seven Deadly Sins of Achievement Fanatics. In fact, it's been viewed 40 times in the last 30 days.

ThrawnOmega's Blog on the Gaming Life has been viewed in the following countries: United States, United Kingdom, Switzerland,Netherlands, Canada,Germany, Finland, South Korea, Denmark, and Belgium. I'm actually surprised Japan isn't on the list.

This blog has been read on such "non-traditional" internet viewing devices as the iPhone, iPad, ipod, and Nintendo Wii. What the heck does this blog look like from a Wii?

Despite the talk I hear from time to time that my focus should remain on talking about the games I'm playing and my thoughts on them, the stats show a different story (don't worry though, that will remain a core part of this blog.) The stats show, beyond any doubt, that my special topics get more page views, and have a lot more staying power. Eight of the top ten posts viewed since May were special topics, rants, or opinion pieces that had nothing to do with what I was currently playing.

I think that NaNoWriMo will have a positive overall effect on this blog, as I'm realizing that, despite my work schedule, I can still crank out a pretty good amount of words in a month when I want to. The trouble is going to be thinking up interesting concepts for special topics, not the physical writing of those articles themselves.

On Grinding Gamerscore

As jackanape so well explained it, 100k is attainable to those who actually want it, and are willing to put the time in. As he explained in what I hope remains one of his more famous blog posts, you can have a 6-digit gamerscore and still have job, girlfriend, life, whatever.

I've always liked the achievements system because it let you permanently keep a piece of the game with you, even after you were done with it. The system is like a resume of your gaming career for all to see. Instant nerd cred. I won't be retiring from gamerscore, because it's never been my be-all-end-all for playing games, though I will admit that I rarely return to a 360 game I already have all the points for. I mostly play the games I want to play and try to get all the points from them, rather than play a game just for its points (though, of course, I HAVE done that from time to time).

The one gamerscore goal I have is to reach 200k by the "end of the world" on 12/21/12. Right now, I'm behind pace, so I may end up eventually busting out a few easy games to get pack on track.

On My Annual Completion Challenge

As I said in my last post, this year wasn't supremely impressive for completion points. I have come up with an answer for RPGs, which may get me to focus on them more. All retail RPGs will, beginning January 1, 2011, be worth 2 bonus completion points simply for being RPGs. This means no retail RPG could be worth less than 3 completion points. I really want to raise my standing in RPGs, and this would greatly help toward achieving ranks better than Bronze. We'll see how it goes. And yes, I'm holding off popping the last achievement in New Vegas until 2011 to take advantage of this.

New Vegas is Better than Fallout 3.

New Vegas is much, much better than Bethesda's own Fallout 3. While it was buggy at first, since the update, I haven't had any issues. Fallout 3 was a stellar game, with great post-launch support, but New Vegas has taken that foundation and greatly expanded on it.

FO3 had a huge world to go explore however you wanted, but the game's major flaw was that for those looking for structure, or an objective to lead them from point A to B, there wasn't much to do. Besides the main quest, there's an achievement for every one of that game's side quests. New Vegas easily has 5, maybe 6 times as many quests to complete, giving quest-aholics like myself plenty of missions to complete, lots of side-story content, and above all more of a purpose for exploring every nood and cranny in the wasteland. I have over 20 quests logged in my PIP-BOY right now. While some are mutually exclusive (like Kill Mr. House or work for him), there's still a whole lot I can do.

In New Vegas, skills matter a lot more. Disciplines like Science matter a lot more now, as they do more than 1 thing. Besides hacking computers, Science skill opens some special dialogue options, and is needed for creating items. Medicine allows you to heal yourself and others. Bartering effects more than just prices at vendors. Each skill now has more than a single use, making point allocation matter more.

The faction system in New Vegas trumps anything seen in FO3. Rather than good or evil, the game has you working with various factions, and there's a lot of them... NCR, Caesar's Legion, Mr. House, The Crimson Caravan, The Boomers, and more. The faction system does a fantastic job of making the world of New Vegas feel like a living, breathing place, and makes decisions matter more than a situation where someone must simply ask, "Should I be nice, or be a douche?"

And, as I've said before, Hardcore mode is a great addition to the game, adding a layer of 'realism' to the action, which forces player to think more critically about how they plan to survive in the wasteland.

I have fond memories of you, FO3. I may even purchase your GOTY edition for the PC and play you again for another 1550 achievement points. That said, your newer brother New Vegas has captured my attention and enjoyment in ways you never did.

My personal Game of The Year award is going to New Vegas. No other game I've played this year has been nearly so captivating. My runner up would be Starcraft 2 on PC, even though I have yet to get very good at the multiplayer.

Random Pro Tip for New Vegas players - When approaching Nellis Air Force base, you must evade artillery fire. First, if you have a follower, make them wait outside the range of fire, or THEY WILL DIE. Now, use a stealth boy, and the guns won't even fire on you as you approach, making a tough and/or annoying section of the game really easy. After you get through once, you and your followers will be fine after that.

Has anyone else played New Vegas? How far are you? What are your thoughts on the game>

Final Shoutout

Congrats Ducky x360a on finally hitting 100k. Sorry I didn't notice sooner.

Bishop and Silva - Slow the hell down on the gamerscore whoring of yours. I need to catch up and make that a 3-person race.

Xylo- Catch me if you can. My score > Your score. Oh, and I will 1k Your Shape. Just you watch.

Thanks yet again to all my readers. You make writing content for this blog such a fun experience.

Two Hundred Ninety Nine

2010-11-14T21:25:00.002-06:00

Yup, this is post number 299, and it's time for a ramble. JJB, I replied to your comment on my last post.

There will not be another post until my next stretch of days off, as I waste valuable novel-writing time working on an epic 300th post. It'll be a LONG one, covering a range of topics, so be prepared to settle in for a read, or down it all over a couple sittings.

We're now halfway through November, which means I have just a month and a half left in this year's self-directed completion challenge to see if I can go from Bronze to Silver. To fill in newer readers, I'm counting the number of games I complete over the course of a calander year. Every game completed, whether retail or arcade, is worth one completion point. If a game took 40 or more hours to complete, it's automatically worth 2 completion points, under the logic that I probably could have completed to regular games in the time it took for that one. This system keeps things fair, and provides the motivation to keep going on very long completions. Every additional 40 hours after the first 40 adds another completion point.

I'm grading my efforts on five tiers:
Bronze: 12 cp
Silver: 24
Gold: 32
Platinum: 40
GODLIKE: 50

So far this year, I've made 16 completion points. Frankly, if not for Gears 2, I wouldn't have even made Bronze yet. This year's effort has been pretty bad, so I really need to step it up this year. (FYI I will be keeping track of how I do on a year-to-year basis) Ben 10 could get me to 17 points, and Faery could get me to 18, but I don't see how I can get to 24 without practically going mini-GSL, and that isn't happening.

Since this is a challenge I'm only running for myself, there's no such thing as cheating, since I make all the rules and can change them on a whim. So, I'm thinking the better use of my time would be to get some of my games an achievement or two away from completion, so I can pop them January 1 and get a jump start on the year. Next year I also want to experiment with a new rule that makes RPGs worth more simply for being RPGs, without the 40 hour rule (though it would still effect them). I'm considering the rule because I'm still not digging into my RPGs or completing them as much as I want to.

Next year I go for Silver, but try for Gold. Who cares about this silly 'challenge?' Probably nobody but me LOL. Why do I do it? Because an interesting (to me) metagame helps me focus more on completing all the games I've paid for. Plus, it's like an achievement for getting achievements. That sounds like the kind of system I'd like.

...And Then There Were Two...

2010-11-13T23:17:00.003-06:00

As I loaded up my blogger today, I noticed something interesting. Virtually every post clogging the info feed for new posts came from two blogs: Stallion83's, and a general nerd-life blog called Cheap Geek Anonymous. You could practicaly see a virtual tumbleweed roll across the screen of every other blog I follow.

I know jackanape will keep at it as he has time, though he's been infrequent of late. And Bishop, who came roaring back with posts for a while, has likewise quieted down. I do expect to see things from both of them again.

But every other blog I follow? Dead. I'm considering going on an unfollow spree for blogs that haven't put up a post in more than a month. Why clog my list with the husks of discarded blogs? Which means, we're down to only a few achievement-whore centric blogs out there:

#1: 1 Million Gamerscore (no contest)
#2: My blog (as far as I know, feel free to advise me if you think there's another blog that should have this spot)
#3: jackanape's blog.

That's it. (Bishop was not included because, though he is an achievement whore like the rest of us, he's taken his blog in the direction of news and reviews, and as far as I've seen does not use the space to discuss achievements or what he's playing).

Anybody else out their writing on our hobby? Sounds like a research project for when NaNoWriMo is done and I'm not spending a couple hours a day writing...

ThrawnOmega: Weekend Warrior

2010-11-12T20:47:00.002-06:00

Some day there will be a trivia question about how many times I refer to myself in the third person in a blog post title. That day is not today.

So far, Operation Overdrive has been a smashing success, even though I haven't been 100% faithful to the time requirements I stipulated. On Thursday, I wrote over 5,000 words. Today has been a slower day, but I still have added over 2,400 more. I got slowed down by a few other projects I have going on, but I aim to make tomorrow another big day. For now, I'll take the fact that I've nearly doubled my novel's length in two days as victory enough.

All the writing has not taken away from my other endeavors, as I've had time to go for a 3 mile run on Thursday and had a session of Your Shape today, continuing my goal to stop being a fatass. I have to say, unlocking achievements in Your Shape for working my ass off is extremely satisfying.

It's been tough to decide what else to play. My back catalogue is retardedly long, as always, plus I suppose I should actually be working through the crap I have Gamefly send me. I'm most of the way through Ben 10, but I can only stand that game for about a half hour to 40 minutes at a time. And it's hard to swallow how mediocre MorphX is when I have Fallout: New Vegas and Black Ops to occupy my time.

So far, I'm of two minds on Black Ops. The multiplayer is rock solid fun as always. The single player is, well, meh. The set pieces are nice, but the Call of Duty campaign formula feels SO stale by now. I'm tired of shooting scores of brainless enemies across super-linear levels. I like the framed narrative approach Treyarch has chosed to take, but the missions feel largely paint-by-numbers to me.

Someone at Activision or one of their development houses needs to grow a set of balls and mix things up in the single player. Make the AI smarter. Edge the game in a more tactical direction (a little closer to Rainbow Six). At the very least, open up the battlefield, and allow for multiple paths to the objective.

On a whim, I downloaded the trials of two arcade games: Super Meat Boy and Faery: Legends of Avalon. Go ahead and make your mandatory jokes about anything involving fairies (however you choose to spell it) being girly or gay. After playing the trial, I ponied up the 1200 points for the full retail version of the game. Faery is a light RPG with near-retail quality cell shaded graphics. Since you're a fairy, you can literally fly around the maps, which is neat. The game offers a rip off of the Mass Effect conversation wheel, and more than one way to respond to people, though that aspect of the game seems rather superficial right now. Simply choose the nice response and party members start giving you items, not too much to that. The combat is a small-scale version of the traditional JRPG battle system. So far, I'm enjoying the game well enough as one of the rare RPGs on XBLA.

The game I did not purchase, and am still debating, is Super Meat Boy. I love the art style and the platforming action, but shit that game is hard. I'm positive it's a game I would never, ever get all 200 achievement points in.

Somehow, I've even had the time to give my apartment the most intense cleaning it's had in months. I can now have people over without them immediately fleeing in horror. All in all, it's been a great couple days off. Tomorrow looks to be another productive day. More writing, some game time with Creech in Dawn of War II, another workout, and some quality game time.

Operation Overdrive

2010-11-10T21:27:00.002-06:00

This weekend, I dance with the Devil. That devil is named Call of Duty: Black Ops. That Devil is named self-discipline. That devil is named NaNoWriMo.

I fell to the invisible hand of peer pressure and gave Bobby Kotick (and Treyarch... I guess) my money with the purchase of Black Ops. I really hope it lives up to the hype, and is a game I put a f**kton of hours into, because I really shouldn't be buying full retail games for quite a while.

And, of course, I purchase it while I'm 7,000 words behind the pace in National Novel Writing Month, and won't have added a word to the story in 2 days (I'm not writing tonight... I need to play Black mother-loving Ops.) These next three days are critical, as if I can't close or eliminate that gap, I'm going to be hurting very badly if I actually want to cross the 50,000 word count mark and win.

Thus, the next three days are Operation Overdrive. I'm going to blast off my word count or die trying. It's really quite simple. I wake up, sit at the computer, and don't leave or do anything else until I've written at least 1,600 words. At that point, I get a 2-hour break to do whatever I want, but after those 2 hours I have to stay chained to the laptop writing until another 1,600 words have materialized. This trend will continue until AT LEAST I catch up to pace, but may go on longer if I can stand to sustain it. I'm hoping this will generate at least 4,800 to 6,400 words per day, which would erase all the damage my days off have done (today is November 10th and I have actually only written on 5 days).

It will take a lot of self-control not to break down 800 words into a set and play some Black Ops, but I must keep my will strong. I will make my word war with my friend Sandra a battle that's actually interesting. Right now, she's DESTROYING me. I'll catch you yet, sly devil. I absolutely will =)

Thrawn Gets Kinected

2010-11-06T10:55:00.003-05:00

These last few weeks have been CRAZY. From Tuesday through Thursday this week, I worked 43 hours (15, 16, and 12 hour days). That seriously hampered my NaNoWriMo efforts, so I've been writing like a demon this weekend to get my word count on track. The silver lining of working from 8am to midnight on Wednesday was that I was already there to buy a Kinect, and did so. I also picked up Your Shape: Fitness Evolved, which is frankly the reason I wanted Kinect anyway.

To my surprise, Kinect really does work as advertised. The sensor has had no problem picking up where my hands are and recognizing gestures. It's kind of cool to navigate through Xbox menus using your hands, though this method is a lot slower than just using a controller. The Kinect sensor can be uses as a microphone for party chats, which can be both good and bad. I enjoyed being able to talk to my brother on live while cleaning around my apartment and testing Kinect's abilities, but the sensor will also transmit background noise, so it can't be used for party chat while playing games. I have yet to try Video Kinect.

Kinect Adventures is great as a basic pack-in game. I've been having fun with the various minigames, though I'm sure longevity will be the game's major issue. From what I've seen so far, the game looks like a pretty easy 1k, though the game is best enjoyed in short 20-30 minute bursts.

As for Your Shape, I've only realy used it once so far. I loaded the game up on thurdsay to get my basic information entered and knock out the starting fitness quiz and test, but felt far to tired and beat up from work to seriously work out. My first true work out with it happened Friday. While it's too early to tell how effective the program will be, it's definitely designed to kick your ass into shape, and thankfully offers lots of positive reinforcement along the way. I'll admit, I'm extremely out of shape, and the Cardio workouts beat me up so bad I needed to stop after about 20-25 minutes. I'm planning to alternate the high intensity workouts of Your Shape with lower intensity (but longer with higher total calorie burn) runs on the treadmill at my apartment complex's gym to meet my goals. My efforts are beginning to produce results - the number on the scale has finally begun its downward spiral. I'll have more to say about Your Shape after I've spent more time with it.

There's one thing about Kinect I didn't realize right away and want anyone considering purchasing one to be aware of: Kinect needs personal space. That is, you have to have 6-10 feet of open space in front of it for it to work. In my apartment, I BARELY have enough room in my default configuration, as I stand less than a foot in front of my futon when I play Kinect Adventures. To play Your Shape, I physically have to rotate my TV and Kinect Sensor about 45 degrees towards my open carpet and dining areas to have enough space to work out. Kinect will be virtually unplayable for any college students living in dorms, unless you somehow manage a miracle of furnature organization and space utilization. You'll have to cart your Xbox down to a TV lounge or something. Sorry folks. So, I recommend looking at your gaming space and seeing what would have to be moved or changed to make Kinect work before buying one.

Look for a new blog feature called "Retweet" to be coming in the next week. In this feature, I will be copy/pasting some of my most important tweets from the last week to the blog, for anyone who may have missed them, and then proving blogging is the superior writing form by expanding on those tweets in more detail.

Shoutouts:

jackanape - Loved your rant on how you can have a high GS and a live, even if it did make my score seem a lot less special =)

Xylofreak - Are you a Hater or just trying to keep me motivated?

Bionik Kommando - For calling Halo Reach "Gaylo Reacharound." That's f***ing hilarious coming from the God of Halo. Awesome.

Flufferwuffer - Good luck with NaNoWriMo! I think I'm beating you in word count at the moment. Come get me!

6 Days Til National Novel Writing Month

2010-10-26T11:42:00.004-05:00

I've made mention of this before, but as of yesterday I'm officially signed up for National Novel Writing Month, which takes place in November. The goal is to write a single work of fiction running AT LEAST 50,000 words, and work cannot begin before November 1st.

Why am I doing this? It's one of my life's dreams to be a published novelist, but I've done a poor job over the last year of actually writing anything. Can't really achieve that dream if I don't have a finished project to try to get published, can I? So, by participating in National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) I'm forcing myself to crank out some words, and have a legitimate core for what I will later expand to a full novel (50,000 words in honestly only half the length of your average novel, but still a lot to write in 30 days).

Writing during NaNoWriMo is all about Quantity over Quality. Write, write, write, even if what you're writing is crap, keep going! It's about going with the flow and creating without letting your internal editor bog you down about making everything perfect. Once November is done, THEN I will go back and see how much of what I wrote can still be used in the real, full-length novel, and what will have to be cut.

For anyone interested in following my progress, I will have a word counter widget installed to this blog as soon as the event starts. Also, once it's all over, I'll be happy to email out the unedited original draft to anyone who provides me an email, so you can read what I worked so hard to create.

Here is me "official" short preview of what the story is about:

Nate Gillick's 2010 novel stars Calvin Johnson, a freelance writer who reluctantly picks up an iAssistant, the new wonder-gadget that has billions of potential uses, from phone to portable TV to translator to heart monitor. Surgically attached at the wrist to help monitor vital signs, the iAssistant even comes with adaptive AI, that learns from how it's used, to be the best possible servant and companion. But what happens when a modern marvel of all-in-one technology grows a mind of its own, and disagrees with its owner on how it should be used?

More Adventures in Vegas

2010-10-25T16:48:00.003-05:00

It's time to return to that type of post I haven't been doing much of lately, one where I talk about the games I've been playing!

First off, for anyone who missed my Tweet from late last night, I was able to find and order a white admiral uniform costume, and a set of red contact lenses (they're even to my perscription!) so I will officially be dressing up as Grand Admiral Thrawn for Halloween. Yes, there will be pictures. You can look for them in the upcoming 300th post of this here blog.

Yesterday, I spend almost 5 hours of my morning playing Dawn of War II with Creech as we worked on the game's Last Stand mode achievements. This mode is similar to all the other "Horde" modes out there, where we had to fight off wave after wave of enemies. In five hours of trying, we only got to wave 20, the final wave, twice, and got raped both times. It seems a pretty damn hard mode to clear. After each game, you get experience to level up your character and earn new abilities. I was playing as the Hive Tyrant and went from level 1 to 11 in the process. There is an achievement for getting to level 20, so all the time spent was still in persuit of a goal, even if we couldn't clear the mode completely.

I must say I started to get really bored of the mode though. Perhaps because the Hive Tyrant is a surprisingly boring hero class. There's little to do beyond spawn some warriors, who then go out and do the fighting for you. Besides casting minions and picking my target to attack, there was little else to do. Yawn. Can't wait to get to level 20 and clear this mode so I don't have to play it anymore. I'm sure Creech wants that outcome just as much, as that will give him all 2000 of Dawn of War II's points. (The man is, after all, an RTS mastermind)

I also got online to play some games of Starcraft II with my brother and Sabre (who has sold his soul to World of Warcraft), and it was quite a lot of fun. I enjoy the game's campaign and a good coop bot-stomping, but how much I'll get into the competitive multiplayer remains to be seen. As usual, I was originally better at the game than my bro, but now he can completely kick my ass. He's the type of gamer who plays fewer games, but the ones he gets into he logs A LOT of hours in, and becomes exceptionally skilled at. Halo would be the trademark example, but I'm sure Monster Hunter could be on the list, and Starcraft II will be. I wish he had a Raptr account so I could see just how many hours he logs into some of those games LOL. I'm at the other end of the spectrum, I like to play casually through a lot of stuff, and then move on to a new experience, rarely digging in deep enough to become a true expert at a game. For me, the highest compliment I can give a game is that it stays fun from the time I put it in for the first time to the point that I have every achievement. As my completion percentage will attest, most games don't stay interesting to me that long.

Today (and again later tonight) I've been adventuring in New Vegas. Like Fallout 3, the game does a great job of creating a sense of exploration and the feelings of accomplishment that come with completing a quest or finding something interesting. My travels thus far today have been along the main questline, with some interesting diversions in the city of Novac. It seems one family in Novac finds one of their cattle killed every night, and can't figure out why. While it's not a formal quest, solving their problem has some very tangible rewards, like the approval of the people of Novac, which can be cashed in towards a free apartment. So, much to my delight, I now have an appartment to store some of my stuff, which will take some of the edge off of Hardcore mode's weight rules.

While exploring Novac, I encountered Boone, the man who snipes from the mouth of the town's dinosaur by night. His wife was sold off into slavery, and he wanted me to find out whodunnit. He handed me his beret, and asked that if I find out who did it, I wear the beret as a signal, and take that person in front of the dinosaur so he could snipe him or her to have his revenge. I sleuthed around town and learned who it was, and did as asked. Vengence was delivered by an almost hilariously gory headshot. After turning in the quest, I talked Boone into joining me, and now I have my first companion (and the achievement that goes with it).

Now, Boone and I are off to the nearby rocket factory on the "Come Fly With Me" quest, which tasks us with removing some ghouls from the place to the people of Novac can continue to pull junk and supplies from the place. Where will happen in my New Vegas adventure next? I don't know, but I've been loving every minute of it so far.

On a different topic, Raptr and its ability to track your play time has made me wonder just what games I've played the most. If I were to make a real all-time leaderboard of what games I've played the most, which games would make the list? Unfortunately, I'll never know for sure (other than EQ2 is absolutely #1 right now), but the the best extent I can, I'm going to try to find what contenders I have and construct a list that shows the top games. I'm also going to break it into two categories: Verified and Estimated. Verified are games where either from Raptr or the game's own timers, I can see exactly how much time I played. Estimated means there's no way to be sure, and I'm making the best guess I can. I'll share the results of this mission once I have the list built to my satisfaction.

As I commented on in a Previous Post, EverQuest 2 is the runaway winner for most time I've ever sunk into one game. I would need to log over 820 Hours into a different game to take the title! Now that Raptr is tracking my Magic: The Gathering Online playtime, that game has the chance to take the title over the long term, though it will still count idle time as played time, and there is often more idle time than actual playing when competing in a tournament, so the numbers for that game will have to be taken with a grain of salt.

Thrawn Goes to Vegas - Defends Hardcore Mode

2010-10-20T11:42:00.005-05:00

I wish I could tell you I went the REAL Vegas. I wish I would make some quip about "what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas," and then procees to drop a vague but carefully calculated hint about something that happened to set your imaginations running. I can't do that today. However, I CAN talk about my first 7 hours in the newest Fallout game, which is almost as good. (By the way, WTF is up with my penchant for referring to myself in the 3rd person in blog post titles?)

As I so often do, I broke one of my vows (the one about being done buying new games) and drove down to Walmart at midnight to pick up the game on release (and do a little grocery shopping. Everyone knows midnight is the ultimate time to shop. No lines at the registers, no crying babies, it's easy to park near the front...).

To get the obvious out of the way first, New Vegas is EXTREMELY similar to Fallout 3, but why reinvent the wheel when the core gameplay was so good to begin with? If you spent any time in the last Fallout, you'll know what you're doing here, but Obsidian has made some nice changes to the formula. The weapon mods make for more customization possibilities, there are a TON more perks to choose from when customizing a character, and there appear to be more structured quests (Will have to wait and see if the trend continues as the game unfolds).

I'm taking a slightly different approach to New Vegas than I did Fallout 3 in terms of character development. In the last game, I focused heavily on guns, heavy weapons, and heavy armor early on, but grew to learn later just how much I wanted lockpicking and speech, so those skills saw a rapid push in skill points during the midlevels. This time, I'm still strong on Guns from the start, but have forgone putting many skill points into other offensive disciplines, instead focusing on pumping my repair ability (which seems far more important now than in Fallout 3), medicine, speech, and lockpicking abilities. I'm going for a character who knows how to get through doors, talk people into doing what I want, and dish out some bullets, with the ability to more effectively heal up afterwords.

My playthrough is on Hardcore mode, and not just for the 100 point achievement. I WANT to be playing on Hardcore. I've read the esteemed jackanape's x360a review, and Hardcore mode is the only difference of opinion I have so far, though I understand where he's coming from. Hardcore mode seems to me to be about removing all the things that made Fallout 3 too easy, and making some forgotten elements of that game actually matter. In F3, there were food items and water bottles around, but they weren't worth picking up, and they didn't really do anything. Now, with hydration and food to think about, suddenly those junk items have relevance. Now, as I explore the Mojavie wasteland, I'm keeping an eye out for consumables, and making sure I have an ample stash. Yes, the physical act of maintaining healthy H20 and Food levels in boring - just go into the pip-boy and pick an item to consume to make the meter go down - but I enjoy that it's making me explore more carefully as I play the game.

Inventory management is an aspect of Hardcore mode that will make it more fun for some, less for others. Hardcore mode asserts more firmly the reality that there's only so much one person can carry, and ammo isn't exactly weightless. This forces players to think critically about the relative worth of each item they're taking along. It also means the days of carrying around 1,000,000 rounds for each of your weapons can't happen, either. I LIKE this, as it means I have to fight smarter, and don't have the luxury of unrealistic supplies of ammo. To quote Lee, "Couple in the fact that ammo now weighs you down, meaning you can carry much less death dealing equipment, and the whole thing makes it seem like a constant battle." Survival in the wasteland is hard baby, that's the whole point. I greatly prefer this feeling to the feeling of being D.C.'s Ultimate Killing Machine, which I felt like before level 10 in F3, and the Grim Reaper Spirit perk destroyed any remaining challenge at level 20.

"Other more noticeable issues in Hardcore mode are the fact that crippled limbs can only be healed by a doctor or with a certain piece of kit, and that healing items now work gradually rather than in one fell swoop." Again, I like the realism here. If I get f***ed up in a fight, falling asleep doesn't make it all better, nor would a night of sleep or an injection magically cure a broken arm. So, I got wounded in battle, and I need to pay the fee to fix that. I'm OK with that. I also like the fact that health is Heal Over Time. That has been a strong check on my Rambo tendencies, and makes combat tougher. I mean, would any shot INSTANTLY heal all the hurt of a gunfight? Come on? Insta-heals like that are another thing that made F3 too easy, and I appreciate Hardcore mode for doing away with.

While the idea behind Hardcore mode is a good one, it just serves to make things a lot less fun rather than a lot more interesting. I respect Lee's opinion (he is, after all, right more often than not) but disagree here. Hardcore mode won't be everyone's cup of tea, and is makes inventory management much more important, and makes life a lot harder for injured players. However, all that has made New Vegas a lot MORE fun for me, not less. Hardcore mode is probably the most devicive addition to Fallout, and I expect some people with think I'm nuts for loving it as much as I do, others will be with me 100%.

There is a caveat with Hardcore though - it is best enjoyed as a "plus" to whatever difficulty you would default to. I statred on Hard with Hardcore, then dropped to Normal with Hardcore, because I wasn't having fun on Hard. I was getting raped by enemies and depleting supplies way too quickly. I spent more time paying the price for failure than exploring and having fun. Once I dropped it back to normal, I've been pleased with the level of challenge. I don't feel like an ultimate killing machine, but at the same time I'm not running to the doctor and payin 50 caps to get my limbs fixed, either. So, my advice to anyone considering Hardcore mode would be to use it on your standard difficulty to intensify the challenge, but don't couple it with a step up in difficulty. Since I prefer my challenge to come from smart inventory management and battle planning rather than having to soak up more damage (as one would on Hard), the trade-ff has been all Win for me.

Has anyone else tried Hardcore mode in New Vegas yet? If so, what are your thoughts?

Silva-itis and Random Topics

2010-10-12T23:00:00.003-05:00

Silva-itis is a condition afflicting thousands, perhaps millions, of gamers worldwide. The condition's title is derived from the gamertag BL4CK SiLv4, aka Khamakha Lewis, who is widely regarded by those in the field to be Patient Zero for the growing epidemic.

Those afflicted with Silva-itis experience a compulsion to purchase large quantities of gaming content - and then never actually play it. In Patient Zero's case, the symptoms are two-fold, from a deep roster of unplayed XBLA titles, to a shelf full of full retail games that have seen little to absolutely no play.

I realized today that I suffer from the DLC strain of Silva-itis, as my purchase of "The Writer" for Alan Wake made me think of all the other DLC I own and have hardly touched:

Red Dead - Legends & Killers
Magic: The Gathering - Expansions 1 and 2
Blue Dragon - Shuffle Dungeon
Lost Odyssey - Seeker of the Deep
Dragon Age - Awakening
Bioshock 2 - Rapture Metro, Protector Trials, Minerva's Den
Mass Effect 2- Kasumi
Prince of Persia - Epilogue

At least I've become a little smarter lately and not purchased any DLC unless I'm actually ready to play it.

I'm going to try to set aside enough time tomorrow to start working on reviews for Comic Jumper and Alan Wake's "The Writer," though I'm not sure how far I'll get. My main project is continuing the cleaning and organizing work I've been doing on my apartment. I'd allowed it to languish into a disorganized clutter of crap so bad even I was embarrassed by it, so I'be been organizing and cleaning everything. Considering how unbelievably time consuming this process has been, I think I'd much rather take the time to maintain the cleanliness than have to repeat this nightmare ever again.

Next month is National Novel Writing Month, where aspiting authors try to write an entire novel in one month. The emphasis is more on QUANTITY than actual quality. With the short time frame and the lofty word count goals, all that really matters in the physical act of cranking words out. What you write doesn't even really need to be coherent to be a valid submission to the event. I'm going to be writing a novel based off one of the short stories I wrote in college, and letting the story develop on its own without any prior plotting or plans on my part. Once the dust settles at the end of November, I'll take a step back and look at what I did, and we'll see if what can be salvaged from it would be enough to be the core of a novel I'd want to polish up and try to get published.

Because I'll need to average 2,000 words per day (approx. 4 single-spaced pages) to meet my personal goal of 60,000 or more words, I don't think you'll be seeing a lot of blog posts in November. This is your advance warning so nobody things I just vanished. Considering that November is also Retail Hell Month, I could very well be completely insane or on some serious anti-depressants by the end of the month LOL. =)

After I'm done with the month of writing, I will be mailing out the unedited version of what I wrote, so I'll be asking for emails at that time if you want to read my story (in its super-quickly concieved form).

It was nice to get outside and go for a run today in the nice fall weather (or, in my case, 30% jog, 70% walk). I'm so fucking out of shape it's pathetic, but I've got to start from somewhere if I'm ever going to get better and approach a respectable physical condition. At least I've started getting out.

Thrawn Sucks (Episode 1)

2010-10-08T21:59:00.005-05:00

I'm in a bad mood this evening, so I thought I'd hash out the things that have been irritating me lately in blog form, for your amusement. As self-bashing as this post is, believe it or not it's entertaining for me too (and theraputic). It's also going to be a random segment I sometime do when I feel inclined to laugh at myself, and let others laugh at me too... =)

All the reasons Thrawn sucks (but let's limit it to just the last two weeks, I have to go to bed in an hour):

1. If you're paying attention, I've already referred to myself in the 3rd person Twice in this post. Even better, I've referred to myself in the 3rd person using an internet identity for myself, and not even my actual name.

2. Remember that "Next Week is Top 5 Week" thing? Yeah... the way to re-energize oneself about their blog is NOT to make extravagent promises and bite off WAY more than one can chew. To my own credit, I have started writing those features, but rather then put them out at the criminally over-ambitious pace of oh, you know, DAILY, they'll be going up when they are done. Eliminating promises of a due date will let me spend more time with them and make them better. But still, promising a week of special topics and delivering exactly NONE of them is pretty FAIL. Oh, and there will now officially be a "Day off Post" for you smarty pants out there =)

3. I have lost the last 6 matches of Magic: The Gathering I've played. In fact, I've only won 1 of my last 12 games (matches are best 2 out of 3). I think the game and I need a few days off. It's retarded how bad I've played recently.

4. I've spent over 12 hours over my last three days off cleaning and reorganizing my apartment. Despite all that work, at this point in the process, it still looks virtually as bad as when I started. Nobody but me would even be able to tell anything actually got done! It will take at least 12 more hours of work to get the apartment to the level where guests can visit without immediately turning around and running away screaming in horror. Since I don't feel like being a single bachelor forever, the cleanliness and organization would definitely be good things.

5. I got pulled over by the cops tonight for speeding. I got clocked coming up on a squad car at 66 in a 55. (I was wearing my seatbelt and I have a SPOTLESS record, so I got off with a warning, praise the Higher Power). That was the first time I've ever been pulled over.

6. I'm still holding on to a set of items I was supposed to have mailed off to a certain someone about a month ago. By the end of my cleaning process, I WILL be mailing those items off. Hopefully late is better than never, especially since it's all free for this person, right?

7. The Hand of Thrawn Podcast... Do I really need to say more than that? Episodes 6, 7, AND "8" have all been done, but never posted up in their entirety. (I blame youtube errors for most of "8," I HAVE been trying). Still, I think it's safe to call the HoT Podcast deader than the Three Little Pigs (or the first two, at the very least). Only good news: This blog keeps rolling along.

8. In my first month of renewed Gamefly, the only thing I've used it for was to play Bayonetta for 15 minutes. Yep, that 15 minutes was totally worth $22.95 or whatever the 2 game plan is. That amount of cash for time counds more like phone sex or talking to Miss Cleo than an unlimited gaming rental service. (Yes, I just teed up the joke for you, but for the record I've never done either)

Let's balance out the fail with at least this one win:

WIN: While cleaning through some boxes of unsorted stuff that have been sitting in my apartment literally ever since I moved in, I found one of my favorite pictures that's ever been taken of me. The photo shows me surrounded by SEVEN Japanese school girls, from the first time I studied abroad, and spent six weeks at a Japanese high school. The picture is now framed and hanging on the wall. WIN.

Hydrophobia Review

2010-09-27T21:29:00.001-05:00

Despite all the advances in gaming technology, from advanced graphics to ever-improving physics and game engines, videogames have continually struggled to realistically represent water. Too often in games, water seems to have no mass, and walking through it produces no slowing effect on the character. Even while under water and swimming, most characters don’t seem to find the experience too difficult. Dark Energy Digital aims to bring water effects to unseen levels of realism through their HydroEngine, and in the regard, Hydrophobia succeeded beyond all my expectations. Unfortunately, the rest of the game’s design dulled the euphoria of the HydroEngine’s spectacular capabilities.

Hydrophobia takes place during the mid 21st century aboard a city-sized luxury vessel known as the Queen of the World. Earth’s population has exploded to the point that the demand for food outpaces agricultural production, and thus competition is fierce for what food remains. While the corporate entities who built the Queen of the World live like kings, the desperate global conditions have given rise to a terrorist organization known as the Malthusians, who intend to right the global balance by killing most of the world’s human population. The tension is set early on, as protagonist Kate Wilson finds herself escaping from an elevator after an explosion within the first few minutes of the game. Soon after, she comes across electronic signs flashing the slogan, “Save the World, Kill Yourself.”

Most of Hydrophobia’s storytelling is handled through collecting documents scattered throughout the game, meaning how much players glean of the story and background depends entirely on how much effort they’re willing to put in searching for it. Without collecting documents, Hydrophobia’s plot follows a depressingly “go here, do that” formula, with Kate going from one place to the next, crippling systems to disrupt the terrorists, and interesting plot developments are few and far between. Then there’s Scoot, the only character in recent memory to give Jar Jar Binks a run for his money in a “Most Annoying Character Ever” competition. Scoot is a treasure trove of terrible jokes and bad one-liners wrapped in a grating accent, that come across as both shockingly immature and impossible to believe in the context. The ship has been attacked by terrorists, people have been killed, and Scoot’s going on and on about how he hopes Kate makes the chief look bad... what? Are you five?

Little hope can be found in Hydrophobia’s ending either, which severely disappoints. I get that Hydrophobia is part one of an episodic game, but this is the wrong way to deliver episodic content. Instead of releasing a game with it’s own episode story arc tying into a larger whole, or at least some sense of conclusion, Hydrophobia’s ending comes completely by surprise, slapping a “To Be Continued...” across the screen when I thought I was in the middle of a mission! That’s an extremely unsatisfying way to leave fans waiting for what’s going to come next, which will likely make gamers feel like they bought one-third of a game, and not a complete stand-alone experience.

Exciting combat could have saved Hydrophobia, but that can’t deliver to its potential either. Use of the environment to kill enemies through fire, water, electricity, or gas had potential, but combat often boils down to waiting for an enemy to wander too close to that cliche red barrel and then pulling the trigger. Players will find multiple different types of ammo throughout the game, including some regular ammunition that turns Hydrophobia (briefly) into an ordinary third-person shooter. For every sublime moment like attaching a sticky gel round to an enemy’s back and detonating it when he gets too close to another enemy, there’s a dozen moments of waiting for an enemy to obligingly wander near a trap. Rather than making players feel like they’re being inventive with their use of the environment, combat quickly becomes a slog, which the level design does not alleviate, as each corridor looks a little too much like the last, with not enough differentiation to make different parts of the ship distinct from each other.

Hydrophobia’s water effects are outstanding, with waves rolling across the ship like an ocean in a bottle, and Kate gets tossed around by them realistically. Unfortunately, the game’s fascinating core concept gets wasted in poor storytelling through bland (and in Scoot’s case, obnoxious) characters, and gets married to a combat system that feels dated rather than innovating. Episode 2 has a lot of work to do to atone for the opening act’s failings and unsatisfactory conclusion.

Overall: 6 (out of 10)

A Nice Return to Magic: The Gathering

2010-09-25T18:44:00.003-05:00

Note: The following post is all about the card game Magic: The Gathering. If you don't play it, you probably won't card about this post.

So, one of my coworkers has been successfully working on getting me back into MTG again, and I agreed to drive over to Glencoe and participate in a prerelease tournament for the new Scars of Mirrodin expansion. If you want to see the cards, you can find the full spoiler here.

The format was Sealed, with everyone getting 6 boosters for their $25 admission fee. Everyone opens their packs at the same time, and whatever you got is what you have to build a deck from. It's probably the "fairest" format out there, as everyone has the same chance as everyone else to get great cards and build a deck, so your deckbuilding smarts trump the $$$ factor of people spending a lot of money in the singles market for killer decks. Sealed is my favorite format for competitive play, as really anything can happen.

Like the original Mirrodin block, this set is mostly artifacts. I read all the cards as I opened each pack, then sorted them by color and a pile for the artifacts. Everything Black looked horrible, so I rejected that color out of hand. Red and Blue offered some interesting cards, but I didn't have much of either color, so I was forced to build around White and Green, which consitituted almost 2/3 of my colored cards. Thankfully, I was able to use 4 of my 6 rares in the deck.

At its evil heart, I based everything on those 4 cards. Tempered Steel costs 1WW and gives all my artifact creatures +2/+2. Steel Hellkite is a 5/5 Flying Artifact Dragon, with one bitch of an ability. If it deals combat damage, you can pay X to destroy each nonland permanent with converted mana cost X to the player who got hurt. Chimeric Mass has power and toughness equal to the X cost you pay to send it out. Lastly, Argentum Armor gives a creature +6/+6 and every time the creature with it attacks, you get to destroy a target permanent.

I included every single white and green creature I got, some of the artifact creatures, then added in a selection of equipments and white and green control. Arrest and Revoke Existence saved my ass in half the games I played.

The first match I played was horrible. Despite never having more than 4 lands, I got the gal I played down to 4 life before she finally overwhelmed me with more creatures than I could counter. The second match was even worse, as I was so land-jacked, I never had more than 3 mana to use... and I mullied twice before that game started.

I didn't freak out, since I knew my deck was decent, I just had to hope I didn't get land-jacked again. My second match was annoying as hell, as I got paired up against this 10 year old who I swear to god played every third card wrong. Thank god the judge was nearby the whole time, because the kid kept thinking I was wrong whenever I corrected him. I won game 1 easily. Since the kid took forever to make his incorrect plays, the match ended before I could kill him again (I was on the warpath but couldn't do it in 5 turns), so that match ended for me 1 win, 0 losses, 1 tie. LAME, but better than it was still a match won.

Round 3 was almost as aggrivating. This time I'm playing a 7 year old kid whose dad was also in the tournament. At least this kid as a much better grasp of the rules than the one I just beat. Problem is he's easily distracted by the Furutama episodes playing on the TV behind us. He had a pretty decent deck too (my evil side really thinks his dad built it), but little grasp of strategy despite his knowledge of the rules, which saved my life a couple times when I honestly should have lost. He kept attacking with weak stuff I could easily kill, and eat minimal damage each turn, so I quickly picked off his army then turned to the offensive. My Steel Hellkite saved me the first game, as he hit me with 9 poison counters (10 poison counters kills you, regardless of your life), but I was able to use the Hellkite's ability to kill his poison creature and from there it became a stealroll. I won 2-0.

I went into the last round against another person with a 2-1 match record. The first game was a war, as most of the game was a Mexican Standoff of creatures until come of my endgame cards hit the table, I was able to exile or destroy a few of his key artifacts, and then it turned into a whipping. He ended up land-jacked the second game, while I was a flush with mana as I'd been the whole tournament, so I steamrolled him easily for another 2-0 match win, for a final record of 3-1.

The sum of my match points earned me 4th place in a field of 18 players, which meant I won an additional 3 booster packs. One of the booster packs contained a Mox Opal, which is one of the top 3 or 4 most expensive singles of the upcoming set, with online sites trending it in the $30 to $40 range. That card alone just paid for my whole tournament, if I sold it! The real question I face is, do I want to become a tournament player in constructed Standard? If so, the card is insanely useful to have. (0 cost artifact, if you have 3 or more artifacts, you can tap it for one mana of any color) It's quick mana generation, and opens the door to sneak in an off-color card or two into a deck, if you plan it right.

Of course, I have a tentative trade with my coworker where I'd trade him the Mox Opal, and he buys me the card's value worth of new, sealed Scars of Mirrodin product. One very rare Mox Opal, or something like 8-12 booster packs? That's a trade I may very well make.

While I didn't enjoy playing against the young kids so much, it was still a very fun afternoon and a good introduction back into the world of current MTG. As I said, it's been 4 years since I participated in a tournament of any kind.

Fatal Gaming Overload

2010-09-24T18:04:00.002-05:00

I don't think I've ever thrown so many games on my plate to try to play through at once. It's to the point where when I have some free time, if I ask myself the question, "What do you want to play today?" I nearly curl into the fetal position and rock back and forth in a catatonic state from considering all the choices. I'm trying to play through a lot of games, all of which I simultaneously feel like I want to play right the heck now. Don't believe me? Here's the list of games I'd honestly say are ones I'm currently playing:

1. Starcraft II
2. Final Fantasy XIV (I got the collector's edition, thus early access)
3. Hydrophobia (Yes, it's not released until the 29th. I'm working on a prerelease review)
4. Halo Reach
5. Deus Ex
6. Vampire: The Mascarade: Bloodlines
7. Quantum of Solace

Then there's the additional "background" games:

1. Dawn of War II
2. Bayonetta (from Gamefly)
3. Magic: The Gathering
4. Red Dead Redemption

Final Fantasy XIV is an MMO. The playtime potential there is near limitless. Starcraft II has hundreds, if not thousands of hours worth of replayability, as does Halo Reach. I guess this is a good place to be in my official "now that I have FFXIV, I'm not buying any more retail games for the forseeable future" mode. I don't need more games when I have so much I'm working on, and Gamefly to sprinkle in some new content if things ever grow stale.

If you're planning to get Final Fantasy XIV (or even just considering it right now) write this down: My character is named Winter Nightblade, and I'm on the Saronia server. Also, I started in Gridania, which probably won't matter to you later in the game, but is important to know if you're looking for me early in your adventures. Look me up if you want to play together.

After installing FFXIV, I immediately had to lower the settings, as the game can do far more than my new laptop can handle. That's what I get for being economical and not spending for a high range gaming rig. Once I found the acceptable sweet-spot between graphics and performance, I've spent most of my day playing the game, if I'm not playing Hydrophobia. I'd love to talk about that XBLA title, but don't want to do anything to violate the embargo on it. So for now, all I can say is I'm playing it. See the achievements on my tag.

Final Fantasy XIV has been great thus far. I feel completely, utterly lost, but I love it. The feeling of being dropped into a massive world and having to learn the ropes is fantastic. Thankfully, I've found tutorial missions pretty well paced, and there's plenty of help here, without the game totally holding your hand. I like that this game has an actual storyline that's front-and-center (unlike Everquest 2, which had no central narriative and was only so-so at best with storytelling). I'm a huge fan of the fact that the guildleve quests scale based on how many people are in you party, meaning you can treat any quest like a solo challenge or a full-blown raid if you have enough people. I LOVE that versatility.

What I'm not so much a fan of is the fact that there doesn't seem to be a guild system, making maintaining longer-term gaming relationships with some of the same players tougher. It's also harder to see what other people have equipped, or could trade (opposed to EQ2), and the stat-tracking in this game isn't nearly as extensive as my former MMO. Despite those drawbacks, the fights are more engaging and I love that the game is more balanced for solo and group content.

On the Halo front, I'm pretty close to the end of the game, so the next time I sit down to spend some time with it, I should be able to reach the end credits. I've liked this campaign more than Halo 3's, and a lot more than ODST's. Well done Bungie. Now, if you could just learn what the worlds character development mean (something they've had 5 Halo games to imrpove on and have sucked at every single time), the Halo campaigns would be near-perfection. Oh well, maybe Halo's next developer can figure that out, since Bungie already did the matchmaking, stat tracking, and whole gameplay formula thing...

I will be taking a break from gaming long enough to participate in a pre-release tournament for the newest expansion to the Magic: The Gathering card game. It's been eons since I purchased new cards for the game or was involved in that scene, but since it's a sealed deck format, I'm in. The sealed format means everyone gets the same amount of package cards, you open what you got, and have to make a deck out of it for play. It's as "fair" a format as there can be, since everyone has the same number of cards, and everyone has to figure out what the cards do at the same time everyone else does, taking $$$ (some people spend an insane amount to get good decks) and prior knowledge of the whole set out of the equation. I'll post up how I do for my only reader who knows Magic: The Gathering and might remotely care (my brother) =)

That's enough from me for now. Time to get back to FFXIV!

Next Week is "Top 5" Week

2010-09-22T20:42:00.003-05:00

So, if you haven't seen my last post, I am looking for feedback on what you'd like to see more of in this blog. So far DarkTharen is the only one to offer an answer, and that aspect of the blog definitely isn't going anywhere. EDIT: Just saw JJB's xbox live messages with similar sentiments. I will keep those comments in mind as I write more of my general gaming posts. Still, I want to go back to doing more with this blog than recounting what I'm playing and my thoughts, so next week is going to be "Top 5 Week," where, like it or not, I get my listmaking on.

Before you start groaning, I assure you these will not be yet another person's "5 best 360 FPS games" types list. No sir, I intent to get quite creative and random with these =) See the subjects listed below. I've tried to come up with lists I haven't seen in other places before. I shall be busily writing my next rotation off so I can get these posted daily.

Monday: Obsurd Game Mash-ups (proposed, not actual)

Tuesday: IPs that need to become games, or game IPs that need to branch to other media.

Wednesday: Awesome sequels that will never happen.

Thursday: Day OFF

Friday: Worst game ideas I could actually see someone making.

Saturday: REAL places that would make GREAT game levels

Sunday: Top 5 Dumbest gaming decisions I've ever made. Yes, I'll be giving you the chance to laugh with me... or at me. Your choice.

How does this list look? Who is excited for next week?

Callout to the Audience

2010-09-21T21:55:00.002-05:00

All of us find ourselves in a rut sometimes. I can be from exhaustion, disinterest, indecision, and number of things. I feel like I'm in a bit of a rut with this blog, and and calling out to you, oh faithful readers, for some advice. Or just a strong kick in the ass, your pick =)

This blog isn't going away. It'd keep going even if nobody read it, which is a statement I've made multiple times and stand behind, so don't think for a second I'm considering hanging up the blog. Won't happen.

When this blog started, it was just a personal outlet to discuss what gaming shenanigams I've been up to, and who I'm playing with. While I have no problem with people in the industry gazing upon this blog (with the understanding that it's an "off-the-clock" personal blog and I represent only myself here), I've never aggressively used it as an outlet to "advertise" myself to those people. I've written special topics, some fun things like my dream videogame, or various predictions of the future (which I intend to eventually revisit and see how they turned out). I've made some great posts and built a fair following, and I'm happy about that.

But let's not kid ourselves, little of any real importance has been said on this blog in the last three months. I know, I checked. I could have looked farther back, but I honestly cringe to do so. I'll be completely honest so you all don't have to say it: For the vast part of 2010, ThrawnOmega's Blog on the Gaming Life has been... mediocre.

So, oh faithful readers, my question for you is, as I look to invest more energy into this blog and reestablish it as a proud example of my writing, what would you like me to focus on the most? I offer here some suggestions and thoughs, but you may offer any advice or ideas you thing of.

Note that I have no interest in becoming your personal source of news on all things in the gaming industry. There's a thousand sites offering info on every new release, every trailer that's posted, every preview snippet, every list of what X games are being released released in Y month... I won't waste your time copy/pasting info you already saw elsewhere, unless I have some substantial commentary to add to it, where the news is really just there to provide context to what I want to say.

I have a decent catalogue of game reviews. Do you want to see me focus more strongly on game reviews?

Do I devote more time into interesting and/or random special topics? If you've followed most of this blog's history, you'll know this means general randomness and expanded opinions on a topic, not to be confused with serious editorials. Special features are meant to entertain, not really inform.

Do I become more serious and offer you my serious thoughts through insightful editorials on the gaming industry? These would be researched, thoughtful articles, but you're going to see less posts due to the time involved in making them.

Do I pursue relationships with other bloggers towards possible guest posting arrangements, where I post for their blog and/or someone else drops into mine?

SHould I stick my heels in deep and write this blog as if I was someone working professionally in the industry, and move this blog much more in the direction of a marketing tool for careers in the industry?

Some combination of all of the above?

I'd love to hear your thoughts. I've never been to proud to solicit outside feedback and use it to improve my work. For now, I'm keeping my own leaning of each of the offered ideas to myself for the most part, as I don't want to bias your thinking... except for that first item. I will not to "hard news." I won't churn out what other people are posting everywhere else around the internet, so if I can't make something uniquely mine, I'm not writing it. (No smart-a**es looking through the archives for any contradictions to this LOL)

Be vocal! Let your thoughts be heard!

Blacklight: Tango Down for $3.75

2010-09-20T14:33:00.002-05:00

Blacklight: Tango Down is the PC deal of the week, so if you're looking to pick up a decent FPS for the PC, and you want to have 200 potential achievements to add to your gamercard, now is the time to do it. This DOTW expires pretty soon here. I've taken the plunge, and now own both the PC and 360 versions, for a possible 400 points (the games stack). Xylofreak also has the game, so I'm sure we'll be looking for people to play and boost with. Despite some issues I've had with the game in the past, it's still worth $4 to get for the PC. I just hope enough people have the game to make it possible to get into matches regularly.

If you decide to get the game, send me a message to let me know!

Abandoned on Reach

2010-09-15T22:44:00.003-05:00

You know, I'm feeling like the kid who always gets picked last for dodgeball here, and it's rather stupid. I, like pretty much everyone else on the planet with an xbox 360 and $60 to spare ($40 really if you buy from Walmart), picked up my copy of Halo Reach on Launch day.

I've currently spent more time in the multiplayer than the campaign. What? Seriously, I'm enjoying Halo's multiplayer. That's NEVER HAPPENED BEFORE. There's something different about this one, and now the admiration I've always had for Bungie's stat tracking and how they keep things interesting for their community is actually grafted on to a game I have been having fun playing online.

Except that I'm the last kid picked for dodgeball. All of my friends are in full parties or in coop games with other people. Except for some limited time with Bishop, I've been playing solo (extended an offer to Xylo, who passed). I tried to join my brother for some Halo antics tonight. The kid should have been elated. When was the last time I VOLUNTEERED to play Halo? I'll give the audience a hint: I've never been to one to extend invitations or ask if I could join a game of Halo. Pretty positive tonight was the first time.

"Am I cool enough to join this party?" I asked jokingly.

"I don't know," My brother says, "I'll put it to a vote."

There's a moment of silence, then someone says "Nope, I don't think so." Silence. No confirming or denying response from the bro.

"Well fine then." I leave the party, figuring it's a joke and my brother would invite me back in and we'd game. There was no invite. There wasn't a message suggesting when would be a good time. Hell, he was even cooping with someone else last night, no invite or word of explanation. What the hell? I've been intentionally holding off on the campaign because I thought we were cooping it. That's what we've done for every single other Halo game (except Halo Wars... that one I just did with DarkTharen since I don't think my bro was ready or interested in diving back into it).

Am I being a drama queen and blowing things out of proportion? Probably. I mean, Halo Reach has only been out for just TWO DAYS. Still, playing solo with a bunch of silent idiots, or loudmouth assholes, just doesn't stay fun for very long. I'm sure I'm getting all male-PMS-y about it, but that rejection to join pissed me off.

If I can find a posse of people who want to play online and have fun, where we actually chat and play like a team, I'll be logging a good amount of hours into Reach. If not, I'll probably say f*** it as soon as I've squeezed the gamerscore out of it and go back to Starcraft II. Maybe sooner. I've enjoyed the game so far, but not nearly enough to spend time shopping Bungie's forums for people that I'd enjoy playing with.

So, who's in for some REACH?

An Interesting Statistic

2010-09-14T00:57:00.002-05:00

I was randomly thinking about the videogames I've played, and wondered which game I've spend more time in than any other. Perhaps I was curious since Raptr is now logging all my game time. It didn't take me long to realize that Everquest II is hands down the game I've logged more hours in than any other.

Yes, there was a stint back in my college days, mostly before I had a 360, where I was an EverCrack "addict." While I no longer play, Sony Online Entertainemnt keeps that data saved, no matter how long you're gone, so you can return to that character should you ever come back. (It's been over 3 years, I don't see that happening) So, I was able to look up my main character to see his play stats (would have added in my alts too, but I can't remember any of them).

Between October 6th of 2005 (3-4 months after I graduated high school) and February 1, 2007 (my sophomore year of college), I racked up 34 days, 4 hours, and 55 minutes on my main character. Doing the math, that averages out to about 48 hours a month of EverCrack, or 1.6 hours a day. Damn that's a lot of playtime. Of course, any WoW player will probably look at that and go "pfft, that's nothing!"

I enjoyed my time in EQ2 and met some good people there, but the game was far too group-centric at the higher levels, and when it got to the point that you needed 6 people and 4+ hours to feel like you'd accomplished anything, I knew it was time to walk away.

At the end of this month, I'll be picking up Final Fantasy 14, which has me intrigued with its much more solo-friendly and casual-OK game style. I want to play an MMO where I can quest and progress on my own, but have a lot of other people around to game with when the mood strikes me. I don't want to feel obligated to party up to play 90% of the game (which is EQ2 after level 40), and I think this is the game to do that. No worries folks, I have too much going on to let it consume all my time, and I'll still be gaming on the Xbox and padding my Gamerscore.

Birthday Time!

2010-09-12T00:03:00.002-05:00

Yes, it's September 12, my birthday. I don't make this statement in a bid for attention, I've just been thinking on the topic a bit lately. Really, this is the least interesting birthday I can recall ever having (granted, I'm only 5 minutes into it at this point), but it's arrived with no fanfare. I have no social plans. I'll probably spend my day leisurely cleaning up my apartment from the mess vacation packing created, watch some NFL football, go see Resident Evil: Afterlife, and play a shit-ton of Starcraft 2. Oh, I do need to finish my Hydrophobia preview, so there will be a small amount of "work" in my day, but I intend to relax and enjoy the fact that I don't have to work. I guess that ain't so bad, right?

x360a's GSL Season 9 has started, and I'm on the perfect team, i.e. the one that couldn't care less about posting big scores or winning. If I drop 5k over the course of the competition I'd be amazed. I'm just in it for the chance to party chat and hang out with a few new folks, and hopefully expand my gamer clique a little bit. My opening "salvo" of achievement points will come from Aliens vs Predator and Beyonetta, which I have from Gamefly. There may also be some Bioshock achievements in there and a sprinkling of other stuff (plus Halo Reach on Tues.) if I can tear myself away from Starcraft long enough to score anything. Seriously, Starcraft 2 kicks ass. Easily worth every penny of my $60, and I'm likely to long hundreds of hours in this bad-boy before all is said and done.

I need games with such vast replayability, as I'm making an announcement: Until further notice, I am not buying ANY new retail games.* (DLC and XBLA titles do not apply. The other exception is Final Fantasy XIV which was pre-planned, and marks the cutoff). Within the last month, I've purchased a camcorder, new laptop, and $140 worth of new PC games. My "fun money" is tapped out for a while, and I'm limiting my entertainment budget to Netflix (3 discs + Bluray), Gamefly (2 games) and FFXIV's $13 a month subscription fee. When you think about it, that's still a hell of a lot of entertainment for about the price of ONE new retail game every month. I may be slimming down my budget (to pay off said big purchases and start saving up cash again) but I don't feel like I'm really giving up anything in this arrangement. I still have a steady pipeline of fresh games and movies.

If there's any other Starcraft 2 players who read this blog, search my character, conveniently named ThrawnOmega. I'd love to have some people to play with online.

To My Brother

2010-09-08T09:36:00.002-05:00

This post is in response to his comment. How much did that computer cost? I got my model for under $850. I didn't want to break the bank, but I'm thinking my weaker processor will limit how long I'm able to use this computer as a modern gaming platform.

I have an i5 processor at 2.4 GHz, 4GB ram, 64-bit operating system, 500GB harddrive, NVIDIA GeForce 310M graphics card, 1080p LED backlight screen. It will run Starcraft 2 no worries, and can handle Final Fantasy 14 (though not at highest settings). I'll have to wait and see how it handles FireFall next year.

As to convincing you to get Starcraft 2 or Dawn of War 2, it boils down to how much you like RTS games on the PC, where the controls aren't an issue. STarcraft 2 has a long, 29 mission campaign, in-game achievements, and robust multiplayer and social networking obtions, making it totally worth the $60. Just try not to think of all the beatings I dealt you in Starcraft 64 when you make that purchase. You'll be happy to know that when you cry uncle from losing on multiplayer, there's plenty of coop action to be had, so we could play that way.

Dawn of War 2 I have barely played yet, so I can't offer a compelling argument there. You can find the base game and expansion for $40 or less.

Thrawn's Desertion

2010-09-08T00:06:00.002-05:00

First off, let me apologize that getting up the Youtube videos of PAX items is taking Sooooo long. I keep forgetting I need to chop the important ones into less than 15 minute pieces, and I have not yet figured out how to do it yet on my brand new laptop. Right now, the most realistic timeline is sometime between Sunday and Tuesday of next week. Sorry for the delay. Over the next few days I'll be hanging out with my friend Stefan, and I have some writing left to do for x360a, so those items take priority over wrangling with Youtube.

My first PAX preview, for Portal 2's coop, is done and will be posted after it's been reviewed and any necessary revisions have been made. Tomorrow I aim to finish Comic Jumper before heading off to Wisconsin. Stefan is on notice though that we'll have to take some breaks in our chilling so I can spend some time writing features. Since he has nursing liscensing exams to study for, it'll just be like the old college days when we both had homework.

I finally bit the bullet and purchased a new computer, and this is the first post to come from it. This computer is about 100,000x faster than by dying Gateway. I got 5 years out of that machine, so it had a good life, but it's performance was beyond slow, and I don't think any amount of tinkering would fix it. Plus, I really wanted a rig that could run Starcraft 2 and Final Fantasy XIV anyway, so I'm trading up. I still need to extract valuable data from the old computer, so it's not gone yet.

While typing up the Portal feature, I was installing the initial complement of games for my new PC, and updating Raptr with my new accounts. For some reason though, my PC hours are coming up as raptrguest6553209 for the profile, and not ThrawnOmega. Is there any way to fix this?

I now have the following games for my PC:

Starcraft 2: I LOVED the original, despite constantly losing online. The sequal has some amazing social options, looks to have a robust multiplayer (haven't tried it yet), and has about a billion achievements. Sure, they won't pad my gamertag, but achievements are achievements. I'll eventually go for them, but for now I'm just starting to enjoy the campaign, as I'm a fan of Starcraft's story.

Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II (Gold Edition): I got the game with its expansion, for a potential 2,000 achievement points that WILL show on my gamercard. I'm going to dig into the RTS genre more as I enjoy them, but not on consoles (exception Halo Wars).

Sins of a Solar Empire: I hear great things about this RTS and its epic scale. It's a steal at $20.

Quantum of Solace: I got this as PAX swag, and it's 1000 achievement points, and can stack with the 360 version. So, if people need to do the MP for the PC version, I'm an eligible candidate.

Sword of the Stars: Ultimate Edition: Got a code to download this game for FREE as more PAX swag. Haven't tried it yet. It's another RTS.

Deus Ex & Deus Ex: Invisible War: I downloaded these two titles off of Steam for a total of $20. The first is perhaps my favorite game ever and I've never yet had the chance to play the second. Despite not getting achievements for them (yes I'm actually gaming without any regard for getting gamerscore!), I hope to have both completed before Human Revolution releases. Deus Ex is pretty fugly by modern standards, but the gameplay is as solid as ever.

Vampire: The Mascarade: Bloodlines: I loved this vampire-themed RPG, and have played it several times, though never quite got to the end. It always chugged alon on my older computers, but now I have a rig that can run it easily. This time I should get to see how it ends. GREAT storytelling, and how quests and the story turned out depend on the choices you make. Looking forward to diving back into this one as well.

SO, I forsee a lot of PC gaming in the near future. Of course, I won't be completely abandoning my 360. I just rejoined Gamefly in an effort to reduce my game spending in the long-term (by renting instead of buying as much), so I'll have games to play from them, plus there's arcade games like Comic Jumper and Hydrophobia to look forward to. Oh, and that Halo game that's coming next week...

Over the next month, it'll be interesting to see how my gaming trends change, add in the fact that I'm going to get more forceful (as in trying a lot harder, not being a pushy douche) in my efforts to break into the game industry, and I have no idea how my gaming time is going to be effected. Expect to watch my completion percentage drop even further into the toilet (not that I care very much) as I just jump from game to game, playing whatever strikes my fancy at the time.

In other words, I'm about to turn into Silva...

PAX Prep List

2010-08-28T21:18:00.003-05:00

I may work two more days before I go on vacation, but I'm mentally preparing for PAX, and I thought I'd drop a post to let you all know what plans I'm making, so you can know what to expect from this blog and yours truly over the next two weeks. A more detailed PAX itinerary will be put up once I know the full picture. This may be a benefit to others attending PAX as well to help organize your thinking. So, I'll break this post into two parts; prep work and The Event.

PAX Preperation:

1. Let's start with the most banal... I need to pay my rent. Not paying and then going on vacation would kind of tick off the landlord.
2. I need to review and have prepped the resume I wish to put forward if I was to apply for a game industry job, and be armed with copies of it, plus writing samples, in case an appropriate opportunity knocks to pass those along.
3. Get all PAX, Hotel, and Plane paperwork together in one spot so it's easy to find when I need it for travel.
4. IMPORTANT! Do my homework on any individuals I will be interviewing (yes, I'm doing actual interviews!) and get some familiarity with the games they're working on. With that knowledge, develop some intelligent questions to ask them.
5. Pack up...

PAX Packing List:

1. Clothes and necessities (duh). Included in this is some business attire to go with the nerd clothes. I'll be casual on Thursday for the x360a meet and greet, but if I'm sitting down to interview someone in the industry, I want to be dressed like someone professional and worth taking seriously.

2. Entertainment for down time, travel time: Book, iPod Touch, Computer, Nintendo DS

3. Media Capturing technology: Camera, camcorder, rechargable batteries, and a bunch of SD cards.

Now, when the prep work is completed, here's what you can expect from me during the eventself!

THE EVENT

X360A Meet and Greet - Are you going to PAX? Are you participating in the x360a meet and greet? If so, I'll meet you there! I'm looking forward to meeting the people behind the gamertags I hear so much about. It'll be good to talk achievements with other gamers who actually care about them, and get to know fellow gamers beyond just the gaming.

PAX Panels - I previously posted my list, and I'll be attending those that will work around my appointments (except for a small few I told Webb were non-negotiable... there were only four of those over the three days, one of which was Warren Specter's keynote address). If filming is allowed, I may be filming some of the panels I attend. If I can film, what panels I film will be posted to YouTube.

INTERVIEWS and/or APPOINTMENTS - I don't know who or how many yet, but there'll be a few. The content of those interviews will be posted to x360a after the convention. I'd like to record my interviews if the people I interview are OK with that. For one reason, it allows for a more natural discussion on my end, as I can focus on what they're saying and ask good questions, without having to furiously scribble notes. Then I can review the tape afterword to write up everything accurately for a feature. Or, if the video looks good, it could used as a feature in its own right. If I have any hands-on time with a game, I'll be taking notes as I go.

DAILY VIDEO PODCASTS* - Time and sanity permitting, rather than take the time to crank out a compotent blog post, I will be pointing a camera at my face, pressing record, and talking all about what happened on that day. If Xylo and Silva are interested, they are welcome to participate too. Think of them as mini Hand of Thrawn video shows. These videos will then be loaded to YouTube, though not necessarily the day they are shot. (May do shows Thursday - Sunday, and then upload them one per day after I return to Minnesota).

WIN SWAG? Depending on what (if any) goodies I'm able to pick up or purchase at PAX, I may have some items to give away to my loyal blog and Twitter followers. We'll all just have to wait and see on this one.

I can't wait! Next weekend will be incredible!

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

2010-08-27T15:04:00.003-05:00

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?

Yes, Seriously (2.0)

2010-08-26T12:50:00.003-05:00

After hours upon hours of kill grinding while listening to podcasts and music, I can add another achievement to my war chest of gaming "accomplishments." That pain-in-the-ass known as Seriously 2.0 in Gears 2 is now mine. I'd like to thank the Major Nelson Podcast, Lucana Coil, Dream Theater, Apocalyptica, KOXM, and Blind Guardian for their efforts in preserving my sanity over the course of the grinding.

I noticed in my Raptr feed after unlocking the achievement that just 1% of Raptr users who have played Gears 2 have that achievement. Rare indeed. How many trueachievement points is it worth, anyway?

Gears 2 is done. No more listening to Xylo swear at me as I inched closer to the goal. No more Xylo rage kicking me from the party when I got it (I LOLed). No more Social King of the Hill boosting. Act 2 in the Gears trilogy is now sitting atop Avatar on the stack of games I'm going to trade in for Fallout: New Vegas when that comes out. With the 5 completion points I've attributed to the game, I'm at 16cp for the year. I just hit bronze. Yay!

In the last couple days, I've added JJB (things blog's most frequent commenter hands down), Bishop, and Petturi to my Raptr friends list. Nice to see other people checking out the service and the features it offers. I'm a little scared to think that every hour I log into Gears 3 and Fallout: New Vegas is going to be recorded for the record... those totals will be HIGH. I set Raptr to publish a daily twitter summary of my game play, but any hours totals are going to be high for a while, as I continue to pad select games with fake marathons until the site matches my in-game timers for the games I'm interested in tracking.

Tomorrow is shaping up to be a busy day, as I procrastinate on my to-do list. No gaming tomorrow until 7pm. If you see me online before then, it means I'm watching a movie on my lunch break. I've got the regular to-do list, plus everything I need to do for PAX and the fact that I'll be abandoning my apartment on vacation for the first half of september. Fun times are coming soon, but first I must slog through the boring necessities.

Cameron's Avatar Completed

2010-08-25T17:23:00.002-05:00

Finally! It's been a while since I completed every achievement in a game. As I sat down this morning deciding what I wanted to play on my first day off work (the day I refuse to do any work and just relax), none of the games I've been currently working on had any appeal to me, so I flipped through my biner of games and stopped on Avatar. I love the movie. I'll be seeing it in theaters again when it releases this Friday, no doubt. I was reasonably close to done, with just 2 areas left in the campaigns before I burned out on the game last time, so I figured I'd give it a whirl and see how far I could get.

Completing the campaign for the Na'vi wasn't too tough, but hunting down the last A-Pods for the sector challenge achievements wasn't fun at all. Despite the bad reviews this game has gotten, I quite enjoyed it. I picked up the game new for $20, and feel I got $20 worth of entertainment out of it. Of course, if I'd paid $60, the feelings of enjoyment I have now probably wouldn't be the same. You could do much worse than this if you're looking for an action game to kill a weekend with.

Due to the amount of time needed to sleep-grind the multiplayer games, and the fact that I rented a second copy at one point to boost myself, I'm calling Avatar a game worth 2 completion points, as the sum total of all play (or AFK grinding) exceeds 40 hours. This is my 9th completion this year, with 11 completion points in my annual self-challenge. 1 more point and I achieve bronze... My goal is Silver. You can track my progress in one of the boxes down on the right.

After listening to the Major Nelson Podcast and Apocalyptica's excellent new ablum "7th Symphony" while kill grinding in Gears 2, I stand at 86,250 kills. I'm growing ever closer to Seriously 2.0 and the FIVE completion points I'm declaring Gears 2 worth (I truly believe I've got over 160 hours of playtime total in that game).

Through Molneze, I discovered a site that will make tracking how games fit into my 40-hour rule much easier. Check out raptr.com. The site lets you follow friends and send messages across multiple gaming networks, and keeps track of how many hours you've logged in any game (it's not retroactive, of course). I'm using it to track how much I've played games now, and creating some fake gameplay sessions through manually adding hours to bring the raptr.com total in line with what in-game timers are telling me. I won't do this for every game, but the ones I'm still working on or care to have represented on the site will be gradually updated until the gameplay totals are correct. If you've ever wanted to know how much you've played a game, this site is for you, as it'll work with everything, and it's a better indicator of what games you've truly played the most. (360voice's counter of days played isn't the best. Which is more, playing a game one hour on ten different days, or 4 hours on three different days? Since raptr measures actual time, it's much better)

ZERO TOLERANCE

2010-08-23T21:34:00.002-05:00

I just kicked (no, punted) someone from my friends list on Xbox Live, so I thought I'd take the opportunity to put the rest of you on notice, though I don't I'll have further problems with this.

Here are the two messages I receive, which I have smashed into one for ease of reading:

Hey everyone- I have now started doing achievements for other Xbox Live users in return for microsoft points. If your not into that then please ignore this. However, if u want an achievement real bad thats either too hard for u or u just dont want to-
spend the time to get them then im your man. Also since you are my friends u each get a discount- the people that i do this service for will remain nameless unless otherwise requested- also bring me 4 customers and u will receive1600MS points 4 telln ppl!

If you EVER send me one of these types of messages, here is what I am going to do to you (and am working on for this individual):

*Not necessarily in order*

1. Remove from friends list
2. Block Communications
3. I take screenshots of your messages, and pass the word on to Microsoft enforcement, and I'm sure this is against terms of use.
4. Avoid you in Xbox, and report from within the system.
5. Is your friends list visible? If so, I will take the time to send each one of them a message about how bad an idea that is, and how you should be avoided.

Don't send me these messages. Better yet, just don't engage in this behavior. Hell, by saying he won't name his clients, this idiot even know what he's doing ins't right. /sigh

Epically Epic Epicness

2010-08-20T13:05:00.002-05:00

That's right, today's post is sponsored by the word EPIC. From this point on, every time you read it, you have to scream at the top of your lungs and wave your arms around like they did on PeeWee's Playhouse whenever someone said the secret word, mmmkay?

This post has two parts. Part 1 deals with my gaming activities, part 2 talks about PAX.

Part I: EPIC gaming exploits

After three long days of work where I was the only Assistant Manager on duty (that's a party, let me tell you), I finally had a day off, and took some deserved time away from responsibility, to enjoy a day of almost nothing but gaming. I posted to Twitter asking what game people thought I should play over a marathon, as I couldn't decide... they all sounded awesome to me. After a tie vote, I flipped a coin and Dragon Age won out. Before I arrived at Dragon Age, however, I was playing a few other games.

First on the docket was Blacklight: Tango Down. I got in a few games of team deathmatch before tiring of the behavior of people I got paired up with. It seemed to be national EPIC spawn camping day, with loads of teabagging. Sigh.

After that, I downloaded the trial of Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light... and proceded to redeem a 1600 points code minutes later to buy the game. I love the arcadey, dual stick combat action, and the puzzles and platforming have a true Tomb Raider feel. Microsoft definitely held the best Summer of Arcade game for last. As a matter of fact, if I had to rank the four Summer of Arcade games that I've played, I'd put them in the following order:

1. Lara Croft
2. Hydro Thunder
3. Limbo
Distant 4th: Monday Night Combat. Can I have my 1200 MSP back please? Blacklight at its worst has been more fun for me than this game at its best, thus far. Will expand on these feelings some other time.

After getting through the first three levels of Lara Croft, it was time to move on to Dragon Age. I've been away from this one for a while, as it's entering my "burnout phase." No matter how much I love a game, even with the best games I'll enter a phase where I'm bored of them and need to take a break to play something else for a while. Since this game will be worth a large sum of Completion Points towards my annual challenge when completed, and I want to be through it before Dragon Age 2 arrives, there's no time like the present to dive in.

Over the course of play, I completed the main story quest with the Dalish elves and the werewolves, using multiple save files to get the achievements for both decisions on the same playthrough. I have to laugh that I have over 700 achievement points in that game, more than 45 hours played, and I'm still not even 50% complete. There's a reason my RPG completion ratio is so low LOL... those games all last far longer than my "burnout phase" allows, and I'm hit and miss about coming back to them later.

Although I had wanted to, I just couldn't play Dragon Age for six straight hours, so I took a break before settling into my second huge gaming session of the night: Halo Wars. DarkTharen and I are trying to get together once a week to play this game until we've completed it. We successfully completed to game on easy, with gold medals on every mission. We then got through the first two missions on Legendary, with the help of the beneficial skulls activated. There's still one skull and black box I'm missing, and a few mission specific 5 point achievements, but I'm not in a pressing hurry to get those.

Late in the evening, Molneze showed up and joined us for some 3v3 action over Live. We lost every match we played. I'm not going to grief Dark or Molneze for how they played, but it's clear some practise is in order. Molneze's chief difficulty was that since he hadn't played in so long, he totally forgot the tech tree, and couldn't remember what he should be building or the proper order. If made for a frustrating night of play, but Molneze showed he had a good head for tactics during our battles, so after taking some time to relearn the tech tree, we should be sailing along just fine. We had a pretty EPIC 2 vs. 2 match after Dark went to bed, which we of course lost, but it was a back-and-forth struggle, with each side eliminating some of the other's bases more than once. I don't mind losing when the fight is good.

Part II: PAX EPICness

PAX is coming within two weeks now, and I just got my 3-day badge in the mail. I purchased it as an insurance policy, so just in case anything fell through with the x360a press pass, my vacation wouldn't be screwed. (What's a $55 pass for insurance after spending over $500 between flight and hotel?) I'm so excited to go, it's driving me a little crazy. The biggest challenge now (beside the six work days between now and vacation) is deciding how I will spend the time at PAX. How much time do I devote to the exibition floor, and how much to the panels? Webb may be taking it easier after E3 and Gamescom, but as someone who doesn't have the opportunity to go to these things often, I plan on going all-out for all three days. (The only other gaming convention I attended was a Nintendo convention in Osaka, Japan, back in 2006, where I got to play the Wii a few weeks before the system's release.)

WHat you'll see below is a shameless copy/paste from the PAX site some of the panels I really, really want to see. This will give you an idea of some of the stuff I'll be blogging and article writing about over the coming weeks. I've tried to make this a coherent schedule free from overlap, as I sadly can't be in two places at once. Yes, this list is extensive, so I won't blame you for checking out now if you have no interest in everything I'm doing at PAX.

Friday, 10:30 AM - 11:30 AM, Main Theatre
PAX Prime 2010 Keynote
Best known for his work on the Thief series, System Shock and Deus Ex, we welcome Warren Spector as he delivers the keynote for PAX 2010. His history as a master storyteller and game designer will no-doubt play into his keynote as he shares his insight on games and gaming culture in the Main Theatre at Benaroya Hall. Note that the theatre will not be cleared between this session and the first Penny Arcade Q&A.

Friday, 11:30 AM - 12:30 PM, Pegasus Theatre (would miss the start of it)
Hal Halpin and Adam Sessler Talking Games
ECA President Hal Halpin and G4's host of X-Play and Editor-in-Chief of games content, Adam Sessler discuss the hot topics that are affecting the video game industry today and look at trends that could impact gamers in the future. Topics of discussion will include net neutrality, digital rights, and the upcoming violence in video games U.S. Supreme Court case. The panelists will take questions from the audience if time permits.

Panelists include: Adam Sessler [Host of X-Play and Editor-in-Chief of games content, G4], Hal Halpin [President, The ECA]

Friday, 12:30 PM - 1:30 PM, Wolfman Theatre
The Basics of Good Game Design
Veteran designers James Ernest and Keith Baker have designed nearly every type of game imaginable. Board games? Pen and paper roleplaying? MMORPGs? Transparent gothic storytelling card games? Button based fighting games? They've done it. Join them for a discussion of the underlying principles of good game design, and a few laughs as well.

Panelists include: Keith Baker and James Ernest [Loneshark Games]

Friday, 3:30 PM - 4:30 PM, Wolfman Theatre
Making Stories Worth Playing
For years, interactive fiction authors have grappled with the often conflicting demands of story, gameplay, interactivity and immersion. Good stories are not always good games, and while simulation and emergent story can ease pressure on designers, they come with their own problems. Interactive fiction authors and graphical game designers unite to discuss their solutions.

Panelists include: Robb Sherwin, Andrew Plotkin, Annie Carlson, Deirdra Kiai, Dan Shiovitz

Friday, 4:30 PM - 5:30 PM, Unicorn Theatre
Movin’ on Up: How to Make It (Or Not) in Videogames Journalism
Do you run a videogame website and not getting enough PR love? Do you write about videogames and looking to go pro? Are you looking to get into videogame journalism? We’ll drop knowledge on how to get your site or writing noticed by the right people, how to run into the “right” people, and how to just get started in the first place -- all straight from PR folks, veteran, and panelists who have gone virtual unknowns to writing for some of the biggest sites or publications out there. We’ll also dedicate a good amount of time to answer to your questions, so come prepared!

Panelists include: Arne Meyer [Community Strategist, Naughty Dog], John Drake [Manager, Communications and Special Projects, Harmonix Music Systems], Chris Kohler [Game|Life Editor, Wired.com], John Ricciardi [8-4]

Friday, 6:30 PM - 7:30 PM, Main Theatre
Square Enix
Details TBA

Friday, 8:30 PM - 1:30 AM, Main Theatre
Friday Night Concerts
Join us and rock out with our musical guest friends. The lineup for Friday night includes: Anamanaguchi, Metroid Metal, The Protomen, and The Minibosses. Wristbands granting priority access to this event will be given out Friday morning to those at the front of the WSCC and Main Theatre lines, with the remaining seats being given away on a first-come, first-serve basis.

Saturday, 11:30 AM - 12:30 PM, Pegasus Theatre
The Community Manager Challenge Part 2
Join our lovely Community Managers for the exciting conclusion of the worlds first (and only) Community Manager Challenge!

Panelists include: Larry Hryb [Major Nelson, Xbox], Stephanie Bayer [Community Mgr, Bioware], Alexis Hebert-Ruiz [Community Mgr, Terminal Reality], Will Kinsler [Community Mgr, EA Sports], Sam Houston [Social Media Mgr, Perfect World], Christa "Trixie360" Charter [Xbox], Arne Meyer [Naughty Dog], Will Kinsler [EA Sports], Kathleen "cookiecups" Sanders [Xbox Indie Games], Robert "fourzerotwo" Bowling [Infinity Ward], Jeff Rubenstein Rubenstein [Playstation], John Drake [Manager, Communications and Special Projects, Harmonix]

Saturday, 1:30 PM - 2:30 PM, Raven Theatre
Game Writing & Rabid Badger Combat
Do you want to be a game writer? Do you like single handedly fighting rabid badgers while building a miniature version of the Eiffel Tower in a glass bottle? If you answered yes to either of these questions this is the panel for you! This panel will primarily focus on how to improve your chops as a game writer, discuss the future of storytelling and narrative design in games and answer your questions about how to become a game writer. As rabid badger fighting is vastly simpler than game writing it will be covered more briefly as, while it is an essential skill for any game developer, you should be able to pick it up at home through our series of instructional YouTube videos or the excellent, recently published, Idiot’s Guide to Rabid Badger Combat (chapter 10 covers how to build bottled miniatures while fending off omnivorous weasels). All skill levels are welcome, from hobbyist game writers to industry veterans to gamers who just want to get more out of their games. Join James Portnow, Tom Abernathy, Anne Toole and John Sutherland as the cover the ins and outs of writing for games.

Panelists include: James Portnow [CEO, Rainmaker Games], Tom Abernathy [Game Writer, Microsoft], John Sutherland [Game Writer, Microsoft], Anne Tool, Gary Whitta

Saturday, 5:00 PM - 6:15 PM, Main Theatre
Star Wars Games - REVEALED!
LucasArts and BioWare unite on stage once again to give PAX attendees an exclusive in-depth look at Star Wars: The Old Republic! Don't miss your chance to be the first to hear and see new details about the MMORPG that everyone is talking about. As an added bonus, attendees will also get an explosive look at a demo of Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II, the sequel to 2008's blockbuster best-seller. LucasArts will demonstrate now fugitive Starkiller's devastating force powers in an exclusive look at this galaxy-altering game.

Saturday, 8:00 PM - 9:00 PM, Serpent Theatre
Twittering for the Man: Social Media & Game Publishers
Community managers have long been an asset to game developers -- but spokesgeeks for publishers? That's a fairly new one. Some of the biggest publishers are building direct lines of communication to their biggest fans and harshest critics, so GamePro’s editor-in-chief John Davison will ask some of the most well-known architects -- Microsoft's Larry "Major Nelson" Hryb, Activision's Dan "OneOfSwords" Amrich, EA's Jeff "Greenspeak" Green, and Sony's Jeff "JeffPS" Rubenstein -- to explain their unusual roles, carefully balanced between the fans and The Man. How much freedom do they have under a corporate umbrella? How much are they making it up as they go along? And how come none of them seem to do their jobs the same way? Their answers will Twitter your Facebook off. Or something.

Panelists include: Larry Hryb [Director of Programming for Xbox Live, Microsoft], Dan Amrich [Social Media Manager, Activision], Jeff Rubenstein [Social Media Manager, SCEA], Jeff Green [Editor-in-Chief, ea.com, Electronic Arts], John Davison [Editor-in-Chief, GamePro]

Sunday, 12:30 PM - 1:30 PM, Main Theatre
X-Play LIVE: A Show on Television
Through 12 years, 3 name changes and over 1,084 episodes X-Play has persevered as the most watched videogame show on television and was almost nominated for a Primetime Emmy. Each episode is packed with brutally honest reviews, hands-on demos, and the occasional off-hand reference to early David Cronenberg movies. Join hosts Adam Sessler and Morgan Webb with correspondents Blair Herter, Abbie Heppe and the X-Play crew for their biggest live event ever (**this year**). They'll take questions from the audience, reveal world exclusive behind-the-scenes stories, and mock whoever dares ask about the infamous "Crisis Core" review. Be there for the event of a lifetime and learn what it really feels like when you win a Telly, how deep cable is a life changing experience, and why having a career playing video games can actually be as fun as it sounds.

Panelists include: Adam Sessler [Host and Editor-in-Chief, Games Content, G4], Morgan Webb [Host, G4], Blair Herter [X-Play correspondent and Deep Teaser, G4], Abbie Heppie [Games Editorial, G4], JP Shub [X-Play Supervising Producer, G4], Wade Beckett [X-Play Executive Producer, G4]

Sunday, 1:30 PM - 2:30 PM, Pegasus Theatre
Xbox LIVE Enforcement: Tales from the Din Part 3: The Conclusioning
Enforcement on the Xbox LIVE service isn't just about whacking the bad guys. Join Stephen "Stepto" Toulouse, head of Xbox LIVE Policy and Enforcement, as he walks you through the ins and outs of policing the service (along with some fun stories), working with game developers to keep ahead of the miscreants when designing their titles, and working with the gaming community as a whole to understand how gamers want to be safe online. Stepto and his team will also take your questions about banning, cheating, or anything else you'd like to know about protecting the service. This panel will complete the trilogy of the previous parts presented at PAX Prime 2009 and PAX East 2010 with all new content and fun.

Panelists include: Steve Clark [Enforcement Program Manager, Microsoft], Boris Erickson [Enforcement Program Manager, Microsoft], Andreas Holbrook [Enforcement Program Manager, Microsoft], Stephen Toulouse [Director, Policy and Enforcement, Xbox LIVE, Microsoft

Sunday, 3:00 PM - 4:00 PM, Pegasus Theatre
Gearbox!
Gearbox Software continues the now well established PAX tradition of “What’s up with Gearbox” panel! We’ll be discussing Borderlands and the DLC packs, the Brothers in Arms franchise and Aliens: Colonial Marines. There will be time during the panel for gamers to get answers on all their favorite Gearbox games. There may even be a little Claptrap surprise!

Panelists include: Randy Pitchford [CEO, Gearbox Software], [Brian Martel, Executive Vice President, Gearbox Software], Mikey Neumann [Creative Director, Gearbox Software]

Only problem here is that there's so many panels I want to see, I couldn't see all of them due to overlaps. It also means if I went to all of these that I won't be spending as much time in the expo hall as I'd like, so I'm going to probably have to shave this list down a little to make more time for that. So much to do in just 3 days!

Contest After Thoughts: The Snowball Effect

2010-08-15T16:04:00.004-05:00

For ease of following, this post is divides into 3 parts. (1) Data from the contest (2) Why I attemted this contest (3) Particiant Feedback.

Part 1: Contest Data:

My first prize-giving competition is over, with PriusGuy2004 winning the 4,000 Micosoft points. Each entrant was assigned a number (and only counted once, if you send the code through Twitter and Xbox), and then I used a random number generator on my ipod to pick the winner. Now, before you all scatter to the winds, I thought I'd share some info and feedback from the contest.

Congrats to everyone, as every person who submitted the code had the numbers in the right order.

When I started the contest, I had only 18 followers. Over the weekend, that number has risen to 79, an increase of 61 people.

Over the 3 days of the contest, this blog registered 2,038 hits, including 1,084 on Friday... by far the busiest day this blog has ever seen. (Full disclosure: The way my hit counter is set up, every time someone loads a page, it counts as a hit. So, if one person got every post right in sequence on the very first try, they'd likely count for 7 hits. That means this number isn't quite as impressive as it looks, but still, that's a lot of activity.)

Of course, the next question is about the attrition rate. Now that the contest is over, and a winner has been named, how many people are going to stick around, and how many will be gone for good? I'm hoping looking through this blog and reading a little of what's on offer here will be enough to convince the majority to stick around. Only time will tell on this one.

Part 2: Why have this contest?

Naturally, I want to try to build up my audience on Twitter and this blog, as the more eyes I can get on my work, the better that is for my future goals (such as working in the game industry, for example). Besides offering up some fun shenanigans and a bribe to get people to check my Twitter and blog, I wanted to see first hand what I call the "Snowball Effect." (I got a degree in Sociology folks, wanting to conduct 'social experiments' comes with the territory) Imagine a small snowball rolling down hill. As it goes, it picks up speed, growing by leaps and bounds as it picks up speed. The same sort of effect can be replicated in the Twitter-verse.

I started with 18 followers. As far as I can recall, only 2 of my original 18 retweeted my message. Using their follower counts as a guide, from just 2 retweets, my message reached almost 400 people! And once those 400 retweeted to their lists of followers, the number of people my message may have reached quickly becomes too difficult to accurately track. I'd have to add up the follower counts of every one of my followers to even come close, but considering one of the participants has about 1,600 followers (and another on quick glance had 1,000), I'd say the message got out as well as I could have hoped. That's a lot of views from an initial dispersal group of just TWO people!!!

Seeing firsthand how data can spread through something like Twitter was a valuable lesson to learn, as the transmission of data through places like Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube will play a part in the novel I'm slowly, gradually working on. Seeing a good snowball from this end of it was worth the 4,000 Microsoft points alone, but any additional following is one hell of a bonus.

Part 3: Participant Feedback

So, was this contest any fun? Here's what a lot of you said (note I'm using the GT or Screen name form the source of the message; sorry for any typos):

ChainsawCharlIe: nice scavenger hunt

PriusGuy2004: Thanks for the contest! Nice job on the scavenger hunt!

Kasanagi2k5: Thank you for hosting such an awesome contest.

Azazel Hellion3: That was fun. I don't know how you will do this... Thanks for the contest.

il Radd: very interesting way to do a contest.

alee67: Thanks for this generous giveaway!

NeT ReAPeR ZERO: Hi Nate, thanks to your contest I finally had to succumb to the evil trend that is Twitter and create an account just to follow you. The scavenger hunt was a pretty neat idea, but a bit too easy.

Neo_Ravager: This was something different, but I don't mind working for a chance to win & variety is the spice of life.

PenultimateHero: Good morning Nate. After an hour rummaging through your blog yesterday, I finally found all six numbers.

Garry_Grant: Brilliant idea to do a scavenger hunt to be eligible for your contest. :)

Phantoms_Heart: That was quite tough, but here is the code. Thank you for such a great contest!

xylofreak: that was fun good job with the hunt

Since the reception for the contest was so positive, I'm sure I'll do another in the future. Next time, I think I'm going to make it harder. Most of the clues led to a title of a post, and with the number and next clue at the top of the post, reading wasn't truly required (though I'm glad several of you did read through the blog).

The next one will require reading through posts, and possibly even direct people off-site, to things like my reviews for x360a. The rewards will be worth the effort though... I will be trying to pick up a little swag at PAX early in Sept. for the specific purpose of audience giveaways. We'll see if I'm successful at that. =)

Thanks again everyone for playing, and I hope you stick around!

Win 4,000 MSP! The Great Scavenger Hunt

2010-08-13T12:05:00.007-05:00

As I close in on 300 blog posts, I though I'd have a little fun, and use this as a chance to build up a little blog and Twitter following through some fun shenanigans and a little bribery =)

So, here's the deal. Scattered across this blog are SIX PRIZE NUMBERS, which will form a six-digit code. If you can find all six numbers, you could win 4,000 Microsoft Points! I have to make you work for it a little bit... we're talking about $50 in points here! =)

THE RULES:

1. To be eligible, you MUST be following me on Twitter.

2. You must also RETWEET my tweet that announces this contest. I will also accept any RETWEETs of any subsequent tweets I make that specifically reference this contest. Be sure to knock out those two eligibility requirements right away!

3. Once you have found all six numbers, send them to me, in the correct order, via XBOX LIVE MESSAGE to my gamertag, which is also ThrawnOmega, or via Twitter Direct message.

4. A winner will be selected by random number generator at 11pm CST on Sunday, Aug. 15th. The winner will receive the code via Twitter Direct Message.

HOW TO PLAY:

I will leave you clues on which post has the next number in the code. Once you find the post with the first number, you will also find a clue to the second number, and so on. For the duration of the contest, I have moved my blog archive to the top right of the blog, to make your searching easier.

You will know you have found the right post if you see SCAVENGER HUNT at the top of the post. Good luck folks. Time to start raiding my back catalogue. Good luck and have fun!

CLUE #1: There is one completion on my gamercard that deserves a special place in the underworld for the unnecessary amount of time it takes, and it nearly ruined the fun of achievements for me. Find my rant about that game for first number.

Let me know if you have any questions.

The Apps I'm Rocking

2010-08-10T21:57:00.002-05:00

I've been pretty obsessed with my Ipod touch since I purchased it, and have dropped a fair amount of some applications. I thought it would be amusing to share what apps I've decided to customize my ipod with and why. Feel free to make any inferences you wish as to what type of human being I am from this:

Osfoora: It's a nice Twitter app that makes it easy to see what's happening in crazy old-twitter land. Easy to navigate with.

ESPN Scorecenter: Free, and it gives score updates, so I can follow my favorite teams even if I can't watch the game.

iBooks: In case I'm ever desperate for reading material and don't have a REAL book handy. Downloaded the complete works of Edgar Allan Poe for free. If you don't find that epic as hell, shame on you.

Gamespot: The site's app for news and video.

IGN: Ditto

J Sensei: An awesome app for expanding my Japanese vocabulary. Has over 10,000 words, with native speakers saying the words, and all words are used in the context of a sentence. You can be quizzed in numerous ways, like hearing the word and having to give the english meaning, or seeing a kanji and having to give the Hiragana for it, as well as several other ways. Lessons are broken down into managable 10-word intervals. I would not recommend this app to anyone just starting to learn Japanese, as it won't teach you any grammar or the writing system, but if you have that down already (which I damn well should after 5 years of study) then it's a fantastic way to build up that vocabulary and restudy words you may have forgotten. At $16, it's one of the more expensive apps out there, but trust me, it's worth every penny.

Toodledo: For $4, this app will make my job much easier. I can enter all my tasks in, and it helps sort them by priority based on my inputed priority value and due date. With a single click I can mark tasks off as done. Helps to to remember what I need to do each day without lugging a clipboard of paper around.

Acme Lists: A very simple list making application. Useful for my job and personal life.

IMDB: For whenever I need to know movie info while sitting on my couch.

Civilization Revolution: It was free; haven't played it yet.

World Series of Poker: A bordom-killing poker sim for travel times.

Wikipedia: See IMDB.

Mixologist: A virtual dictionary of different ways to get oneself drunk. Can show you where local bars and liquor stores are, and can recommend drinks based on what you tell it is in your cabinet. My favorite thing may be the "random" option, where you shake the ipod and it comes up with a drink at random. Click on the name of the drink and you have the recipe. SO using this the next time I go to a bar. Maybe play the random game against Silva some time during PAX.

Epic Fail: A gathering of images from the Fail Blog. Can easily download the images into the system's hard drive. Good for quick LOLs.

APPZILLA: A $1 app that does a million things I'll never need... but wanted anyway. I know it will actually prove useful from time to time.

Flixter: Allows me to see movie showtimes and reviews with ease.

Sudoku: Another travel boredom killer, and brain stimulant.

1337pwn: An xbox live friends list application. I use it to see who is online while gaming without having to hit the guide button. Know I don't have to be near a computer or my console to see that Xylo isn't catching up to my Gamerscore =)

Countdown: A $1 app that, as the name implies, counts down to events of your choosing. I will be programming the big game releases I'm looking forward to into it. For now, Countdown was kind enough to tell me that my flight to Seattle for PAX is scheduled to take off in 22 days, 8 hours, and 18 minutes... TOO LONG!

What do you think of this early app list? Any you would recommend I check out?

The XNA Experiment

2010-08-03T21:50:00.002-05:00

For better or worse, I'm one of those individuals where gaming is more than just a hobby, it's a lifestyle. For a while, my ambitions in chasing a job in the game industry were on the backburner, but I've come to the point where I feel I need to keep chasing that dream if I ever expect to actually live it. So, I spent the better part of my afternoon starting to research. Which companies are hiring. What they are looking for. The qualifications desired and what the job responsibilities are. I also downloaded a great 108 page PDF magazine full of articles and tips. You can find if from THIS SITE. Always happy to share what info I find.

While my Plan A is still to chase writing positions for print or web groups like OXM, Game Informer, or IGN (to give a few examples), or a writing position for a developer or publisher, I'm looking at Plans B and C too.

Plan B is researching other job openings where I might be able to ply skills I've picked up in my current position or through my Sociology coursework. Haven't researched this extensively enough to say much on what I'm looking for.

Plan C, which is the most long-term of the ideas, is to start teaching myself a lot of the skills employers are looking for, and I don't possess. On my next day off, I will be compiling a list of such skills, and evaluating which ones I can realistically go after. As a part of Plan C, I've downloaded XNA and everything I need to run it.

Yes, that means I can theoretically make a game you'd play on your Xbox. Of course, I'm going to have to teach myself literally everything before I could even start on such a project, so don't think you'll be seeing anything from me on the Indie marketplace any time soon. If I can teach myself the skills to make a game through XNA, making a game would be great for my resume. It could be used as an example when applying for a game design position, or, if I could convince Bioware or similar developers to look at it, I think my ability to write excellent dialogue would speak for itself. (If I can say one thing about my writing, I do awesome dialogue. I know I need to improve in other areas, but not there).

So, I'm going to have to reshuffle how I spend my free time, with less time actually playing games and more time doing the research needed to move into the job of my dreams. I've got nothing against my current employer, and will continue striving to do the best I can in my current position, but it's foolish not to keep chasing the job you want above all others, right?

Everybody... Hand of Thrawn is Back, Alright!

2010-07-28T16:57:00.003-05:00

WATCH ME!

It's been nearly two months, but at last Episode 7 of the Hand of Thrawn Podcast has arrived. We're a little out of practise, but this episode seeks to prove that Xylo and I can hold our own when we're shortstaffed. We talk a little about Kinect, Alan Wake, Crackdown 2, and more. Episode 7 also marks the debut of the post-show blooper reel.

The launch of Episode 7 marks the beginning of a process I'm working at to improve the podcast overall, and get us back to a more regular schedule (and keep us there). I will be stepping up and driving this ship as much as I have to to keep us going strong. I'm not going to tell all now, but Xylo and I have ideas. Keep tuning in folks.

Episode 7 is available now on Handofthrawn.com, and will be there soon for Zune and iTunes.

Fallen to the Dark Side

2010-07-27T15:10:00.002-05:00

I said I'd never do it... That I was above such things, but apparently not. I've caved in, and fallen to the dark side. Nate Gillick, Xbox Live's ThrawnOmega, has a Twitter account. I've written an editorial about how much I hate twitter, and the vast majority of what I said there I still believe, but I think a balance point has been reached where the pros somehow outweigh the cons. For every tweeted pic of Eliza Dushku's left eye (a real tweet people), there's informative posts from other people.

So, I'm jumping into the rancor pit, and we'll see how long I can stay alive. Twitter posts will not and can not replace blog content, of that I swear, but they may serve as filler between posts. I'm only going to tweet if I have something important to say, or have some gamerscore accomplishment I feel the need to tweet out for that vain and pointless instant self-gratification.

Want to follow me? My Twitter account is, conveniently enough, ThrawnOmega.

Alan Wake Complete... 'Til Next Week

2010-07-22T13:52:00.002-05:00

It's done! After spending too much of my last few days playing it, Alan Wake has been 1k-ed. I have to take back what I said earlier about it being more frustrating than fun on Nightmare; most of the game remains pretty good. It's just Episodes 1 and 2 that suck. Once Alan has the full arsenal of weapons, I found it a lot more fun, and I got much better at hoarding up ammo, to the point I never had the issues I did in the first two chapters. Tyger7's color-coded walkthrough on x360a is AMAZING. Great descriptions, and super-easy to follow, so I owe him a big THANK YOU.

So, despite the DLC coming next week, Alan Wake is now out of the Retail Four. It'll just be considered a side project for the amount of time "The Signal" takes to complete. I'm going to hold off adding Alan Wake to my completed games list on the right until it's at 1250.

So, it's time to update the Four, and I've decided to slot in Prince of Persia in its place. I got the game for $20 new a while back and haven't even played it yet (I did play it before as a rental, but the disc I paid for has yet to be used).

I've been eyeing up Darksiders on Gamestop, as they're selling it new for $20... I'll probably pull the trigger on that, though I'm trying hard to make my list of owned and unfinished games shorter, so adding to it does not help. Still, from what I've heard, I'm sure Darksiders is worth $20.

Scattered Progress

2010-07-21T11:21:00.003-05:00

Thought I'd drop a post to update where I'm at with the game's I've been playing for both sets of Four, plus other gaming exploits I've been up to lately:

The Retail Four

Dragon Age- I have completed Liliana's Song, and in the main game I'm now working through the Urn of Sacred Ashes quest. I'm 40 hours into the game now, making it worth at least 2 completion points. I still have 39 achievements and almost 1000 gamerscore still to get from the title, so I'll be working on this one for a long time yet.

Crackdown 2- I've down the Party Bus and Squad City Glider achievements twice now, with different groups of people. Neither is particularly hard. At this point, I just need to finish orb hunting, get 25 ways to die, Car Jump, Mosh Pit, Co-op keepy up, wingsuit and vehicle rings, and collect audio logs... That actually sounds like a lot when I list it all out... Will probably be busy here for a while too.

Red Dead Redemption- Completed the coop missions with my brother, and gold medaled all of them, so it can be done with two people, in case anyone was wondering. We didn't make any progress in the advanced ones, as advanced targeting and faster deaths kicked our asses. Recommend 4 people for those for sure.

Alan Wake- Loved the game the first time, but its replay value isn't great, and I'm not particularly enjoying Nightmare difficulty. More bullets to kill enemies, and less ammo is a recipe for frustration, not fun. While I often enjoy replaying games on harder difficulties for those achievements, Alan Wake really isn't doing it for me. I'm running through with the collectables guide hoping to polish everything up before the new DLC arrives next week. Once I get to 1250 I can loan the game to my bro and put something else in my Four until the next DLC arrives.

The Arcade Four:

Limbo- About a third of the way through the game. It's a trippy experience and a heck of a lot of fun. Definitely do not try for the achievement for playing it in one sitting with 5 or less deaths your first playthrough. You'd only frustrate yourself and not enjot the full experience. That 10 point achievement is the only toughie here, as I think the others should come fairly enough.

Blacklight: Tango Down- I really like this game. Bishop has it, Molneze and my friend Anchor are planning on getting it, so hopefully soon I have a team to play with. Recently a title update reset my rank for no reason I know of, which caused me to lose about 40,000XP. I'm not happy about that, but I was a loooong way from the general achievements anyway, so I've just started over. So far I've got 10,000 of that XP back. I don't want to progress through this one too fast, as there is still confusion on what has to be done for the Gearhead achievement, and I don't want to miss out on that one.

Puzzle Quest 2- I keep playing it from time to time. Fun game, though I can't play it for more that 30-40 minutes at a time.

Doom II- Nothing new to report. Still need a boosting partner, though I have not made much of an effort to find one.

Other:

Halo Wars- DarkTharen and I have an arrangement where we shall be playing the game together every Tuesday night until we've completed the game (well, everything we can get with two people). That includes multiplayer for our General ranks. Hopefully I can get him to sign on for the DLC too, so we can both 1200 the game. We're starting by playing through the campaign on easy getting all the skulls, black boxes, and 5 point achievements we can, then we'll rock through Legendary with all beneficial skulls active. After that, I anticipate a bit of campaign mop up before we switch over to the multiplayer.

Rule of Four Expanded for XBLA

2010-07-17T20:28:00.002-05:00

The only thing you can count on with me is that I'll change my goals and how they are measured constantly, but at least the Rule of Four has kept me more honed in on a few specific games at a time than I used to be. I came to the realization the other day, however, that I was only putting retail games in my four, and wasn't giving my stack of arcade games their due. I have a lot of arcade games to finish, so I've decided to have a queue of 4 retail games, and another of 4 arcade games. I've also broken the retail Four into categories; there must always be one RPG, two action, and one "swing" game that can be of any genre. As always, I'm not a slave to this list, and will boost and work with people on other projects I need as opportunity knocks.

RETAIL FOUR:
RPG: Dragon Age
Action: Crackdown 2
Action: Read Dead
Swing: Alan Wake

ARCADE:
Puzzle Quest 2
Blacklight: Tango Down (very fun online FPS, you totally should download it and team up with me)
LIMBO (reserved spot for its release this week)
Doom II (online boosting pertner needed)

Boosting S.O.S.

2010-07-15T22:07:00.002-05:00

I've looked through my tag (again) for games where I'm missing some online achievements, and will need help to complete them. Take a look at this list and let me know if you're missing some of the same stuff, or would be willing to help even if you already have it. I've organized this list by the number of people needed to play. If a game is bold, that's a higher priority target to me. This list is not exhaustive, but having this list to work through is certainly enough for now.

2 People:
Stranglehold (MP Boost)
The Darkness
Doom II
SOF Payback
Fracture
Warhammer Battlemarch
Halo Wars (coop)
Red Alert 3 (coop)
Crackdown 2 (online orbs)

4 People:
Read Dead (Advanced Coop Missions)
Crackdown 2 (4-player achievements)
Halo ODST (see my card for what I need)
Resident Evil 5 (team MP achievements)
L4D
Ghostbusters

6+ People:
Bioshock 2 (Map Packs)
Unreal Tournament 3 (a couple ranked achievements)
Hour of Victory

8 People:
Read Dead (Posse Up achievement)

??? People:
Turning Point
Army of Two
Wolfenstein
Section 8
Timeshift (only missing a few achievements)
Dark Sector
F.E.A.R
Lost Planet

Addicted to Crackdown 1.5

2010-07-10T17:14:00.003-05:00

I've been playing far too much Crackdown 2 these last few days. As a matter of fact, it's virtually the only thing I've done on my current 3-day off stretch, which is a rather bad thing as I have a lot of other projects that got put on hold (nothing life threatening... all the bills still got paid). As someone who purchased the original Crackdown on the cheap but didn't get super deep into it, Crackdown 2 is still fresh enough to be an incredible amount of fun, though mission objectives can get repetitive and there really isn't any story. The game is great, though it feels more like Crackdown 1.5 than a true sequel. HUD updates and achievement tracking improvements are welcome, but otherwise it's familiar ground here. Hopefully Crackdown 3, which I'm sure we'll eventually see, is set in an entirely new city.

Normally, I hate collectables. This fact is well documented across this blog and numerous reviews I've written for x360a. Yes Crackdown 2 is able to join the short list of other games (Banjo-Kazooie franchise, the 3D Mario games, Pokemon) where I find collecting things to be an enjoyable diversion. Hell, with over 900 orbs in crackdown 2, one could argue orb collection is the whole point of the game!

I've been tearing through the game, and currently have the following stats:

Game Completion: 87%
All Absorption Units, Beacons, Tactical Locations, and Freak Breaches have been dealt with.
Audio Pickups: 36/52

Road Races: 10/15
Roof Races: 10/15
Agility Orbs: 462/500 (Green Bay area is 100% complete)
Hidden Orbs: 193/300
Agility Renegade Orbs: 24/30
Driving Renegade Orbs: 1/15
Online Orbs: 50/80
Vehicle Stunt Rings: 2/40
NO Wingsuit Rings

Playtime: 22 Hours
Achievements: 32/50

Progress is good. You can count on me continuing this tonight, though I'm planning on going to see Predators at my local movie theater tonight to get out of the apartment LOL.

The 40 Hour Rule

2010-07-05T21:50:00.002-05:00

I had a revelation a few nights ago. I've been spending a lot of my gaming time working on the long completions sitting in my back catalogue, and therefore been falling quite far behind in my medaling goals for the year. So, if I'm running a self challenge about completing games, why would I want to chase the tough completions instead of simply going after the easy crap?

So, to balance things out somewhat, I added a time component that makes some games count as worth more than one in the challenge. All games start as worth one. If a game takes 40 or more hours to complete, it is worth two, and gains an additional completion credit for every additional 40 hours after that. If something takes the equivalent of a full working week to finish, it should be worth a little extra, right?

How the scoring for this would work is that each game worth more than one is still counted as one completion, with the extra "credit" going to reduce the number of completions needed to hit each medaling goal.

The first multicredit game I'll be finishing is likely to be Gears 2. My most realistic estimation of the amount of time it's taken me is the 120 hour range, making it worth FOUR completions for my self-challenge. Later tonight, I'll be looking at me current list of completions for 2010 to see if any of them qualify for double credit.

Tonight, I'm listening to another episode of Major Nelson Radio while kill grinding in Gears.

Ending kill total: 39,050

Project $720

2010-07-04T00:43:00.001-05:00

I'm making a challenge for myself that is related to gaming, but does not involve the playing of games directly. From July 1, 2010 to July 1, 2011, I'm aiming to see if I can go a full year spending $720 or less on video games. The 720 number comes from the $60 price of a new retail game (before tax) multiplied by 12, or one retail game a month for a year. The challenge is to see how much gaming I can get in with my gaming dollars (not just to be a tight wad, cheap ass, miser, you pick).

Nothing wrong with people spending their hard earned cash on their favorite hobby, but I sometimes think we're not aware of how much it all adds up to. The point of this challenge isn't to not spend money, but see just how much gaming I can get for the price of 12 retail titles.

So, what are the rules? It's simple enough: every game purchase counts towards the dollar total. The cost of renting games, or services like Gamefly would count. Buying more Microsoft Points counts. However, any money made from selling games from my collection can be spent on more games without going against the 720 total. Recycling is good for both the environment and my gaming budget.

How can I get a lot of gaming in? Raid bargain bins, scour ebay, and trading games with others comes to mind. If I borrow a game from someone, the only cost I'd incur is the postage to/from the sender. So, I may be looking for volunteers to participate in my game loaning / trading operation. I can be counted on to return what I borrow, and send out games as well. Ask Bishop, Dark Tharen, or Sabre, who have all done business with me in the past.

Now, in the interest of honesty and total disclosure, I have Halo Reach paid in full already, so that's one $60 game that won't show up in the costs of this challenge. Also, I have 12,000 Microsoft points purchased from a Walmart.com deal a while back, so I can buy $150 worth of DLC or arcade games before Microsoft point purchases would become a part of this challenge. So, I admit I have an advantage here. Though, to be fair, those games will not appear in the "What I did with $720 list I will be making."

For the price of 12 new retail games, let's see just how much gaming I can actually do. There will be an ongoing list further down on the right side of this blog. Who wants to help me make this list as long as possible? =)

Oh, and 4 posts in 3 days... definitely back from the dead.

Thank God for Podcasts

2010-07-03T09:45:00.003-05:00

Three posts in two days... check the others, if you haven't already =)

Veteran Gear is on the books, leaving Seriously 2.0 the only achievement I need for the 1750. Slogging through the Brumak seen over and over again is a looong and boring process. How does one stay sane during this process? Make it something to do while actually listening to podcasts.

For this session, it's the Major Nelson podcast, followed by the Cheap Ass Gamer show. Last night I listened through the OXM podcast while grinding kills. This sort of thing will likely be a weekly deal until the achievement pops.

What ever happened to the Hand of Thrawn Podcast? I don't know. My co-host and our sound editor, Bishop, has had a lot going on lately of the not-fun variety, and therefore hasn't had time to edit the show. It's largely up to him when we get back into our regular taping and posting schedule... which has fallen way behind. RL comes first, of course. Rest assured, at least, the we plan on keeping that show rolling as soon as possible.

Grinding update: Taking a break after Major Nelson's show to eat lunch and watch a few episodes of Archer through Netflix watch instant. The show is great, especially if you liked Frisky Dingo, which I most certainly did. Major Nelson seems to have a pretty awesome show. There was a lot of great info and interesting stories, and they carry on the show with a conversational style that I wish we at the Hand of Thrawn Podcast could mirror, though they have an advantage on that as they're all in the same room -- where it's easier to trip over each other and not know if someone is going to talk when everyone is just running Skype.

Kills when I started: 17,200
End Kills: 31,850

Veteran Gear

2010-07-02T19:22:00.001-05:00

Hurray for a second post in one day! The video really says it all:

LINK

Cracking Down

2010-07-02T10:12:00.002-05:00

For the forseeable future (the next 3 months at the minimum), I'll be changing my gaming philosophy considerably in terms of what I play. Without over-sharing in a public venue, let's just say I'm in a mood to pinch pennies across the board, and my gaming hobby isn't safe from the intense crackdown. Here's my new limits:

If a HOTBA member picks a game to boost that I don't own, and it's under $20, I'll pick it up. I'm still planning on getting Crackdown 2, and Halo Reach has already been paid in full. My stash of Microsoft points I can still spend as I see fit, as I've already paid for all that.

Other than that, I'm not getting anything unless I can trade in games or find a deal where a game costs me next to nothing. I'll be raiding bargin bins for gems I missed before shelling out the cost of the new retail title everyone else will be playing. Oh, I'll still be gaming as much as I always have, though the focus will be on the abundance of games I already own. I'm not going to pull a jackanape and list every game I need to work on yet (the list is far longer than I care to type), but I will not be running out of things to play for months. Without naming everything, here's just the games I own and have NEVER even played yet or have 0 gamerscore in:

Puzzle Quest 2
Prototype
Need for Speed Undercover
The Last Remnant
The Incredible Hulk
Deadliest Catch
Ninety-Nine Nights
Lego Batman
Spectral Force 3
Sonic Unleashed

I really need to do a better job of putting the time into games I have already paid for. Who knows? Maybe my completion percentage will actually increase due to this effort.

With the 8x XP event going on in Gears 2, I'm once again wasting time in the persuit of the rank 100 achievement. I've made it all the way to rank 91, with 5.25 million XP, so I'm getting close. If I should somehow fail to get there by the end of this event, the next one will surely put me over the top. Last night I boosted for about 5 hours with the Rogues (1 and 5), Rand al Thor, Mr Blackmagic, and a few others. They're definitely not a bad group to boost with. All were very efficient, and the conversation was better than most of the boosting sessions I've been in lately.

Today, I'm trying my luck in public searches, trying to luck into boosting games in progress where I would join as the 10th person. I've been successful twice at this point, with the first lasting only one match until it devolved into a free-for-all. We'll see how this second group fares.

Depending on the level of success I have with this crackdown, I may just turn myself into a true cheap ass gamer, and make it a matter of pride to see how little I can pay for games (while still keeping my disc tray fed and happy, of course)

Ozzy, Superhuman, and Toy Story 3

2010-06-23T21:22:00.002-05:00

It's been another long day at work, though this one was pretty decent, all things considered. After how my last rotation went, I didn't imagine things would start out as well as they have, all things considered. That said, I still have a long list of things I need to do...

I picked up the new Ozzy Osbourne album and have that blasting out of my surround sound system as I type this. I'm ready to write my Toy Story 3 review, as I've now finished the vast majority of what the game has to offer. Great kids game. With my work schedule as it is, I'll likely be beasting it out Saturday morning before heading out and being social for the weekend.

Tonight, I plan on devoting my writing efforts to continuing my novel. I sit at 1800 words. I've been juggling the writing of two scenes simultaneously... there's kind of a lot of juggling back and forth in the novel early on, as I currently have it conceived. The annoying thing is, even as I'm developing the story, ideas are popping in my head on how to tell it better. For now I'm storing those thoughts away and continuing to write the scenes in progress, even though I know they'll end up drastically edited. The point right now is to let the tale runs its course, and then go back and refine how that story is told. If I bog myself down now rewriting the beginning two or three times, I'll never make it to the end.

Wow... I kind of feel like Alan Wake when I talk about my writing like this.

The Good Peer Pressure

2010-06-20T01:15:00.002-05:00

Peer Pressure can be a great source of inspiration when properly applied. I have been seeking it out a lot lately as it applies to my own writing, and have been able to generate motivation to get my butt in gear writing my novel from a couple different sources.

First, I have enlisted my friends Tim and Sandra as my "Quality Assurance" agents. It is their job to keep pestering me to make sure I'm writing my self-imposed weekly quota of 3000 words. Knowing that there's two people who will harass me if I become lazy in a nice motivational tool, and they will provide useful feedback for me as the novel progresses.

Another great writing tool I recommend to anyone who wants to write is www.critiquecircle.com. It's a site where people can critique other people's stories and have their own reviewed by others. It also has handy tools like progress graphs and social monthly goals. I will be using those to also ensure I'm keeping up with the 3000 words a week I'm striving for (once I get good at this, I'm hoping to up that pace to 5000 to 8000 words a week). And, to make my success or failure even more public, I'm adding the tracking bar available on the site to this blog, for all of you to see. It will be updated weekly at least, as Sandra and I have an arrangement that my weekly work has to be sent out to her by midnight every Saturday. You'll see that bar has 120,000 as the goal, as that's the projected minimum length for the novel.

Hopefully these measures will keep me going strong. I want to knock this novel out of the park.

Riding the XP Train

2010-06-17T21:18:00.002-05:00

This week I've been doing what I've seen many like-minded achievement hunters doing... riding the 6x XP event in Gears 2 for absolutely everything its worth. I've successfully paired myself up with boosting groups on a couple different occations. The rewards for boosting have exceeded my most optimistic projections on how far I'd go during this event, and I'm not done yet. I've gone for rank 57 to 76 at the time of posting, going from maybe 700k experience to around 2.8 million XP. Clearly I still have a long ways to go, but I can't even begin to count the number of normal play hours this has saved me. Even normal games are more fun considering how much XP is doled out.

As I type this, I'm in yet another boosting session. I will see where it can get me tonight, as I will not be boosting tomorrow (we need to record the next episode of the Podcast.) Then, I'll give it a go on Saturday night if I can find a group, as I don't work Sunday. I may not be able to boost on Sunday as I'm going out of town for Fathers Day. If I can get to about 3.4 million (50% of the total needed) I'll call that successful enough, and hope that there will still be people looking to boost this the next time an XP event rolls around.

Dust Off Your Lancers for E3 and Join Thrawn

2010-06-09T20:23:00.002-05:00

For a week surrounding E3 (June 14-21) Gears of War 2 will be offering up 6x the multiplayer experience. I know of many people who have no interest in obtaining the rank 100 achievement, but I still think I'll eventually get there at my own, admittedly long-winded pace. As fortune would have it, I have four of those 7 days off from work. So, I'll be getting E3 news on one screen while probably playing Gears on the other... or just playing Gears.

I play Gears 2 in spurts, going wild on it for a few days, then setting it aside for a while. I'm planning to make the most of the E3 bonus and devote virtually all of my gaming time to Gears until the bonus ends, at which point Gears 2 will likely sit unplayed for another 3 months before I so much as glance at it. I'd like to make as much progress to rank 100 as I possibly can.

If any of my readers are of a similar mindset, and would like to get together to boost Horde on Security (and mix in some MP when that gets dull) let me know. The more, the merrier.

Upgrade: Round 1

2010-06-08T21:25:00.002-05:00

Today I pulled the trigger on a purchase I've wanted to make for months... I finally have myself a sound system! Got myself an Insignia 5.1 surround system, and spent my afternoon and early evening setting this bad boy up. It's a nice mid-range system, as there are both cheaper and more high-end models available. While I want to upgrade my TV, the sound system is the more affordable upgrade, and one I really "need" more. While I can't complain too much about my picture quality, I've lacked a really good system for listening to music, but that problem is now solved.

I've got my TV, Bluray player, and sound system all synced into the remote that came with the system, which was simplicity itself to set up. After I've finished watching Transporter 3 on Bluray, it'll be time to test out the sound system while playing games.

My ears are in heaven... This is SO much better than just the TV's speakers.

Back from the Dead: The Rule of Four

2010-06-04T21:38:00.002-05:00

Like an alcoholic who can't stay on the wagon, I keep falling on and off the wagon when it comes to my Rule of Four. Lately, I've started making a concerted effort to get back on it. The current loadout is:

1. Red Dead Redemption
2. Alan Wake
3. Dragon Age Origins
4. Cameron's Avatar (the clean-up holdover)

+1 Record of Agarest War

I think part of the hopping on and off the wagon is because I've been wishy-washy on what counts as completed enough to take the game out of the four. Every achievement? Finishing the campaign? Either / or? I think I'm going have to decide on a game by game basis what "completed" means for that game.

This is the easiest time of the year to keep on the wagon, as the summer months are traditionally the thinnest in terms of quality. I'm not planning on purchasing any games in June, and if not for Crackdown 2, I wouldn't be buying anything new in July either. So, I have an abundance a month to see how much I can accomplish with this set of four before Crackdown 2 pushes itself into the mix. Then, even with Crackdown 2, I'm going to be seeing how much I can accomplish before the fall rush starts sometime in August.

In the on-deck circle, Divinity II will replace Dragon Age when that's done, and Prince of Persia will replace either Alan Wake or Avatar. I don't want to make myself a queue that is any more than two titles deep, as my mood is likely to change before I get to the point where I'd be playing them.

I'm a little behind pace for Silver in my completion challenge, and would need to step it up to catch back up... which isn't likely to happen with the current line-up. What I'll probably end up doing is see where I'm at during the post-PAX segment of my vacation, and go on an easy completion binge if I have no other plans. I may also use the month of September as "catch-up" month in general, where, aside from Halo Reach, I do nothing but rent and whore out easy games. I'm just going to hope by then I'm not too far behind to get close to reaching Silver (24 completions) which is my true goal for the year. Anything above that is a bonus.

Besides gaming, I've been making an effort to do some more reading (which is something people don't be enough of any more). I made a killing on Barnes and Noble deals, picking up some gread books at insanely low prices:

Star Wars: Fate of the Jedi: Allies -- $14 ($27 list price)
Confessor {Sword of Truth Series #12) -- $5 ($30 list price for Hard Cover)
Duma Key {Stephen King} -- $7 ($28 list price for Hard Cover)
Frank Herbert's Dune -- $4 ($8 regular)

Mmmm... $93 list price for $30... I like! (Then again, I've never paid list price for a hard cover book. It's way too easy to find a deal on them to do that.)

I always try to get the hard cover versions when I can, because they last longer. Paperbacks tend to start falling apart after a second reading. Even at the higher price hard covers charge, books maintain a better entertainment-value-per-hour ratio in most instances. What's a better bang for your buck; a $10 book that takes 30 hours to read, or a $60 game that takes 12 hours to beat? I know it's kind of comparing apples and oranges, but if I ever had to chose between not buying games and not buying books, I'd give up games first. Those low-low prices you see listed above were because the books were either clearanced out Hardcovers (with nothing wrong with them except that I had to peel off some bargain stickers), or were part of a summer Sci-Fi sale, plus my 10% discount. I'll be in books for a while.

That'll do me for this time.

06/04/10

Back from the Dead: Dragon Age Resurrected

2010-06-03T18:46:00.002-05:00

Lately a third AAA giant has entered the ring, turning my game-time duo of Alan Wake and Red Dead Redemption into a full on three-way of awesome. This game is none other than Dragon Age, Bioware's fantasy opus that took the gaming world last christmas. I picked up the game for $37 new while you-know-where was engaging in some generous comping of the competition. I popped it in, played it for about 8 or 9 hours... and hated it.

Well, I didn't TOTALLY hate it. The characters and dialogue were awesome, but I couldn't wrap my head around the combat and leveling mechanics. Perhaps I should not have rolled a Warrior as my first character. I wanted to blast through everyone like I was playing Dynasty Warrior: Bioware Edition, and I got shredded for it. The game got put into the backlog and I never even looked back... until now.

Last weekend, I spent a couple off days in St. Paul, hanging out with my friends Ricky and Michelle. Early in the morning, while we were waiting for some other friends to stop by, Ricky booted up Dragon Age and I watched him play. Just through watching someone who knew what they were doing with the game, I saw everything I was doing wrong, and resolved to give the game another try, for several reasons:

1. While I don't obsess over my completion percentage any more (a fool's errand, IMHO, especially as it applies to me, an 80 of 1450 is just damn pitiful.
2. I was starting to feel the itch for some RPG action that isn't FFXIII. The only other option was to continue Divinity II, which I also enjoy, though that game is a poor man's Dragon Age.
3. I liked the characters and plot, so I figured if I could get good at the combat, everything would be awesome.

I forgot about my human male warrior and instead made a female elf mage. The mage's play style is suiting me much better than I thought it would. I get to feel like a badass chucking a ton of spells, and the mage's frailties counter my latent desire to treat they game like it's Dynasty Warriors. I think I can handle the other two classes now in future playthroughs, but the mage was definitely the right one for me in round one.

After completing Ostigar, the game's first non-origin mission, I took to the DLC with a vengence. I downloaded and completed Return to Ostigar, since in terms of storyline progression it felt right to go right back there, and not return after a bunch of other stuff has happened. I picked up a ton of items my characters aren't high enough level for, and 25 achievement points for the moderately challenging final battle of the module. All in all, it was rather disappointing... A 1 hour retread though old areas for a few items and 1 achievement... with little story contribution.

Next up was to start The Stone Prisoner DLC, which I got with my new copy of the game. This quest was a lot more entertaining, and Shale is certainly does not behave the way one might expect a golem to. He has replaced Alistair as my party's tank. (I roll with a party of Shale, Liliana, Morrigan, and me... so 2 mages.)

With my rocky companion in tow, the Warden's Keep DLC was next on the list, as I wanted the chest to store all those items I'm not high enough level for yet, so they wouldn't waste all my inventory space. For my $7, I wish this would have lasted a little longer, but it was far better value than Return to Ostigar, all things considered. More interesting battles and dialogue throughout. I'd rate this one as worth the download, despite my griping on the price.

Now, it's back to the main game. I plan on playing the story through before picking up the Darkspawn Chronicles. With all that out of the way, I'll focus on getting the game to 1200 before purchasing the Awakening expansion. That retail disc will only keep getting cheaper while I plug away at everything else I need to do in the game.

That'll do it for today... more tomorrow.

06/03/10

Back from the Dead: Future Review Strategy

2010-06-02T14:29:00.000-05:00

It has been one of the longest dry spells between posts in this blog's history... nearly two weeks. I need to get back on the horse. So, to rekindle the flame, I'm writing out a massive and rambling post that will be released in pieces over the next several days. I'm still experiencing the dumb glitch that is dating all my posts as if they came from November of 2009, and I have no idea how to fix it. So, so everyone knows, today is June 2nd of 2010.

One of the reasons I've found it tough to blog lately has been the Hand of Thrawn podcast. A lot of the things I would end up writing about or commenting on here, I instead discuss with the crew on our show. It's left me starving for content, and I don't want to say the same things here that I do on our show, and seem redundant. What form the happy medium between the podcast and this show will take, I do not yet know.

I also haven't reviewed anything in what seems like an eternity. There are several reasons for this. I was trying to review Record of Agarest War, but the length of the game and my inability to play it for lengthy stretches in one sitting has made it slip by, to the point that it's not worth the effort any more. Lately, the UK side of x360a has been snagging early review editions of games, with the effect that between Webb and Jackanape, the two of them have beasted out damn near every review over the last few months. I don't begrudge them for this; it makes sense for the person who is able to get the review done most efficiently to do it. I just wish communication was more open on what the UK side is getting and who is reviewing what is still needed... Looks like the new trend is going to be me picking up what junk falls through the cracks while the AAA games are all spoken for. Again, I get why things are the way they have been and have no beef with any site staff, I just feel a little left out.

So, to get me mojo back, I'm going to get more involved with Podcast reviews for the Hand of Thrawn Podcast over the coming weeks and months. While I will write reviews for x360a first whenever there is a chance, if someone else is reviewing the game, I will write a review for the podcast instead. We are still hammering out how reviews will be handled on the show, but they will all be backed up by a traditional text draft from yours truly. The first two candidates for review are likely to be Alan Wake and Red Dead Redemption. They may be a while yet, but I promise to be more timely with reviews as the Podcast Review project gains momentum.

If I can throw yet another disclaimer out there, my reviews are strictly my own views on a game. If I should review a game someone else on x360a does, and take a different stance on it than they do, or score it differently, that does not mean I'm right and they're wrong, or visa versa. Take my reviews as they are, and not in the context of anything else.

There, is my butt covered from any off-base ideas and unnecessary drama? There isn't any.

I may rent a game or two this month if I find out there is need for a review, but otherwise, I'm planning on not purchasing any games in June, and focusing my gaming efforts instead on maxing out Alan Wake (which I have beaten once), Red Dead, and delving into my newly discovered love for Dragon Age Origins.

That's it for today. There shall be more tomorrow.

Thank you Walmart System Error!

2010-05-20T20:41:00.002-05:00

This is one of the best emails I could ever receive from Walmart:

Dear Nate Gillick,

Thank you for shopping with Walmart.com.

Due to a system error, we have shipped you duplicates of Alan Wake in your recent order ##########.

Because this was our error, please enjoy the extra item – on us! You will not be charged for it. If you don’t need the extra item, please give it to a friend or consider donating it.

Again, thank you for shopping with Walmart.com.

Sincerely,
Your Walmart.com Customer Service Team

So, I got not 1, but 2 copies of Alan Wake for $49.96 + a $10 eGift card. Incredible. This raised the question: What do I do with that second copy of Alan?

Do I

1. Sell it to recover the cost of the copy I paid for, essentially getting Alan Wake for free?
2. Give / Trade / Sell at reduced price to a friend in exchange for a massive IOU of some form?
3. Offer it up as a prize to podcast listeners for winning some suitably crazy contest? (And I do mean crazy... I need to get $50 worth of entertainment out of it to want to part with my copy LOL)

Contraty to Silva's opinion, I'm not rich. Option #1 has the high lead at the moment, as that would make my AW copy free, plus probably take some of the edge off of the price of Red Dead Redemption. I will listen to compelling arguments for options 2 and 3 though.

Alan Wake $49.96 + $10 Gift Card

2010-05-17T19:02:00.003-05:00

If you don't check out Walmart.com for video game deals much, you should get in the habit of it. They have a deal for a $20 gift card with Red Dead Redemption, which almost made me cancel my Gamestop preorder, but I really want that game ASAP. The Alan Wake Deal I can't pass up.

http://www.walmart.com/ip/Alan-Wake-w-Bonus-10-Walmart.com-eGift-Card-Xbox-360/13376070

They're selling it for $49.96, plus you get a $10 gift card for your next purchase off the site. Save $10 now, save $10 on your next game purchase. That's A-OK by me. Pulling the trigger on this deal since I'll have Red Dead to keep me entertained until this one shows up at my store.

Gotta look for other deals on the site now too...

EDIT: The one downside to this (for me) is that I can't use my associate discount on egift card offered games. Still, I find I'm saving more than I would with my card. After taxes and shipping, Alan Wake cost me about $2 less than if I'd bought it in-store with my discount, and I have a $10 gift card carrying over to my next purchase, which I've used on a preorder for Halo Reach. That one is now $2 cheaper than if I used my discount, and I'll have $20 off my next game purchase. Total savings: $36 off retail. Not too bad. Have no idea yet what the $20 gift card will go to yet.

Rainy Days = Gamerscore Blitz

2010-05-10T17:35:00.002-05:00

I feel the itch... the need to inflate my gamerscore a little bit. With it pouring outside now, and tomorrow, it appears my next two days off are ideal days to play video games. Not only does the weather suck, but these days off are weekdays, where I probably wouldn't find anyone to do anything with anyway.

In the name of grabbing some more gamerscore, I made a push in Cameron's Avatar, completing the Human campaign. I now only need to go through Conquest for two achievements and I'll have everything done but wrapping up the Na'vi side.

I also re-rented Saw from my local Family Video, to try to get through the nearly 800 points I have left there. Deciding that wasn't enough for two rainy days, I also drove down to Gamestop and picked up Sherlock Holmes versus Jack the Ripper, which has been interesting so far.

Yes, I know I should be playing Record of Agarest War and the Halo Reach beta... and I will be continuing to do some of both, but my gamerscore has been stagnant lately, and since I'm in a competition where I could win some microsoft points, now seems as good a time as any to make something of a gamerscore push. In a perfect world, I complete Saw, Sherlock, and Avatar in the next two days... but that may be overly ambitious. We shall see.

Count me out on Lost Planet 2

2010-05-06T21:50:00.002-05:00

A little internet research just saved me $60. After reading IGN and x360a's reviews, and getting an overall impression from Metacritic, I'm quite convinced LP2 is not a game I should be purchasing on Day 1 with my hard-earned cash. With an achievement list that looks insane enough to make Warriors Orochi 2 look like the new Avatar, I'm not even sure I'll put it in my tray period; four player coop be damned. I think I'm better off continuing on with what I've been playing until Alan Wake and Red Dead Redemption come out. We'll call that $60 towards my fantasy TV instead LOL.

Possibly PAX?

2010-04-28T21:18:00.003-05:00

I'm trying not to get my hopes up lest cruel reality crushes my dreams, but early September could be the best opening to a month EVER lol. Here's the scoop: In mid-June, I'm going to hit my 1-year anniversary with Walmart, and have my first week of paid vacation. If no other assistant has already claimed the week of September 4-10 off (Walmart weeks run Saturday to Friday) or I can convince them to switch, that will be my week of vacation.

Should this almost-perfect scenario come to pass, I work Friday, drive straight to Minneapolis after work, and catch a late night flight to Seattle. Check in, crash for a few hours, then hit the ground running for Saturday and Sunday of the Penny Arcade Expo.

Now, if my partner Chris (who works when I have my days off) agrees to work that Friday shift for me in exchange for me working one of his shifts sometime, I would essentially have an 11-day vacation (Aug.31 through Sept. 10). In this ultimate scenario, I crash at my parent's house on Wednesday night, and catch a Thursday morning flight to Seattle. This would give me some time in the afternoon to get my bearings before meeting up with people for the Pre-PAX festivities, and I'd be on hand for all three days of the expo.

If I can do this, it would rock on so many levels (in no order):

1. The chance to meet in person some of the site staff I've been working with so long.
2. Rumor has it Bishop is going, so I'd have the opportunity to meet another member of the Hand of Thrawn... and FINALLY meet someone (in-person) with a higher gamerscore than mine.
3. Assuming I can go, I can get in as press, and I'll be writing as many articles as I possibly can for x360a (none of you have any idea what I'm capable of when I go into one of my Super Saiyan manic writing sprees). Plus, I'll have at least a week's worth of blog and podcast material out of it all.
4. Writing those articles would allow me to continue honing the skills I need to find paying work in the gaming industry, and covering PAX is as directly related a work experience as I could ask for.
5. The chance to meet and network with people in the industry, learn from them, and maybe even pass out a few resumes if opportunity knocks.
6. Memories that would last forever.

After the expo ends, I'd still have five days of vacation left work on churning out articles, and possibly spend some extra time in Seattle if I can afford to and found things I wanted to do there.

As you can see, being able to go to PAX would be an incredible experience for me. So, I'm fully read to beg, plead, bribe, and trade days so I work on holidays if I had to to make going to PAX a reality. Since I am slated to work September 3-5 (all three days of the Expo), getting vacation that week is my only shot.

Here's to hoping I can make the stars align when I go into work next. If not, I'll try not to be too crushed, and set my sights instead on E3 2011 or some other gaming conference, where I have enough lead time to make sure I can get that week off. Plus, I'll actually have a hell of a lot easier time getting off for PAX 2011, so all is not lost if I can't do it this time acround. I will let you all know when things are official one way or the other.

Countdown is Over, and Empire Rises

2010-04-24T20:42:00.002-05:00

That funky countdown clock on the right of the blog has hit zero, and with it, the official unveiling of the Hand of Thrawn Podcast. You can check out our forum at www.handofthrawn.com. Right at the top of the page, you will see a button to click to launch the first episode of our podcast.

This is the start of something that will hopefully grow ever more awesome. Of course, this is our first episode ever, so things won't be perfect, but we'll improve with time. We've got the skill sets, we've got the planning down. Now we're just going to get better and build our audience.

Oh, and be warned: Episode 1 contains explicit language. Silva only got beeped out about 60-70% of the time. Again, practise makes perfect LOL.

Enjoy the show, and feel free to give us feedback. We'll be back again next week =P

P.S. forgive the messed up blog format. I've been trying to tweak it so I have two columns, but I don't like the current look. Once I'm off from work again, I'll be tweaking it some more.

Plagarism is the Highest Form of Flattery

2010-04-17T19:52:00.002-05:00

I'm absolutely livid about this, and yet at the same time, I find it incredibly hilarious. How do you know your writing is good? Someone else want to rip it off and try to pass it off as their own. I have now been the victim of plagarism three times over, by one complete moron.

Name and Shame time: The idiot in question is Xenoz I. I've conveniently linked to his profile here so you can send him whatever messages you deem appropriate.

What did he steal? From me, he took my Metro 2033, Modern Warfare 2, and Mass Effect 2 reviews. From Webb, he stole FFXIII and Just Cause 2. From jackanape, Bioshock 2. Those are just the ones I know about. Apparently, this dude posted up a LOT of reviews, so we probably had even more stolen than that. The site they appeared on is www.readyuplive.com. Their community manager send me a friend request on Live and we discussed the situation over a party chat.

I was able to confirm for him (Everyone send SourNotHardcore thank you letters LOL) that those were our reviews from x360a. It wasn't hard... THEY WERE DIRECT COPY/PASTE JOBS (epic, epic fail), down to the exact same pictures and captions. Though he actually changed my scores! Metro went from a 76/100 to an 8.5/10 LMFAO.

It's not hard to check for Copy/Paste plagarism. Copy just ONE sentence of any of my reviews into Google. If it links you to anywhere but X360a, someone jacked my review. With the amount of time I put into those, it's not like I'm going to forget my words.

The stolen content has already been taken down, and that moron has lost his rights to "write" reviews... and hopefully will get worse to boot. Apparently, he even claimed he was me. Oh no you didn't! Kudos to ReadyUpLive's staff for being proactive about looking into this and resolving the situation. I respect and appreciate that.

What's the silver lining in this? If my reviews sucked, nobody would want to steal them, so I must be decent, at least =)

Bioshock Research Sorrow

2010-04-17T12:43:00.002-05:00

So, I've been going through Bioshock 2 again to mop up the last three achievements I need, only only when I hit Outer Percephone did I realize, to my horror, that I screwed up research (again) and will now have to do about 90% of a third playthrough. I had everything good, except I need just a tiny sliver more experience to finish of the Bid Daddies. Well, there are no more Big Daddies this far in the game, which means I'm completely screwed. My last save --- is from Ryan Amusements!

I'm furious at myself for not making multiple saves in case something like this happened. Now I have to finish up this play to get Brass Balls and all weapon upgrades, then reload my Ryan Amusements save and start again. The only good thing is that I won't have to see that play to the end, and can turn Vita Chambers back on to play as recklessly as I want. Simply blow through the story, research enemies, and call it quits.

Bioshock 2 is a great game, for sure, but there's no replay value in it for me. I want to be done with it and throwing my copy up on Ebay. If 2k actually does release single player DLC down the line, I can always rent a copy from Family Video or borrow my brother's disc if he'll let me. I'm trying to get into the habit of selling off games I know I won't be playing again for a long time (if ever) earlier, while they still have a higher value, to help reduce the cost of other game purchases.

Sigh. Well, I'm going to go out for a bike ride to enjoy the fine spring weather, and then I'll be back to an evening of Bioshock.

There's just under 4 hours left on my ebay auctions as of the time I type this. All are selling for more than Gamestop would give me, which is nice. Check yesterday's post if you're interested in what they are, and bidding.

Four Easy 1000s for Sale

2010-04-16T17:34:00.001-05:00

I'm auctioning off 4 easy 1000 point games. Click the name of the game below to go to the auction. They're running for just 24 hours, so hurry!

All auctions start at just .99 cents, $3 to ship. USA shipping only. All games come with case and manual.

Night at the Museum

Deadly Premonition

Cars (New and sealed)

Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway

Blacksite, Construction, and and Ebay City

2010-04-15T22:13:00.003-05:00

I've been busy these last few days, and not just with work. On Monday night, I stayed up late with Xylo, Sabre, and Bishop to finish off Blacksite boosting, and just earlier today unlocked "look Upon My Works and Despair" to finish off the full 1000. That makes for completion number 6 this year.

I'm still plugging away at Bioshock 2's multiplayer, and I'm up to rank 36, with about 20,000 adam left before I reach rank 40.

The most time consuming project is the site construction work I've been doing over the last few days. At this point, I think very few people know exactly what it is (though I'm bad at keeping secrets), and I'm hoping it stays that way for about another week. At that point, we should be ready to start advertising it in earnest. It won't change the internet,but for those of us working on it, it's the start of something exciting.

(Note the new countdown timer on the right, it's there for a reason)

While I'm here, I thought I'd let everyone know I'm putting a few games (and possibly some other stuff) up on Ebay tomorrow as part of my desire to do a little spring cleaning and line my pockets while I do it. I'll post the links when the auctions are up.

When Titans Fall

2010-04-12T20:53:00.002-05:00

Sabre is be beneficiary of what can be best described as gross overconfidence on my part. In our Survivor competition over on x360a, there were two people below me in points going into the last day. One of them was Sabre, the other a guy across the sea. Surely I was going to best one of them, right?

So, like the Rabbit in the famous "Tortise and the Hare," I took a nap, working on getting to rank 40 in Bioshock 2 instead of trying to grab some points. Had I spent that time working Avatar, I would have outscored Sabre's 170 points, and lived. While I was hardly trying to win, it would have been nice to have lasted longer. See, children's fables DO have real world parallels.

And you know what? I was cheering Sabre on to survive that round, so our friendly rivalry would last longer. Let me cite some examples:

Originally Posted by ThrawnOmega
Sabre had to go out of town for the weekend, and won't be back until Monday. So, unfortunately, if anyone is on the hotseat for elimination, it's my boosting hombre. I hope he can squeeze in enough points to survive, as I don't want our friendly rivalry to end so soon

Quote:
Originally Posted by ThrawnOmega
I probably don't need to, but I'm going to try to put down a few additional points today, since the next elimination will probably happen while I'm still at work tomorrow.

Come on Sabre! Hope you're able to pop a 'cheevo or two early Monday.

How does he repay me? Making a blog post to rub in my face. So, my counter campaign is to make him feel like an asshole =) Is it working? Of course, I'm only half serious about it LOL.

It just goes to prove that, contrary to popular opition, I AM mortal, and CAN be defeated... just don't get it in your head that it happend often =)

But, since I'm the bigger man, I will continue to support Sabre for as long as he remains in the competition. Thrawn is a gracious winner and not a sore loser. Guilt thick enough? =P

Since I'm no longer in the running, it's back to business as usual, as I am boosting Blacksite with the HOTBA, and I'm about 25k adam from rank 40 in Bioshock 2. FFXIII is a slow work in progress, and of course I have plenty of other distractions.

Superfantastic Weekend

2010-04-10T17:37:00.002-05:00

Yes, "Superfantastic" is a word. So I have said, and so it shall be. The weather has been in the mid sixties and sunny, with a light breeze. It's the kind of weather that can tear even a diehard achievement junkie like me away from the console to get outside.

On Friday, I had a FFXIII marathon, advancing the story by at least one full chapter. I played a little Avatar in there as a break. Friday night, my friends Ricky and Michelle came over (they're still here, as a matter of fact) and we've been having a great time. I helped Ricky powerlevel one of his characters in Borderlands, and managed to get the achievement for hitting level 61 in the process. I've also advanced to rank 31 in Bioshock 2's multiplayer... just 37,000 adam to go!

With a little practise, I got the last achievement in New Rally-X for earning 100,000 points. With that game completed, I'm up to 5 completions for the year. The full 200 fell for me in 60-90 minutes.

As is tradition, when I have guests stay over for the night, in the morning we have pancakes and find the shittiest movie on Netflix to watch. It has to be the type of movie that is so horrible that we can mock it from beginning to end. This time, the movie was called "Pervert" and is, quite fankly, too hilariously bad for words (and for the record, Michelle is the one who picked it).

I defy you to read this tiny synopsis of the film without laughing or saying WTF?:

When a chronic masterbator returns to his fathers ranch for the summer, in order to learn how to become a man, but women all around him start dying. Mr. Masterbator had a Voodoo spell placed on him that was supposed to make him sexually irresistable to women, but instead it has turned his penis into a creature that detaches itself from its owner's body and goes around killing people.

I shit you not, that's the plot of the movie. Definitely the type of super-bad trash worthy of our pancake tradition.

For a while, we spent some time in the park tossing a frisbee around, and walked the trail along the river. Dinner was pizza hut pizza, while we watched "Repo: The Genetic Opera." Ricky and Michelle were the only two in my tight circle of friends who hadn't seen it, and that mistake has been corrected.

Tomorrow will be another fun day as I'm challenging them both to Sonic speedrun competitions (we have 2 xboxes hooked up and 2 copies of the Sega collection so we can play simultaneously). May the best hedgehog win. There'll probably also be some bowling. When I only get one Friday-Sunday off stretch every six weeks, I have to make the most of it, and that's definitely been the case this weekend.

Making the Hole Deeper

2010-04-08T23:17:00.002-05:00

I can't help it... I'm a sucker for cheap prices. I've purchased games for what seemed like a steal, and over a year later I still haven't played them (Deadliest Catch, Incredible Hulk). I picked up Last Remnant and some Need for Speed new for $20 each. Both are still sealed.

Now, I picked up Cameron's Avatar for $18.99, and Divinity II: Ego Draconis for $29.99. Both are now on my tag with achievements attached, so there's no looking back.

So, there's now Blacksite to grind out, Bioshock 2 to finish, Avatar, Divinity II, and FFXIII to work on. Don't forget Borderlands, Turning Point, Fracture, Metro 2033, Mass Effect 2, and several other recent games that have fallen on the backburner. Then of course there's my massive back catalogue of partially completed games (not only in terms of gamerscore, but games I couldn't complete 1 full playthrough of).

I'm not setting myself up for a good May. Record of Agarest War comes out near the end of April, and I'll be all over that uber-niche bit of SRPG goodness. Then in May, there is Alan Wake, Red Dead Redemption, and Lost Planet 2 all tugging at my wallet. I need to go into a gaming overdrive to finish a few things if I want to keep the back cat. from growing. Oh, and let's not forget the inevitable HOTBA new game every month (May is SOF Payback).

At times like this I know the agony of the hardcore gamer. There are so, so many games I want to play, and not just for the points. Between a job and doing other things with my life, there isn't nearly enough time to play them all. Hell, even if I could afford to do nothing but play video games 24/7/365, I STILL would not be able to play every game I want to and get through my back catalogue.

I need to start learning to be more selective, buying fewer games at full retail and instead waiting for price cuts.

So, here's how I'll play it, when I'm not socializing with friends (or partaking in my other hobbies, like golf, biking, reading, and writing):

Day off #1: FFXIII marathon.
Day off #2: Avatar marathon
Day off #3: Divinity II marathon
Monday and Thursday nights: Blacksite boosting
All other nights: Bioshock 2 multiplayer.

I'm going to challenge myself to a 90-day NO GAME BUYING stint for June, July, and August. If I need to review something, I'll rent where needed. I shouldn't have trouble snagging a game for review if necessary, but I'm hoping this will do two things for me:

1. Give me time to nibble away a small portion of my back catalogue before the fall rush completely erases my progress.
2. Give me time to decide more which games I really need to put down $59.99 for and which ones I don't.

16,000 Microsoft Points

2010-04-04T22:22:00.002-05:00

I thought I'd make a posting of this as not everyone who reads this blog is also on my Xbox Live friends list, where I messaged most of this info out earlier today. If you go shopping on Walmart.com, you will see that they're selling 4000 point cards for $41.54 (usually $49.99). If you have the order sent to your local Walmart via the Site-to-Store option, you won't pay shipping. The only downside to that is it takes 7-10 business days to arrive, so you'll have to be somewhat patient. Of course, I had my employee 10% discount on top of that, so I got my cards for about $37 each. Of course I had it shipped to my store since I'm kind of there half the days of the year. It worked out to four 4000 point cards for the price of three. Hurray for $50 of free points! I shall now be set for DLC and arcade games for the rest of 2010, at least.

I'll just add 1 card's worth at a time, and enter the next one as my balance runs low. I don't know how long that price online will last, so now is the time to stock up if you were needing points. 1600 point cards were also on sale, but I cannot recall the price.

Tomorrow I drive my brother back to Eau Claire, then haul myself back to Hutchinson to try to unwind and boost BlackSite with the Scooby Gang before confronting three more long days of work.

HOTBA has One Million Gamerscore, for REAL

2010-04-03T19:59:00.002-05:00

I don't normally post more than once in a day, but I thought this was interesting enough to merit its own posting. I decided to go to mygamercard.net and tweak my private leaderboard, switching it from a Silent Assassins leaderboard to a leaderboard of the members of the Hand of Thrawn Boosting Alliance (minus Blind, whose attendance is... problematic)

You can find the official leaderboard HERE Between the 8 of us, we can a collective Gamerscore of approx. 1,006,000. I'm even going to include it below my tag on the right of this blog. Solid work gentlemen.

The Price of 3D

2010-04-03T13:09:00.002-05:00

For a long time, I've been wanting to upgrade my TV. My 36'' 1080i Olevia was the talk of the dorms when I bought it 4 years ago, and was by far the best TV I could afford on my limited college budget, but now I can afford, if I'm willing to part with the $$$, something a lot more impressive. The next few years is really the time to buy my dream TV too, as the number of expenses I have on a monthly basis aren't all that high.

Supposing I were to upgrade, I want a TV that is capable of 3D, but I have to wonder how big is 3D going to be? Very few games currently use it, though it's becoming increasingly common in Hollywood to have movies with 3D. Will TV networks be releasing 3D shows? I don't forsee much of that happening for a while, as watching TV in high def is still a long way from the standard for most people, so why jump again to 3D?. Networks won't want to pay the cost for to reach a currently niche audience. 3D just doesn't have much mass presence yet.

Then there's the cost. The Samsung model I've been eyeing up (55'',1080p, 240 Hz) is right around $3,000, which is hardly pocked change. Hell, that's more than Silva makes in a year. Add in that 3D glasses are around $200 each, minimum $100 for a good HDMI cable, and your Bluray player, and you're staring at $4000 investment for 3D functionality that is still years away from becoming mainstream (if it ever happens). My spider sense tells me early adopting on 3D really isn't a good idea. The current cost to amount of content ratio is horrible.

As much as I look forward to someday watching Avatar in 3D at home, and the possibility of 3D gaming excites me, it's too expensive to be worth forking over the cash now. My Olevia still has years left on it, so for now, I'm just saving away money for when that perfect 3D TV arrives.

Of course, if I'm OK living without 3D this baby is the way to go.

Decompression Time

2010-04-02T23:04:00.002-05:00

This has been an exceptionally crappy week (disasterous may be the right word). Virtually all of that is work related, which I don't want to get into here, as I'd relive it in my mind with the retelling, and I'm writing as an escape hatch to get away from that.

Honestly, I'm lucky if I've slept 12 hours over the last four days. I get 3-4 hours of very poor sleep, then spend the rest of the night tossing and turning. Not good. It started seeping through the cracks a little during HOTBA's first BlackSite boosting session. I think I was rougher on Silva than his tardiness {work related} and inattentiveness merited (Normally Silva is a rock star in any boosting group, so I can't give him too much crap for one bad night). Our session went very well despite a few hiccups, with us finishing right where I wanted us to after the first session. Now, we just need flag captures and ranked wins, plus a few matches to retread for Silva.

Thankfully, I have the next three days off to clear my head and refocus myself, because my next three work days could actually be even worse. We'll see.

On Saturday, I need to take care of some things around the apartment, then I plan on settling in to a LONG gaming marathon of FFXIII. Late afternoon, I'll pack up and drive back to the parent's house, as I'll be with them for Easter on Sunday (you will not see me on Live that day). Monday, I'll be up early (no problem if I keep sleeping so poorly), driving my brother back to Eau Claire for college classes. From there, I return to Hutchinson. Total drive time: approx. 6 hours. I'll have enough time when I get back to chill for a little while, and lead session #2 of BlackSite before going to bed and seeing what fate awaits me at work on Tuesday.

In lighter news, Bishop and I are now friends for REAL. You see, we are now friends on Facebook (yes I have Facebook, but shun Twitter. Is that in any way hypocritical?). Everyone knows if you're not friends with someone on Facebook, you're not friends at all. It's like you practically don't even know each other... (that was sarcasm, just in case) The most interesting thing for me was to finally see pictures of the person behind the tag. A face to match up with the voice in party chats. How often we use Facebook as a means of communication is yet to be seen.

This means that Silva is the only member of the elite GSL 7 Champion (in our own minds) Hand of Thrawn team that I've never seen a picture of. Wait, I lied. I've never seen a pic of Derek either. Dark and Sabre both have theirs within their blogs. I've posted pics to this blog plus the video episodes. Now, I think Bishop has access to over 300 pictures of me on Facebook (361 now that I checked), it may be a good time to prune some of those. I'm already too easy to e-stalk LOL. Silva is NOT allowed to see the pictures of me and my college roommate Stefan. I'd be hearing crap from him in every boosting session until December.

Sabre and I are competing in Season 2 of "Survior: Achievement Edition" in the x360a forums. I'm not taking it seriously at all, I just though it would be fun. Any chance to prove to Sabre I'm the superior gamer. My e-penis (gamerscore) is more than twice the size of his, so this should be cake. I could use a little fun achievement rivalry. My former friendly rival, Ducky Dan, has fallen off the face of the Earth. Where we once were constantly within a few thousand of each other, I'm now stomping on his MIA tag with a lead of nearly 40k. I need to find someone with a similar score who comparing myself to would be interesting enough to spark a little rivalry.

Want another index of if you have a high gamerscore? If you've never met a person with a higher score, your score is high. Period. Ever since I passed 10k, I have never met a person with a higher gamerscore than mine. Yes, I have friends on live with superior numbers, but I'm talking strictly face-to-face meeting. It has never happened. Considering I'm ranked 8th in Minnesota on XboxAmerica, and within the top 1,000 in the US on MyGamercard, the odds of me running across someone with a higher gamerscore in normal day-to-day living are very slim. Frankly, the only way I see this statement ever becoming false is if I have the opportunity to meet up with Bishop or Silva (or jackanape if I have the opportunity to cross the pond for some gaming event).

Well, enough rambling for one night. I feel a little bit better now.

Bioshock Blitz

2010-03-31T21:24:00.002-05:00

I enjoy Bioshock 2's multiplayer, but the community of people who play it has already shrunk to the extent that it can be hard to get a full room of six people together. Realizing this, I'm making a concentrated effort to reach rank 40 before the only way to do so is rope at least six people together for a boosting session. Therefore, every night (except the nights HOTBA boosts BlackSite) I will be playing Bioshock's multiplayer until I hit rank 40. Anyone who wants to play with me along the way is welcome to. The more the merrier; it'll be more fun, and we'll fill rooms up more quickly (yay for less waiting!!!)

Last night was a dominating night. I played with my bro, a friend of his, and Marx0r, and we just creamed everyone. We won 10 games of Capture the Sister, lost NONE, and only tied once. We outcaptured our opponents about 25-30 captures to 1 (ONE!) over the course of the night. It was epic.

Today can be considered Night 2 in the Quest for Rank 40. When the Quest began, I was rank 26. Tonight I play without the benefit of friends, so the Adam isn't as good, not is it as much fun. Capture the Sister remains the mode of choise, because it's the most fun and I seem to make the most Adam in it. The Bionik Kommando Effect is in full play tonight - that is, I just can't seem to win a game without him in the party... Oh, and randoms never talk, so I haven't even bothered to don the headset.

End of Night 2-
Rank: 29
Adam:48,510

97,000 Adam needed for Rank 40.

Tomorrow HOTBA starts BlackSite boosting, and it looks to be our most well attended event yet. I'll have the report on how well we do as it happens.

Deadly Premonition Down, New Targets in Sight

2010-03-30T17:16:00.002-05:00

At long last, the agony of playing Deadly Premonition is over for good. I completed my 3rd playthrough, doing them in reverse order of difficulty, so as I got sicker of the game, it obligingly became easier. The information you may read about the game taking 60+ hours is wholly incorrect. I beat the game, on Hard, while going for every card, in 35 hours, and I was WRITNG the guide while doing it. Those with the benefit of guide will do it faster. The last two playthroughs take 7-8 hours if you press start to skip all dialogue and only do story missions. So, 40-50 hours is probably accurate, 60+ is not. Oh, and you very likely won't enjoy any of it.

At least I can take pride in adding another obscure completion to my tag... one that is worth almost 3,000 TrueAchievement points LOL.

With that junk behind me and added to the TIT pile (stands for Trade-In Trash, but I'm sure Silva will love the acronym) I'm turning my sights to polishing off Bioshock and Blacksite. In Blacksite, I've spend some time kill grinding, and now have the achievements for 100 and 200 kills with every weapon. I know I'm over 400 kills with the Assault Rifle and Scatter Gun, so I have just 4 guns to go. Kill grinding is every bit as boring as you'd imagine it to be and I'm looking forward to being done with that. HOTBA starts boosting the game this Thursday, which I'm looking forward to as it'll be quicker and more point-rewarding than Fracture was.

This afternoon I spent 40 minutes trying to get into a match of Bioshock without success. 40 minutes! Clearly the community of players for this game has already died down so far that it's going to be very hard to get to rank 40 legit anymore, so I've been calling out to everyone I can to join with me to fill up a room. I want to finish off the MP so I know a full 1k is achieveable for me before running through the game again on Easy to pick up what achievements I missed when I played on Hard.

In between those games, I've been working on FFXIII, which my brother has to give me crap about every time he sees me playing it. At first it was, "You won't finish FFXIII before FFXIV comes out." (It should really be FFXV that counts, as XIV is going to be an MMO.) Today, it was "You won't 1k that game before Duke Nuke'em Forever comes out." Harsh bro, harsh. And we'll just see about that.

Currently at 4 completions for the year, on pace for Bronze.