ThrawnOmega: Dinosaur Hunter

So, GSL 8 is under way, and contrary to some naysayers (We know who you are), this is a real GSL, and there's been some heated competition early. Team Montana has surprised me by throwing down almost 19,000 points thus far with just three people. It will be interesting to see how they fare as the season goes on. Hand of Thrawn is sitting in 4th at the moment with 11,775 points. Of course, all these numbers become outdated hourly, but you get the general picture. You can follow the GSL action HERE. I'm not sure if that link will work for nonsubscribers, but it's worth a shot.

Team numbers as of 11pm tonight:

1 Bishop024 -- 3325
2 Sprinkles x360a -- 3025
3 ThrawnOmega -- 2830
4 patches4711 -- 2595

I doubt the accuracy of my number, because all I've played so far is Up, Night at Museum, and Jurassic, for a combined total of 2,910... not 2830. At least everyone's start scores are right, so rectification of totals closer to the end will be easy.

I celebrated my first full day off of the GSL by finishing off the incredibly easy Night at the Museum, then went to my local Family Video to find a new target. Family Video rocks. This store has 3x the game selection my old blockbuster did, and game rentals are much cheaper. Plus, since I'm a new member, I get half price rentals for the next 30 days. I'll be raiding the crap out of that place, trust me. They had 1 copy of Jurassic: The Hunted, so I picked that up, reasoning I should go for the easy games they have the most limited stock of whenever they are available.



For a budget shooter, Jurassic is surprisingly fun. Hundreds of dinosaurs fell before me, and the 1000 points without too much fuss, though there were a few parts on the Hard playthrough that were a complete pain in the ass. If you come into it with modest expectations, it's an enjoyable weekend rental, though I wouldn't pay $40 for it. I believe this is the first game I completed in one calander day that is not Avatar or a 2k6 sports game... It's kind of funny how much the game 'borrows' ideas from Jurassic Park. Dilophosaurs have crests around their necks and spit venom, raptors sound very familiar, and there's one dino-on-dino confrontation that looks like a stripped-down rendition of a scene from JPIII. The plot it straight up B-grade fare, like something you'd see late at night on the Sci-Fi channel. I'll try to write up a full review tomorrow, but I'm planning on renting and blowing through Terminator first, then stepping out of the apartment for a while for a little fresh air and a social life. Gotta have that every once in a while, right?

GSL Goal: 20,000+ points
Currently: 2,910 (actual total)

The Month Before A GSL...

... is a pain in the ass. Mostly because I know that, unless I'm tasked to review a game that's actually good, most of what I'll be seeing the next two months will be trash. I have one month to enjoy good games and try to pick up a completion or two before the GSL starts. On the reviews side, I plan on writing a review for every game I play during the GSL, if that game needs one and we're relatively near its release date. It would be nice to do a few AAA game reviews this holiday season, but I'm felxible. Before the month is out, I'll have the review up for Borderlands, but I'm not sure what else is in store for October.

Right now, I'm working on enjoying Batman as much as I can, and hopefully I'll complete my first playthrough of the game. I still need a few more achievements in ODST, and I'm working Banjo-Tooie with the help of the old N64 strategy guide. I also picked up the achievement for 10 ranked wins (all 100% legit, non-boosted) in Magic: The Gathering. If you discount the games where players quit to deny me a win, I earned that achievement in 12 matches. Thank you very much.

When I'm not enjoying the good stuff, I'm preparing for the GSL. The Hand of Thrawn social group will be reactivated tomorrow (meaning I'll be using it again) for preseason planning, and invites will be extended to Patches and Sprinkles. To my former teammates, if you're looking to offer support and advice, you're always welcome to pop in. It's your group too. I need to check out my local Gamestop to see what their inventory looks like, and find out the same about my Family Video.

Since I know what the end of the year is going to look like for gaming, I'm already thinking ahead to 2010. I've passed my goal for the year of 100,000 by a good sum, and will blast it away before the GSL ends. So, where do I go next year? I'm making no numerical goals for 2010. That will be the year of Operation Jedi, where success is measured by completions and completion percentage. It will be difficult with reviews, but that's where I want to spend the most effort, considering I'm over 25,000 points short of that goal.

The other thing I can say is I'm taking GSL 9 (if it happens) off. After 3 in a row, it'll be time. I can work on completions and let the easy junk stack up for a future day.

Enough thinking on Gamerscore for the day... That Vikings / Packers game wore me out. Hurray for 4-0 Minnesota!

The Storm Approaches

The Hand of Thrawn is back for another GSL, and we're looking to win. While we won't sacrifice our lives, we're going to score extremely well. We do have a reputation to uphold afterall =P

Roster:
ThrawnOmega
Bishop24
Patches4711
Brtas Zowes (Sprinkles x360a)

I'm not going to make any Wreckon~esque proclamations of inevitable victory, but I will say we're clearly the team to be gunning for here. There are 1-2 teams so far that could be competetion, so I'm excited to see how things shake out. Let's take a look at why the Hand of Thrawn is in a position to dominate:

1. GSL Experience: We certainly have more GSL expereince than any other team, with a total of 9 GSLs between us (Thrawn 2, Bishop 2, Sprinkles 2, Patches 3). We know better than any other team what it's like to compete, how to pace ourselves, and how to plan and execute the plan to score serious points.

2. Scoring Experience: Sure, we may not have the easiest of the easy at our disposal, but we know how to score points. 3 of us have scores over 100k. In this instance, I see it as an advantage. We've all been at this a long, long time.

3. Access: Sprinkles works for Gamestop, and can borrow games whenever. Patches has no issues acquiring games. Bishop and I have rental plans (kind of a necessity for these, but still...). I have a 10% Walmart discount, and the Mount Tantiss stash at my disposal. I have no worries about this team's ability to keep our Xboxes fed.

4. Communication: This can't be underrated. Communication is EVERYTHING for success, along with proper planning. I'm not revealing techniques here, but we know what's going down, and what to expect from ourselves, so we can adapt as needed.

5. BL4CK SiLv4: Yes, I'm serious. Whether he's scoring or not, SIlva is a competative advantage. He's ours, and you can't have him. The "X" factor, Silva is the life of the party chat, providing a motivational force to keep us going as the weeks drag on.

It's going to be a good season. I've got 3 goal ranges for the team:

64,000 Mission Accomplished
80,000 Exceptional
100,000 Gods of Gamerscore

I'm not expecting the top marks... that's more than Hand of Thrawn could pull in GSL VII, though we came damn close. Who knows... with no breaks in the action, perhaps it's possible. An average of 25,000 points a person is quite the ambitious goal.

Dragon Slain in Frenzied Duel

My 360voice challenge has come to an end, with me capturing 3rd place in a field of 72 people, with a final 30-day gain of 15,280 points! (Month in review will be posted tomorrow)

As previously posted, it was a competition for 3rd over the last few days, with DragonYen steadily eroding (and eventually taking) my lead for 3rd place. I managed to close the gap some, so he started just 35 points ahead of me going into the final 24 hours. It was as even a head-to-head for the final challenge-point earning spot as could be asked for. My problem was I needed ammo to have any chance. So, I went to Gamestop and picked up:

Madden 07 (got 600+ points for my $4 purchase! I like that ^-^)
Civil War Secret Missions (not as bad as I had expected.)
Secret Service
Sega Superstars Tennis / Arcade Unplugged

Spectral Force 3 (for post GSL and 100k play)

Madden 07 coughed up over 600 points through simming, while I sat nearby getting a significant amount of homework done (multitasking FTW). With those points on the books, I moved to Civil Bore, which required playing. I went through on Easy and got what I could, though I missed a few collectables. Civil Bore isn't too bad in terms of mechanics, it's just boring and completely unmemorable, with the single most anticlimactic ending of any game I've ever experienced.

I now have a little more ammo for the quest for 100k. Over 1000 points went down yesterday as I managed to pull beyond DragonYen (who put up 700+). I tip my hat to him for a well-fought duel. I really had to earn that 3rd place.

(read the following in an overly dramatic fashion)

With 7k remaining and just 2 weeks of GSL play left, does ThrawnOmega have what it takes to cross the 100k line before the GSL ends? Will he be the 4th member of Hand of Thrawn to do so this season? Will Hand of Thrawn ascend above 5th place? Will yet another KOTOR victory (yawn) bring about world peace? Stay tuned! Same point-whore time! Same point-whore channel!

EDIT: I've taken on Monsters vs. Aliens as my next review. Yeah for review team and GSL multitasking! I pray it's better than Bolt... I hated Bolt...

Week 5 Update: Doing the Best I Can

I've been working my butt off this week so far to put points up on the board. So far (as of when I type this) I have done:

Stoked - 150 points
Xmen- 125 points
Eat Lead- 910 points
Shellshock 2- 255points
LOTR: Conquest- 375 points

Total = 1,815 and there should still be a lot more coming.

Eat Lead is a terrible game. To anyone looking to use it as a GSL game: Just play the damn thing on easy. The 60 points for higher difficulties aren't worth the time and frustration, unless you're a completionist. Just cruise through on easy, take your easy 900, and get the hell out of there. It had a few funny moments, but the shooting gameplay wasn't spectacularly well done.

Shellshock 2 isn't too bad, though there have already been a few checkpoints that made me want to scream. I had to put that down for LOTR so I could feel I was making progress. Now to continue LOTR. I'm hoping to have that game nearly 1k-ed by the end of the night.

Hopefully, all this effort will get me back into the top 3 in my 360voice challenge...

Week IV Final Thoughts

I rode the bench this week, and with the score tracking still so messed up, I barely bothered to look at the thing. With review obligations and homework absorbing my time, Week IV feels like a "lost week" to me. I practically don't even know what happened, which is probably a bad thing, since I am the captain and all LOL. I'm afraid that instead of worrying about being too "hands-on" this week I may have been too "hands-off" in leadership. Live and learn, I guess.

DarkTharen kicked ass, with nearly 6k points scored, and Bishop's 3,700 or so points are also nothing to complain about, though I know he wishes he could have done better. Silva underperformed for the first time ever, so I hope next week on the bench helps him recharge a bit (this was a planned benching for him, and has nothing to do with his performance). Sabre is on the bench again, and will hopefully be boosting me through LOTR: Failquest (as I understand it's not that good).

This week is my spring break, so look for me to throw down some major points. Young Guns is right up in our faces again, and our deficit on Sinister Six has not significantly decreased in the last two weeks, and I'm not at all happy about either of those events. So, I'll be doing my own part to pur the hurt on, and edge ever closer to 100k.

This weekend was insanely busy, with Resident Evil 5 owning my life. Thank God the game is good. I spent about 12-13 hours Friday-Sunday playing it, and about 5-6 more hours Sun-Mon writing up the review, coding it, and adding pics. And it's a doozey of a review too. I hope people bother to read through it all, as there's a lot of good info in there. The review should be posted in the next day or two.

For tonight, I'm going to continue playing RE5, in a more laid-back fashion now. I'm playing through on easy to get all the BSAA emblems, gather what treasures I missed, and gather up money and exchange points for some of the other achievements. I must say, since guns carry over, and infinate ammo apparently does not disable achievements, Professional mode won't be as hard as I feared, since theoretically two people can roll through with superpowered weapons and no ammo concerns. It's definitely the easiest 1k Capcom has ever released, though I'm not sure if getting all "S" ranks for one unlockable is required for one of the achievements or not.

Thrawn of the Dead

I've realized this whole daily blogging thing during a GSL is freakishly hard, but I'm not playing this week, so it should have been easier. It should be a normal week with a few special topics and whatnot (there was supposed to be a special topic yesterday, in fact) but that has not happened on account of business and illness.

Business: I'm a little behind on my research (surprise, surprise), so I've been spending five-hour jags in the research lab coding data... doing that is not a good way to maintain sanity over a prolonged period of time, but it must be done.

I also spent the majority of last week working on my first short story for my creative writing class, and it's now finished. It's a horror story set in Japan, based on a Japanese urban legend. I was thinking of serial-posting it on this blog, but I'm pretty protective of my fiction and don't want to put it where anyone can "borrow" it. So, if you're interested in reading it, give me an email and I'll send it to you. This way, I have a rough idea of who has read it.

Illness: I've had a cold for a week now, and yesterday was a day to forget. Woke up with a persistent throbbing headache that lasted all day, and I couldn't focus on anything. Therefore, besides playing Stoked, I got nothing done at all, and now need to do double today. Fun times. I felt like a total zombie.

I felt a lot like this yesterday.

AND IN GAMING NEWS...

In speaking of feeling dead, Resident Evil 5 comes out on Friday, and I'm super excited for it. I'm going to need an online co-op partner for it, as I have to test out the co-op as part of the review process, and I'd rather not play with some random person. So far, my message to all friends has been fruitless, as my friends are either busy with a GSL, time zones wouldn't work well, they aren't getting the game, or they're just being lame. Whatever the cause, I'm still looking. Ducky Dan has offered to buy the game and play with me, but since he hated Dead Space, I'm probably going to tell him not to bother, as it seems improbable to me that he would like it. If he does get it, I'll work with him. That should be... interesting...

Want to co-op? I'll let you be Chris this time...

I'm going to get cranking on the Stoked draft today now that I'm feeling better, but it probably won't be on the site for a couple more days.

Week 4 is about to begin in the GSL, which I'm unfortunately sitting out due to my work load and review obligations (though I'd been hoping to be the one to review RE5 for months, I'll admit). Next week is my spring break, and since all my friends are going skiing (I hate skiing and refused to waste my money on something I would have no fun doing), I'll have nothing to do but play games, so it should be a double points week for me (I'll probably still be trying to get some work done as well though).

In my 360voice challenge, I've temporarily moved up to #3 thanks to 440 points in Stoked (which is not a GSL game, BTW, unless you're really, really good at games of this genre), but that won't last. Koala is playing, I'm not. It'll be interesting to see how badly the competition burns me this week, and if I can claw my way back into the top three during Week 5. I really want to finish top three and get some challenge points for my efforts. It's an added source of motivation beyond moving Hand of Thrawn up the team ladder. There's no such thing as too much motivation, is there?

Oh! Maw DLC #2 comes out today!!! You should go download it. Right now. That game is amazing. I think I'm going to go get is as soon as this has been posted.

DOWNLOAD ME!!!!!

Week III Final Thoughts

Things went decently, though not spectacularly, this week. I was too stupid to write down people's start scores, which is something I'll remember to do in the future. It looks like, with about 4,500 points, I was the team's top scorer this week, followed by Silva, then Derek, then Sabre. I think this is the second week in a row we've fallen short of our team goal... I'm not sure. As I said before, I messed up the numbers this week. Perhaps the goals I'm holding us to are too ambitious (I want to set high goals, but not be a slave driver), but I can say at least I nearly met my 5k goal despite losing nearly 2 full days of playing time.

Young Guns have pulled to within about 3k of us, so we'll have to watch out for them next week. In happier news, we picked up about 3.5k on Sinister Six, the next team above us, and Silva cracked 100k on the nose. Way to go Silva! Next week WILL be better, as Dark makes his much-awaited return to action after 2 weeks off, and is going to kick ass, and Bishop will be back in action. Sabre's going to be taking his first sit of the season, while I'm sitting again so I can work on the reviews for Stoked and Resident Evil 5, as well as get cranking on my research and homework, so Week V (my spring break), I can go absolutely point CRAZY. We're going to be toe-to-toe with Sinister Six for 4th place by the end of Week V, if things go to plan.

My week of crazy scoring moved me to #3 in the 360v challenge, though I'll fall to 4th by tomorrow. Still a lot of time left, but I can tell it will be quite tough to crack the top three. I'll do my best to make it happen. It was a pretty fun week, and week IV will be even better.

Completed games this week:
Sonic's UGC
Rapala's Fishing Frenzy 2009

Baby Nerf Me One More Time

This week has been one with a decent start, but many frustrations. I came out to a huge start by dropping 425 in Sonic's UGC, and 530 in Xmen, then maybe 200 more in Lego Star Wars II. With over 500 points in NCAA Football 08, things seem to be going amazingly thus far, and I jumped from 57th to 4th in my 360voice challenge, so why would I be frustrated? Because this week was supposed to be HUGE.

What has gone wrong?

1. Gamefly never received Scene It: Box Office Smash. After a week, I reported it missing. They're now sending my LOTR: Conquest, but I won't get that this week. So, a shipping error nerfed me a possible 1k.

2. My disc of Madden 08 will not play, no matter what I do. I can't get out to Gamestop to exchange it this week. Nerfed another 1k.

If only we were talking about this kind of nerf.

3. In NCAA 07, there is no sim function, and apparently if you do too many achievement goals in one game, nothing pops. I played a game for like 90 minutes and got no points for it. It'll take much longer to get points from this than expected.

4. I got a call from a high school buddy yesturday, who wanted to know if he could crash at my place Friday. He has grad school interviews in Stout on Friday, and here in Eau Claire on Saturday, so he wanted to stay here rather than drive back and forth from Minnesota twice. Since I'm such a good friend, I'm helping him out, which means I'm losing almost all of Friday for scoring. It'll be good to see him, and we might go see Watchman, so I'm not complaining about seeing him, but it would have been nice to know sooner, so I could plan for it.

5. I'll be out all day Saturday on a snow-tubing trip that has been in the works for over a month. Wasn't supposed to be a big deal if all my games worked and I had Friday to game. Now I'm looking at a late night Thursday and Late Saturday/Early Sunday.

So, I'll still do OK this week, but my expectations have been lowered quite a bit. I'll have to try to do better next week.

Week II Final Thoughts

Well, Week II of the GSL has come to an end, and it certainly was an interesting week. When things started, Young Guns, Woodcock Johnsons, and Hand of Thrawn were within 1k of each other. WJs exploded to +17k on us, YG imploded (this week, at least) to 3-7k behind us (not sure what their official score really is) and we own 6th place for now. The new goal is to climb into the top five, which is certainly a challenge, but we're down for it. L4A has announced that their team goal is to catch up to us... I do love motivational rivalries. I encourage them to do their best... my team thrives on people gunning for us. Week I it was Ducky's Angels and Rogue Squadron (crushed em), Week II it was L4A (they gained a little ground), Week III it will be L4A and YG (results obviously TBD). Come and get some =P

A couple of my teammates did excellent work, a couple underperformed a little... it comes with the territory (I think they all know how they did). Next week, I'm hoping for as much or more from everyone, as I think we failed to meet our goal for the week (except you Silva... you don't need to kill yourself... it's called SLEEP =P get just a tiny bit of it LOL. If we had 1,000 points for every time you sent we a message saying you were about to die, we'd be beating KOTOR {I exaggerate a little}). I'm not excepting myself from this; I too will strive to do better than my Week I score. Look for Silva to pass the 100k milestone next week. There's still six weeks of action left, so I'm sure there will be plenty of movement. I know my team well enough now to guarantee we'll remain consistent throughout.

After playing Week I, sitting out a week was surprisingly easier than I thought it would be. I spent the time doing some preloading, boosting teammates in Prey and Timeshift, and playing games for fun, like continuing my second playthrough of Eternal Sonata, where I've progressed to chapter 4. Sitting back and watching the point whoring squad you've assembled do their thing certainly has its own satisfactions.

Thinking long-term, I think this will be my last GSL for a while. Don't get me wrong, I love these, and my team now is every bit as fun as TSA was (Despite the lack of Ducky's singing or totally non-PC gay jokes with Buck... we still have to break in the new guys to our randomness a little =P). My temporary retirement from GSLs will coincide from my temporary retirement from achievement whoring. Once I hit 100k, my focus is going to shift drastically from whoring points to scoring points in games I enjoy, and improving my completion percentage. My year-end goal may be 100k, but even if I reach it before May or June, I'm not setting a new goal. Operation Jedi and completing RPGs will keep me busy enough. As I look for jobs and try to establish myself post-college, I also won't have the time (or $$$) for it for a while. Assuming x360a continues GSLs, I'll probably sit out season 8, and actively avoid playing anything that smells like easy points, so that I'll have a lot of ammunition when season 9 rolls around, at which point I'd like to reform TSA or Hand of Thrawn and make a serious run for it... but that's a ways down the line.

On a separate note, while I cannot 100% confirm this yet, it looks like my next two reviews will be Stoked and Eat Lead: The Return of Matt Hazard. One of those I'm actually looking forward to. The other I have no idea what to expect. I'll let you figure out which is which.

Week I Final Thoughts

I know, I disappeared over the weekend in a blitz of point scoring. I’m now back to report the shindigs, and resume posting as normal for the next week. Before even getting into things, I should make a quick note that I’ll probably be saying little about KOTOR over the course of the GSL. The reason for this comes from the first post of this blog:

“The blog will never be used as a platform to take cheap shots at or make criticisms of others (praise, however, may be lavished where it is due). If you're looking for drama of that nature, read someone else's blog.”

I remembered that and decided I won’t provide myself any opportunity to slip on that going forward. They won’t be relevant unless we hit the number two spot and start chasing them.

On to Week I thoughts… I love the new scoring system, with hourly updates. It makes it so easy to see how teams are doing, who is scoring well, and who is dragging their feet. I told my team not to put too much stock in the scoreboard, as many teams would be putting up massive numbers. Stamina is more important, so as long as we keep our heads down and run our game plan, we’ll do fine.

Finishing the week at 7th out of 18 teams isn’t too bad, especially since less than 1,000 points separate us from Young Guns and Woodcock Johnsons.

5. The Woodcock Johnsons 20530
6. Young Guns 20393
7. The Hand of Thrawn 19740

It’s safe to say there will be a power struggle between out teams next week, at the very least. It should be fun to watch.

My personal approach to this GSL is not to focus on the top of the mountain, but to focus on the teams directly above and below us. Simply think about climbing the ladder one rung at a time. Why waste so much energy worrying about #1 if there’s five other teams in front of us that we have to pass first? To make an analogy, it’s like yearning for the fall of Berlin when you haven’t even stormed Normandy yet. (I played Brothers in Arms this week so WWII has been on my mind) If you’re only thinking about the teams closest to you, then there’s always competition close at hand, no matter what place you are, and I think things are more fun that way.

One rung at a time.

Our rivals didn’t fare as well as we did. Ducky’s Angels scored 9,065 points, putting them over 10k behind us. They’ve got a lot of time to catch us… but they don’t know what we have planned for Week II. Rogue Squadron put down 5,935 points… As the numbers below will show, both Sabre and Dark outscored their entire team. With a 13,805 point lead, Week I went decisively for the Empire.

Team numbers for Week I:
Sabre x360a: 6475
DarkTharen: 5965
ThrawnOmega: 4210
Bishop x360a: 3090

That’s pretty good. Our goals for the week were:
Sabre – 5k
Dark – 5k
Thrawn – 4k
Bishop – 4k
Total – 18k

Bishop fell short of his goal, but he knows what he’s doing, and will do better next week. Sabre and Dark stepped it up, and put us nearly 2k over our goal. Not a bad start guys.

Planning is now well underway for Week II. This is the week the other two members of the GSL VI champion Silent Assassins get to come out and play. Watch out for Silva, he’s going to put on a clinic and show you all how it’s done. Get your popcorn ready.

T.O. is ready for Silva. Are YOU?

http://mayhem-chaos.net/photoblog/images/big_ladder.jpg

We Took Thursday Off...

Thursday was not as successful as the opener by a long shot, as I think many of us were busy. I gamed as much as I could, but I had 4 hours of class as well as some homework to complete. In the evening, my girlfriend stopped by and we watched Burn Notice. That show is awesome and no GSL is going to make me give it up lol. I'll make up that hour later =P We hold the #8 spot, with Ducky's Angels right behind us, and Rogue Squadron seems to be taking a while to lock their S-foils into attack position... they're at #14. With only 300 points to show for last night, I'm looking at a busy weekend.

JJBDude48 writes: "Not So Silent Ninjas will remain a threat throughout. Just because we haven't had an amazing start like the rest doesn't mean we won't threaten you. Game on. ;) lol"

I would be highly disappointed in your team if you didn't remain competitive with us. If KOTOR leaves us all in the dust, it's this rivalry I'm looking to to keep me motivated to blast points, so I want you to stay in it. I want to beat you (naturally), but it should be a challenge. Rogue Squadron is the team we want to leave in the dust LOL.

I need to learn to curb my impatience in competitions like this... I'm want some of the teams that will fizzle and die to just do so already... I'm forgetting that that takes a couple weeks. Two or three of the teams currently ahead of us won't be staying near the top for long, if my pre-season predictions pan out. Positions #10-18 don't surprise me, except I thought LOL-ers were going to be serious. They might be, it just doesn't look that way yet.

Since my first short story for my 400-level creative writing class is due next Friday, I'm going to be spending a good chunk of my morning and afternoon working on it. Tonight until the cuttoff, I'll be going mad on those points. Scene It won't finish itself...

So Far, So Good

I forgot the mention, the Onechanbara review is up, so go check that out if you have not already.

The GSL started almost exactly how I expected it to. KOTOR is already up and playing mind games while ego stroking. No surprise there. Their egos are black holes that would suck up the universe if they could =P

As I type this, my team is exactly tied with Team Vengeance at 5,655 points, and we sit at 6th. Considering they had a guy quit on them, that's one team I'm not too concerned about ATM. While I'd naturally like to see my team a little higher on the standings, everyone is at or slightly ahead of where our pre-week forecasts had us, so I can't really complain.

I put down 1,205 points last night, including the 340 long-delayed points from Onechanbara, and the rest from Brothers in Arms or Scene It: BoS. Scene It is a lot more fun that what I had expected. My roommate and I have had fun trying to answer the questions, even though I'm obviously going to win every game for those points. Brothers in Arms is like a mediocre Rainbow Six set in WWII. The game's not terrible, but Vegas 2 is infinitly better. I'll take the points though and not complain... in a few weeks I'll be playing much, much worse (foreshadowing FTW) *cringe*

Should my team not win the GSL, we still have three side missions:

1. Everyone scores the best they possibly could have, so we all see great increases and have a blast.
2. Outscore the new team from our former captain, Ducky Dan (the Not So SIlent Ninjas, aka Ducky's Angels =P)
3. Outscore THE CRAP out of Rogue Squadron, the team silly enough to specifically target us as rivals =) They don't know what they got themselves into...

SO far, we're succeeding in all three of those missions. Woot! Still a lot of time left, of course.

You can follow GSL scoring HERE. It updates hourly during the scoring week.

Daily Musings

The Onechanbara review is done, and now merely awaits some peer review and then posting to x360a. Since Webby appears to be busy on more important titles like Halo Wars and the Lost and Damned GTA IV DLC, I can't say when he'll have the time to look at it. It'll probably get buried in the stack pretty quickly after posting, which is a shame, since I brought my sarcasm out to play =P

Part of me wonders what will happen to my readership once the GSL starts, since a fair amount of my readers are also competitors in the GSL. Will everyone vanish to go beast points, or keep tuning in to see what I've been playing. The daily updates won't be stopping... I make the time for this. I'm even working up some special topics, as a part of my plan to keep this blog running as smoothly as possible, even while I'm going point-crazy.

Since the whole thing starts tomorrow, it would be kinda nice to know how the official tracking system is going to work; I think a lot of us are clueless. I'm having my team log into DoD during the specified window, but not score anything, since scores are taken at the end of that window and the points would not count. I'd encourage all teams to wait until those start scores are posted before scoring anything, so you know you're safe.

Strangely, virtually all of my friends are going back to their hometowns for the weekend. Every flipping one of them, each for a different reason... bizarre. Amy will be gone, and Stefan too... no girlfriend, no roommate... I was planning on going out on Friday night and being social like a normal person, but with no friends around, it looks like I'm gaming by default all Friday and Saturday... I'll have to notch up my weekly estimate a bit as a result (that estimate is classified information =P)

Time to get back to beasting... homework! Lame...............

The Anticipation is Killing Me...

Over the last two weeks, I’ve scored a lousy 220 points. Those points have come from games like Puzzle Quest, Stranglehold, and Dynasty Warriors 6, which will be virtually untouched when the league starts. It’s not that I hate not scoring a ton of points… it the fact that I could be scoring points and I’m deliberately holding back that is killing me. I need the gloves to come off. NOW. Do you know how hard it is to play Onechanbara for 10 hours and have 0 points to show for it? To only play the games on Sonic’s Ultimate Genesis Collection that don’t have achievements, so nothing accidentally pops? Right now, I’m actually trying to survive all 280 waves of survival mode in Onechanbara… that’s a hell of a personal achievement, but there’s no points in it. Thankfully, it’s possible to save and quit, because doing all 280 waves in one sitting would probably take 10 or more hours! I’m currently on the 115th wave.

Some Vegas 2 multiplayer, the subscriber Uno tournament (which my teammate Bishop won), and watching episodes of the Venture Brothers has kept me happy enough, but I like scoring points when I’m playing… Just a few more days!

Sabre x360a

To my sorrow (and every other team’s delight), Operation Overdrive has been a dismal failure. I don’t have my short story done, and research is taking 3x longer than I thought it was. That means my dream of 3 intense work days and nothing but gaming during the GSL week will never come to fruition. It would have been nice, but I can’t ignore responsibilities to play games.

Bishop024

Week I will be amusing. Every team is going to go big and try to make a name for themselves. It’ll be a chest-thumping ego fest. The more interesting thing will be to see which teams go big then fizzle, which teams are consistent, and which teams are Dead On Arrival. The rivalries with Rogue Squadron and Ducky’s team need to get going for real =)

http://www.freewebs.com/troopersofdarkness/ShadowTrooper.bmp