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...
Showing posts with label achievement progress. Show all posts
Showing posts with label achievement progress. Show all posts
Sunday, March 13, 2011
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
A Hail of Bullets
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.
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.
Sunday, November 14, 2010
Two Hundred Ninety Nine
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.
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.
Friday, November 12, 2010
ThrawnOmega: Weekend Warrior
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.
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.
Monday, October 25, 2010
More Adventures in Vegas
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.
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.
Friday, August 27, 2010
Would You be my Rival? / An Afternoon in the Dying West
Would You be my Rival?
I came to the realization last night that I'm starving for achievement rivals. You know, the people you engage in friendly trash talking with, and regular banter about who has more points in what games. Bishop and Silva would be perfect if my score was closer to theirs, but they're both 30-40k ahead of me... so that won't be a friendly "rivalry" any time soon. MR BLACKMAGIC on my friends list has potential, as he's one of the few people in the state of Minnesota with a higher gamerscore, but again, 30k difference, and we almost never talk. Ducky x360a used to be a great one. Back when we did our first GSL, our gamerscores were both 20-25k. We stayed close for a long time, then I opened up a 42k+ lead on him. He needs to kick as in x360a's GSL to make things remotely interesting again. Derek or Buck? I passed them a while back, and neither is on much.
Xylofreak03 is my Obi-Wan Kenobi... my only hope for a good rivalry. We trash talk periodically. He vows to catch my gamerscore. I tell him to keep dreaming. He's only 8k behind me. So, I do have one friend who is legitimately interesting to track from a "rivalry" standpoint. I could use a few others.
Do you have a gamerscore in the universe of 140,000? (Not many do, let's just be honest with ourselves) If not, do you think you have a realistic shot at catching me? Want to see who can hit a milestone first? Who can be better than who at a specific game or genre? I'm receptive to "rivalry" ideas. It's been too long since I've had 3-4 people whose cards I routinely checked. Existing friends of mine are free to tell me how we are in fact "rivals." Hope to hear back from you and get the smack talk rolling!
An Afternoon in the Dying West
I've been pogo-sticking through my collection of games lately, playing whatever I feel like playing more than sticking to a set few. The two games that have benefitted from this approach to gaming, Record of Agarest War and Read Dead Redemption, are both games that are challenging and time consuming to complete, but would make impressive completions on my card. In Red Dead, I have about 27 hours total playtime, so I will be updating Raptr with that game once Dragon Age is finally correct.
My personal play style for Red Dead has been to focus on the story first, and handle all the activities second. While I have allowed myself to get distracted from time to time with the stranger missions, it's mostly been off on one mission after another. I've loved it overall, but I think I agree with the reviews I've read that say the Mexican civil war aspect of the story drags on too long and isn't as interesting as it could be. John Marston allows himself to be errand boy for far too long before a nugget of information for his primary quest shows up.
Yesterday was a productive day in Red Dead, with over a dozen story missions completed. After looking at the achievement guide again on x360a, I'm feeling the glimmer of hope that I may actually complete this game, but I have some questions:
Who wants to help boost 3 straight FFA wins?
Who wants in on some Advanced Co-Op missions?
Who else is getting the Legends and Killers DLC?
How will I manage the 8-player posse?
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?
Thursday, August 26, 2010
Yes, Seriously (2.0)
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.
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.
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
Cameron's Avatar Completed
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)
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)
Friday, August 20, 2010
Epically Epic Epicness
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!
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!
Thursday, July 22, 2010
Alan Wake Complete... 'Til Next Week
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.
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.
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Scattered Progress
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.
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.
Saturday, July 10, 2010
Addicted to Crackdown 1.5
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.
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.
Saturday, July 3, 2010
Thank God for Podcasts
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 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
Thursday, June 17, 2010
Riding the XP Train
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.
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.
Thursday, June 3, 2010
Back from the Dead: Dragon Age Resurrected
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
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
Monday, May 10, 2010
Rainy Days = Gamerscore Blitz
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.
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.
Saturday, April 17, 2010
Bioshock Research Sorrow
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.
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.
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Bioshock Blitz
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.
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.
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Deadly Premonition Down, New Targets in Sight
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.
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.
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
CDS (Completion Deficiency Syndrome)
I grow impatient to pop off my next completion. I've been awful this year about getting games close to completion but not topping them off. I sit at three completions here in late March, which keeps me on track for Bronze, which was the absolute minimum standard I set for myself. Let's look at what I've "achieved" so far in my medaling mission:
Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway: All I did was insert the disc in my tray often enough to unlock the last achievement. No real talent of effort required. This one was practically done already.
NBA Live 07: I logged in when there were 1000 people online. Wowzers. Considering the community effort necessary to obtain that achievement, I guess it should count for something.
Magna Carta 2: I'm happy about having another JRPG completion, and since this took about 48 hours to complete, I'm quite happy about this one. Of my three completions this year, it's the only one I feel a measure of pride in.
I find it hard to believe, but we're almost a quarter of the way through 2010 already. I feel I need to complete something, anything, soon to have much of a shot at getting to the more impressive completion totals without resorting to renting the really easy fare to inflate my total.
Metro 2033 I beat on Monday, and will have the review done tomorrow barring some unforseen misfortune. I'll have to play it again to get the large amount of achievements I missed, but some of those achievements are such a pain in the ass I'm going to wait until the achievement guide is 100% finalized before playing it again.
Tomorrow night I think I'll waste some time in PSU to see if I can find anyone to help me kill Dark Falz 2 for that completion. During the day, I'll work Deadly Premonition to advance one of my remaining two playthroughs (I really wish this crappy game had stacking difficulties).
I'm very close to done with all things single player in Blacksite, so I'm incredibly eager to get to boosting that baby. It really doesn't seem to be a tough completion at all if you're willing to put the time into it. I'll be riding the team a little to get cracking on this one early. If possible, I'd like to see us finish it within the first half of April, leaving the last half of the month as free time to go back to Fracture or Turning Point where possible.
Returns other game coulld happen. Regardless, I think FFXIII will be largely tabled until I think I've made some better progress on my goal.
Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway: All I did was insert the disc in my tray often enough to unlock the last achievement. No real talent of effort required. This one was practically done already.
NBA Live 07: I logged in when there were 1000 people online. Wowzers. Considering the community effort necessary to obtain that achievement, I guess it should count for something.
Magna Carta 2: I'm happy about having another JRPG completion, and since this took about 48 hours to complete, I'm quite happy about this one. Of my three completions this year, it's the only one I feel a measure of pride in.
I find it hard to believe, but we're almost a quarter of the way through 2010 already. I feel I need to complete something, anything, soon to have much of a shot at getting to the more impressive completion totals without resorting to renting the really easy fare to inflate my total.
Metro 2033 I beat on Monday, and will have the review done tomorrow barring some unforseen misfortune. I'll have to play it again to get the large amount of achievements I missed, but some of those achievements are such a pain in the ass I'm going to wait until the achievement guide is 100% finalized before playing it again.
Tomorrow night I think I'll waste some time in PSU to see if I can find anyone to help me kill Dark Falz 2 for that completion. During the day, I'll work Deadly Premonition to advance one of my remaining two playthroughs (I really wish this crappy game had stacking difficulties).
I'm very close to done with all things single player in Blacksite, so I'm incredibly eager to get to boosting that baby. It really doesn't seem to be a tough completion at all if you're willing to put the time into it. I'll be riding the team a little to get cracking on this one early. If possible, I'd like to see us finish it within the first half of April, leaving the last half of the month as free time to go back to Fracture or Turning Point where possible.
Returns other game coulld happen. Regardless, I think FFXIII will be largely tabled until I think I've made some better progress on my goal.
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