Inching Forward...

First, I have to start off with the big and easy-to-see news. Earlier today I hit the 70,000 milestone dead-on while playing Condemned 2. I had to pause the melee action long enough to save this image for posterity. Also on display below is the achievement that got me to that 70k. I currently have a lead of 4,346 points over my GSL captain Ducky Dan in our race to 100k. I believe it's the largest lead I've had on him since we started our friendly rivalry. Now, I just need to average 2,500 points a month to hit my goal of 100k by the end of the year.

	Flambe (25g)	25
	Splash, Shock and Fry

Yesterday my review copy of Rise of the Argonauts arrived, and became the first game I've added to my card since Operation Jedi launched. While I hate to know my percentage is going to go down for a while, I DID just score a free game, so I can't complain. While I could have played it on a different account, and thus not set back Operation Jedi, if I'm going to take the time to play and review a game, I'd like my points for that effort =) True to the policy I set forth in my very first post, I'm not going to offer any opinions on the game here until my review is done. I've already seen the wisdom in this, as my first impressions of ROTA definitely changed as time goes on. I don't want to mislead anyone before I've thought everything out. I take reviews very seriously.

Operation Jedi Success Story #2: Gears of War
Before the DLC achievements game out for the original Gears, I had 780 points, which makes it no problem for my completion goal, but the DLC turned that 78% into a 62%. so things had to be done. While I had already traded away my copy of Gears, my brother had not, so I borrowed his copy and self-boosted every DLC achievement except This! Is! Annex! which looks like it would take a year. I got my score up to 990 in the game, which is about 79%. True, this is hardly as dramatic an improvement as the 55 to 1000 change in Prey, but restoring my completion percent in this game to what it was before, and coming out ahead 210 points, sounds like a win to me. Holy cow was that boosting session boring though... I'm glad to be done with it.

Other Operation Jedi News:

Ducky and I also met up to boost the 125 points that come with the first Timeshift map pack. That pack is free, and we'd already boosted the other MP points during the GSL, so we thought it wise to go for the free points that were there for the taking. Turns out they were the easiest achievements I've boosted in a long time... even easier than Prey. It's too bad Timeshift failed to sell well, because it has the makings of a great online MP game. The maps are nice, I like the weapons, the action is fast, the time powers are cool, and there's a TON of customization options. I would happily play that game online if I could find enough other interested people to have an actual game.

360voice recently released the survival/horror badge, which has to be my favorite of the genre badges. It turns out I've already played 6 of the 7 games currently in the genre, and I had the 2-star version of the badge from day one. It turns out I also have an excellent shot at getting the almighty 3-star version of it too. Alone in the Dark and Condemned 2 both count for the horror genre, and both are on the list of games I really need to work on for Operation Jedi anyway. So, by trying to finish those two games, I can chase 2 badges at once... I love that. The only game I'll have to rent and play after that would be Silent Hill: Homecoming. I'm starting with Condemned 2 because I only had a lousy 90/1000 to start, and because it's by far the better of those two games. I love Condemned 2, it's easily the scariest game I've ever played, but I don't like the achievement list. There are far too many MP achievements, and I can't get to 750 in this game without unlocking a fair share of them, which brings me to this announcement:

I need a Condemned 2 boosting partner! I'm looking for someone reputable, but I'll post in the x360a forums and hope for the best if I can't find anyone. If you need to finish Condemned 2 as well, or know someone who does, please let me know!
I'm going to keep alternating between ROTA and Condemned until I can't stand one or both of them anymore, then something else will get cycled in. I'm horrible at staying with one game until I'm done with it, which is how I got myself in the completion percentage situation to begin with...

OPERATION JEDI TOTALS: I'm currently at 58.62%, which is (to my great surprise) actually slightly higher than the last time I reported totals (last Friday). I'm 19,557 points short of the goal, which means, despite adding ROTA to my card, and it's current point status, my efforts since Friday have still brought me 95 points closer to my goal. That doesn't sound like much, I know, but I did add another 1000 to tackle, of which I don't even have 300 yet. I'll definitely take the forward progress.

images:
http://www.xbox360achievements.org/images/screenshots/144/med_MPShot03.jpg
http://www.xbox360achievements.org/images/screenshots/313/med_Condemned_2-Screenshots10623C2-450.jpg

ThrawnOmega Predicts the Future: Episode 2

Today (or should I say tonight?) I decided to bring out my crystal ball for another round of gazing into the future, to make a couple more predictions. Remember, my crystal ball has the habit of distorting reality, but I managed to tune it a bit, so today's predictions fall into the realm of the plausible.

2009 will be known as the Year of DLC

This probably doesn't come as too much of a surprise. With DLC coming for Fallout 3 and GTA4, DLC will get a lot of attention early in the year, but we should see content for L4D, Tomb Raider Underworld, and who knows what else. DLC will take major steps forward in 2009, and more content released and purchased than ever before. The crystal ball also predicts that x360a will be making one slight new advancement to embrace this change in the industry. What could that advancement be? The crystal ball says you should be able to see for yourself within the next month.
While we're on the subject of DLC, the crystal ball tells me it knows what the first two DLC campaigns for L4D will be:

Deaducation (working title)
In this potentially controversial expansion, the survivors find themselves at the top floor of an academic building on a college campus. To survive, they must make their way through several linked academic buildings and the library before finally making it outside. From there, they must shoot their way to the college's football stadium, and make a harrowing last stand at midfield with ramshackle defenses, while they wait for a rescue chopper to arrive. Fighting the infected swarms of college students won't be pretty...

Mighty Mall
The other campaign takes place in a parody of the Mall of America. The survivors must fight through food courts, an indoor amusement park, a movie theater, a restroom, two department stores, and countless long halls of stores. Play starts in the East Parking lot, which the survivors can't escape from. Their evac is an APC that will pick them up in West Parking lot, clear across the mall, after they've made their last stand in the parking garage. Can the 4 humans make it out alive? Valve will announce this campaign is the longest, running an average 20 minutes longer than the others (on normal... God help you on expert).

Kingdom Hearts on 360
Moving away from DLC, sometime this year it will be announced that all future Kingdom Hearts titles will be on the 360 and PS3. Don't act surprised. I predicted well over a year before FFXIII was announced for the 360 that it would happen (I have friends who will verify this!). The signs were all there. When Infinite Undiscovery came to 360, and Last Remnant was known to be multi-platform, along with Square-Enix's announcement that they wished to go multi-platform in the future, why would they keep their signature franchise stuck on one system? (I'm referring more to announcements here than release dates, because I know the above chronology is a bit fuzzy) Now, the new Star Ocean game is 360 exclusive (if I'm remembering right), so it is possible Kingdom Hearts could stay on Sony systems, but I highly doubt it. They'll want to milk that franchise for every penny they can.

That concludes my predictions for today. Tomorrow I roll out a major achievement progress update.

Image links:
http://www.xbox360achievements.org/images/screenshots/261/med_gauss.jpg
http://www.campusexplorer.com/media/376x262/University-of-Wisconsin-Eau-Claire-2C57281B.jpg
http://gallery.vanguardist.org/d/36859-2/DSC01002.JPG
http://www.doupe.cz/vaulty/finalfantasy/pictures/kingdom_hearts_2_wallpaper.jpg

Farewell to My Wingman: What Co-Op Play Means to Me

This post is dedicated entirely to my brother Evan, who took off on a plane earlier today to spend five months studying abroad in Spain. I'm excited and happy for him, because I know from my own experiences in Japan that studying abroad is a wonderful thing, and I know he'll grow as a person and learn a lot over there. At the same time, I'm sad to see him go, as I'll be without my co-op Wingman for almost half a year. Of course, I'll miss him for a lot more than just video games, but since this is a game-related blog, co-op is the subject to talk about.

The two of us are very different people, with different interests, aptitudes, and personalities, but share common ground in video games, and our love of defeating a common enemy. We've been playing together for as long as I can remember, with a list of completions that includes:

• Jet Force Gemini (N64)
• In Dragon Warrior Monsters (GBC) we completed the incredibly long breeding sequence to create Dark Drium, the ultimate monster. Anyone who knows anything about that game should understand how awesome an undertaking that is.

• Gauntlet: Dark Legacy (Gamecube)
• Dynasty Warriors 4 (PS2)
• Halo 1, 2, and 3
• Gears of War (1 & 2)
• Rainbow Six Vegas (1 & 2)
• Unreal Tournament III
• EDF 2017 (about 5 times)
• Left 4 Dead
• Duke Nuke 'Em 3D
  

I'm sure there's more games that I forgot about, and eventually Crackdown, Army of Two, and Resident Evil 5 will be added to this list. Already, at least 2000 points of my score can be traced directly back to co-op play with my brother, making him the largest individual contributor to my current success. Some of my fondest memories of us include the vanquishing of enemies via co-op, and I'm kind of at a loss on how I'll play while he's gone. Who can I play RE5 with on release? (Don't worry bro, I refuse to tackle the Hardest difficulty with anyone else. I'm saving that achievement for us to mutually annihilate.) My guess is I'm going to have to play more solo games, or learn to enjoy competitive multiplayer.

When you've played with the same co-op partner for years (and probably even more so when you're related to that person) you develop a 6th sense of sorts about what your partner is going to do, and you have a complete understanding of each other's roles. Evan and I barely need to talk anymore to complete games if we don't want to, even on the highest difficulties (we still chat it up 'cause games are more fun that way, of course). He runs for the sniper rile and starts picking off enemies while I practice some close range shock-and-awe. We have our system, and we rock with it.

No trend in the gaming industry do I observe with more happiness than the continuing expansion of co-op play. Where competitive multiplayer has long been dominant, developers are beginning to realize that there are people out there like me who find playing WITH others to be a lot more fun than playing AGAINST others. Some games, like Army of Two or Left 4 Dead, were designed specifically for co-op play, and I hope to see many more games embrace co-op play as time goes on. While there will always be griefers, even in cooperative play, I've found co-op players to be much nicer people, who will work with you to get a mission accomplished. Even in team-based competitive multiplayer, where working as a unit could ensure easy victory, people act like a bunch of mavericks, which has ruined competitive play in Halo 3 (which I wasn't a fan of to begin with), Gears 2, and even Vegas 2. Why people don't communicate in squad-based games is beyond me, and I almost never play multiplayer anymore unless it's with friends.
Perhaps the greatest thing about co-op play is the fact that your opponent is AI, not human. Let's face it, people (and by people, I mean most random people you encounter on Xbox Live) suck. They glitch, they cheat, they quit early, they teabag, they turn Gears of War into a running shotgun fest which was not what the developers intended. They swear, spew forth racist or homophobic garbage, make excessive "your mom" jokes, beat-box, sing, or rap into the mic, are pre-pubescent boys playing M-rated games, and a million other things that annoy and lessen the experience. When playing cooperatively against AI, you know the opposing team is going to play the game the "right" way, and don't have to suffer the annoyances offered by a million idiots. Everyone shares the experience, and walk away satisfied at that shared accomplishment. I've never had a co-op session where players left frustrated or angry, while that happened in almost every competitive session.

With my brother gone, I feel like I'll be cut off from the style of gaming I like most for five months. Sure, I can still chase achievements for all time, but what do I do when I'm sick of that and need to play a different way? I'm going to need to hold auditions for a temporary new Wingman, I think.

I'll conclude my comments on co-op by wishing my bro good luck in Spain. You'll have a blast, I'm sure. Keep me updated about what you're up to. The games will still be here when you get back =)

Dark Drium pic from: http://tiger3k.com/yash/entertainment/games/index.html
other pics from MGC or xbox360achievements

MUA is starting to bore me

NOTE: Due to my last post arriving a little after midnight, this will appear as the second post for today. If you happened to miss the post on blogging, read the post that comes just before this one.

I've been in a kind of gaming funk the last few days, where I really haven't felt like playing much. I'm starting to remember why I got rid of Marvel Ultimate Alliance when I did... the remaining achievements are a pain in the ass. Sure, I can self-boost the multiplayer achievements, but that will be time consuming and even more boring than an Orochi 2 grind. I also need to get every costume for every character, and gold medal every comic mission (there's 34). That amounts to multiple hours of tedious grinding... I seem to do that a lot. Almost all the points I've picked up here have been from the DLC, with the original points almost unchanged. With my interest in the game flagging, I'll probably bring Lego Star Wars II and Dynasty Warrior 6 back into play for some variety.

It says in my "upcoming posts" today that I would be talking a bit about gamerscore leagues and challenges, but I think I'm going to save that topic for another day. I'm just going to put my feet up, watch some Aqua Teen Hunger Force on DVD, and try to get a few more hours of gaming in, before going to bed a little early tonight. For reasons to be discussed in tomorrow's post (and that post will be a big one) I'll be waking up a lot earlier than normal tomorrow. I'll leave today's short, since tomorrow will make up for it. Happy gaming all =)

Am I Alone in the Universe? Early Thoughts on Blogging

YOUR HELP NEEDED! PLEASE COMMENT IF YOU HAVE ANY USEFUL INFO =)

Ok, I know I'm not alone in the universe, but I'm very new to this blogging thing, and it sometimes feels like it. I've been writing all my life, and love to do it, so providing the raw content for this blog is a breeze. The other areas of blog life, however, mystify me. Today's format is a little strange, but shouldn't be hard to follow.

QUESTION: Are there other achievement-related blogs out there?

WHAT I KNOW SO FAR: I've only recently become aware of the blogs of a few fellow x360a members, and have not yet had time to give them more that a passing glance. I've read all of Birky's, but there's not a whole lot to read there, as he started his blog the same time I started this. I've tried every search I could think of on google to turn up blogs from gamers writing about achievement points, and found virtually nothing. From what little I did find (through Google), I saw blogs that were written for a bit, and quickly fizzled, or where ongoing, but pretty bad. While World of Warcraft players can find thousands of blogs on their hobby, I can find almost none on mine. What the hell? Are the few of us blogging on achievements actually treading new ground? If there are any major achievement blogs out there I missed, let me know... cause when I think achievement blogs, I think of myself and Stallion83's blog (1 Million Gamerscore) and that's pretty much it. I do plan on checking out those other x360a blogs when I have the time.

NOTE: Raptured Reality, listed in my "I read" list, is a great all-around gaming blog, and I recommend checking it out, but I wouldn't consider it an "achievement blog."

QUESTION: How do I advertise this blog an build a readership?

SO FAR: I've done everything I can without being annoying to promote this blog through x360a. A couple times I've dropped links in the forums to posts here people would find interesting, and I have this blogged linked in my x360a forum signature. As a member of the review team, I have a fair amount of exposure there anyway, and "ThrawnOmega" as well as "Nate Gillick" are beginning to show up a little more often in google searches, which is always happy. However, how do I maximize exposure in that community and beyond it? How does one advertise a blog? I have not looked too much into this yet, as providing quality content remains priority #1 (and I would write this blog anyway, even if nobody read it), but it would be nice to continue putting my name out there. Remember, a large following never hurts when you're trying to convince someone that people read what you write (and thus should pay you).

QUESTION: What's the difference between subscribers and followers?

MY UNDERSTANDING: I think subscribers are people who get your feed and read your blog, but may not blog on there own, while followers are other people with blogs?

BLOG NOTES: You may notice I've made a few changes to the blog's format today. I've made myself a Feedburner account and changed the feed for this blog, which is now simply http://feeds.feedburner.com/thrawnomega. Spread the word to your friends! =P This change should make it easier for people to subscribe, and it allows me to track how many subscribers I have, as well as how many hits this blog gets, and what people are reading. It's a valuable tool for me to see how I'm doing and make an ever-better blog.

MY (Crazy?) GOAL: The total number of readers of this blog (subscribers + followers) equals 100 or greater by the end of 2009. The year is young, and I'm just getting started. Is this number too low? Impossibly high? I know not, but it's the number I picked, so I'm going to shoot for it until it's mine, then set my sights even higher. (95 to go =P)

Here's to my continuous quest to write one of the best achievement (and gaming) blogs on the internet, and writing the best content I can. I thank you all in advance for your support, and any advice you can provide me on how to make this better =)

ThrawnOmega Preys on Points

The title of today's post is a rather lame pun, I'll admit, but it amuses me (read on and you'll get it). This post comes in two parts, with achievement progress coming first, then a research update.

ACHIEVEMENT PROGRESS:

Over the last few days, I've been working my way through Marvel Ultimate Alliance again. I beat the game and traded it in before I became a true achievement junkie, and recently lamented the 650/1250 I had in the game. Therefore I repurchased it for $9.99, and downloaded the DLC, both for the points and so that the new characters would make my 2nd playthrough (I'll need a 3rd to get everything...) feel more fresh. I think I'm up about 100 points on that game now from where I was.

I've also gained the Ground Cover achievement and several of the versus mode achievements in L4D. I love the versus mode in that game, but it seems nobody (outside my circle of friends) has any clue how to play versus... With various groups of friends, I've won the last 4 matches I played by AT LEAST 2,000 points, including a 4000 point mega-blowout, where we killed all 4 survivors in The Hospital chapter of No Mercy before they could reach the top of the first freaking staircase! They got 4 points for level completion!!! I simply can't wrap my head around how poor the competition is, because I seriously don't think we're experts, but they make use look superhuman...

With a New Year's challenge running on 360voice, it's been time to get really cranking on the points, which brings me to my first success story of Operation Jedi.

Operation Jedi Success Story #1: Prey
I originally borrowed the game from my brother for a while, and picked up 55 points in it. However, I had a lot of my own games I was busy with, and never got too into the game. They my bro traded his copy, I became an achievement whore, and those 55 points have been an eyesore on my gamercard ever since. When I got Prey with Superman Returns for a total of $7.50 from Blockbuster, I knew this game had to be finished. Yesterday, I spent my time plowing through the campaign, finishing it on Normal, and in the evening boosted all the online points with OldWIKI TIK. The online achievements are probably the most easily boostable points out there, or close to it. Having more bodies would have made the kill achievements go faster, but we managed to get all of them done in 3-4 hours, and it was a much smoother experience than I would have thought.

I'm now blazing through my 2nd play, to get the hardest difficulty achievement. Since I just beat the game, and know how to do everything, I've been treating this play as a speed run, and have already made my way to chapter 17 of 22 in just 4.5-5 hours. If you haven't yet, I highly recommend playing Prey. The achievements are easy, the campaign is a lot of fun, and the game is really cheap now. Once this baby is finished, that'll be 945 points on the board toward the fabled 75% completion. =)

Operation Jedi stats: Completion percentage is now 58.4%, and I'm now 19,652 points shy of my goal. Progress is being made! My only complaint is that the point total needed to get the 1% badge on 360v seems to be growing at the same rate I'm scoring points... I don't think I'm getting any closer yet to that coveted badge...

RESEARCH UPDATE:

I'm also been spending a good amount of time on my grant research. I've now found 13 of the 20 or so blogs I need to have for my study. It's been a real roll of the dice finding these. Sometimes I'll find 3 in 10 minutes, then go for hours without finding one that qualifies. I've found there are several types of MMO blogs:

1. Role-playing: Bloggers write from the POV of their character. Since this is really fiction, and not a player narrative, I can't use these.
2. Informational: Most posts are about how to play the game better, or discussion of various aspects of the game. These too are not player narratives, so I can't use them.
3. Informational/Narrative: Half information, half discussion of their own play experiences. I can use these if the blogs have been running long enough to have a good body of data of player experiences in-game.
4. Narrative: The best kind for my uses. Discussion is almost exclusively about what a person did in-game.

Type #4 there isn't quite as common as I thought it would be, or I'm just having trouble finding good ones. I've noticed a good number of blogs that could have worked, but they died out rapidly, or they post far too infrequently (ideally I like blogs with at least 2 posts per week).

I have to keep trucking on this, as by the end of the month, I need to have found all my sources, copied all of them to Word, and done a decent amount of reading through them and developing codes to analyze what they mean. I really want to get to the reading... this finding and copying is the reaaaaally boring part of the job.

That covers me for today. Happy achievement hunting everyone.
(Images again from xbox360achievements.org)

Operation Interview, Part 1: Mixed Beginnings to a Long Quest

I've made it no secret I want to get a writing job in the game industry. With January being about the slowest month on the planet in terms of game releases, I figured now is the best time to try to reach out to the editors of various gaming magazines and web pages, in the hopes of having informational interviews with them to learn more about the industry and job, as well as get my name out there. If they're ever going to have the spare time to speak with a relative unknown like me, January is the month where that would happen.

So, I did so scouring of the internet to try to dig up contact information on the editors of various mags/sites. Results were mixed:

• Official Xbox Magazine: Easy to find staff page, with emails. I appreciate this considerably, and will be contacting them.
• Game Informer: Contact information also readily available.
• EGM/1up: I found staff bios, but no great way to get in contact with them. I can leave a message and a prayer at feedback@1up.com, or will probably try logging into my 1up account and sending the appropriate people messages that way.
• IGN: Pretty much the same as EGM/1up
• Gamepro: Nothing... I have no idea how to contact their staff. I'll have to try posting in the site's forums or seeing if the magazine is more helpful.
• Gamespot: Ditto... no clue how to contact the staff.
• Nintendo Power: Doesn't even really have a site, as far as I can tell. Just subscription related stuff.
• could not find a Playstation-centric magazine, but I thought there was one...

So, I'll be sending direct emails for OXM and GI, trying work-arounds for EGM and IGN, and figuring out if I have any shot at reaching someone at Gamepro or Gamespot. Perhaps the info was there, and I'm just too dumb to see it. I'll look again later.

Any gaming magazines (non-PC related... I know squat about PC gaming atm) or websites I missed and should look into? Let me know!

This was the first and most obvious cut of where I send emails. On a day where I actually plan on working (today is a vacation day), I will be looking into game developers/publishers and what writing jobs they may have on offer. I'm sure there are some, and my Sociology major can help open doors (I'm hoping) in community relations and management, in addition to writing.

Tomorrow's task is to compose the email I'll be sending out, requesting an informational interview, explaining who I am, why I'm interested, and my relevant experience. I plan on mentioning my review work for x360a and including links to a few of the reviews (probably Dead Space, Warhammer, and Fallout 3), so they can take a look at samples of my writing, if they choose.

Once those emails have been sent, I'll be writing up a list of questions I'd like to ask during an interview, so I'm ready if an email or call ever come.I refuse to be unprepared for something so important to me.

Tomorrow I also have to get back to work on my research, so I'll be a busy bee tomorrow. Taking a break in the evening for some work on Operation Jedi will be quite satisfying.

That covers me for today. Happy New Year, everyone, and have a great time gaming =P...