CSI Review

This as to be the second easiest achievement game so far after Avatar, all you do is complete the game and that's it. You visit the crime scene, gather evidence simply by looking around and using several tools. Do lab tests, speak to suspects and that's it...nothing challenging. I like these type of click and collect games and the story is good, I was getting into it and enjoying finding out who did what.

It also as some nice features to help like tagging which will highlight evidence that's full been investaged so you know if you have finished or not. It can also tag crime scenes so you know you found everything there or not, comes in handy if you not so good or in a rush to get through the game.



Overall it's a good game, not amazing just good and for the achievements I would recommend it to anyone who wants to boost their score.


CSI Hard Evidence
Platform: Xbox 360
Score: 6.5/10
Status: Closed

Update

Monday I started working on some achievements, so far spent most of my time on Samurai Warriors 2 Empires. I finished 3 out of the 4 achievements I'm missing to get a full 1,000, still stuck on that osaka stage but I found some info that might help. Might try it later but really do not want to lose any more hours right now so might try tomorrow/next week.

Last night I started my new rental game CSI, no joke I enjoyed this game so I will be reviewing it later with my full thoughts on it.

Other then that thought I've started Dawn of War 2 on this profile and that's it for the week, so only around 400-500 increase which isn't too bad.

Help Please

I'm trying to get the last achievement in Samurai Warriors 2 Empires and after 10 hours still no luck, it the osaka campaign special. I move Yukimura into the Toyotomi clan then play as that clan, I ally myself with the Tokugawa. I've let them expand over the map and failed, tried only letting them have four area's and failed. Even played as them and half way through Toyotomi get rid of Yuki.

All of the times making sure the Toyotomi only have the first start areas.

I just don't know what I'm doing wrong

New Challenge

Well it was a fun month but now I'm back on Iznic, I will admit it's good to be back :)

So my challenge is pretty much going to be what I thought of first before the Collins UK and that's go for 100k gamerscore. It will be a hard challenge but I'm up for it, I'm doing it for fun in the end so even if I do fail it will not matter.

2009 360 Challenge 2.0
Goal: 100,000 by 31st December 2009
-Progress-
Start. 44,719
1. 50,000
2. 55,000
3. 60,000
4. 65,00
5. 70,000
6. 75,000 (Halfway)
7. 80,000
8. 85,000
9. 90,000
10. 95,000
11. 100,000
- Bonus -
12. 105,000 (Bronze Award)
13. 110,000 (Silver Award)
14. 115,000 (Gold Award)
15. 120,000 (Platinum Award)

Blog Change

Well I've changed the links so they now show my original profile, I have left the collins uk gamertag up at the bottom (something to remember the challenge from). All the posts to do with the challenge are now listed under Collins Uk Challenge since I'm starting a new one with this profile.

Will post in a bit about the new challenge

Now What

At first I thought that I've wasted the start of this year when I could had used to play games I liked and worked on points for my other profile but now that I think about it, if I knew at the start that it would end I would still do this challenge. It's been fun and amazing, some of my old games I've not played in years and playing again made me realise what I'm messing out on.

So what am I going to do now? start another challenge of course :-D I don't stay down

I'm going back to my original profile Iznic, pick up where I left off and go for a 100k! This blog will stay up, just change the link's to my other profile but I will leave the link up to collins uk to remind me what a good time I had with that challenge. Going to have to change my rental list quickly so they don't send any games I've already completed...oh no, I got to redo spiderwick again >.<

Challenge 2009 - Start fresh

Started: 29th January 2009
Ended: 23rd February 2009
Score: 7,726
100% Retail Games: 6
100% Arcade: 0

Oh Well

When I first thought of this challenge I wanted to makesure it was possible, I checked a few arcade games and found they worked on a new profile. For DLC I tested the nearest game which was Samurai Warriors 2 and yes the Xtreme Legends worked. I've just checked the rest of my games and none of the other DLC works, so here is the list that do not work and the cost to rebuy.

Oblivion - 4,480
Perfect Dark - 500
Ghost Recon - 600
Ghost Recon 2 - 800
Halo 3 - 600
Kameo - 400
Lost Odyssey - 600
Marvel Ultimate Alliance - 800
Mass Effect - 400
Gears of War 2 - 1,200

That's not all of them but after checking those few I gave up, anyway that total comes to 10,380! which is around x5 2,100 cards. So that would cost me around £85 ... yeah I think it's safe to say the challenge is over.

Is this the end?

Earlier on I started Mass Effect and to my horror the DLC will not work, so it does look like it's tied to profile not console. The reason I thought otherwise was because some of the arcade games are linked to the console not your profile, so you can play them on any profile.

So I need to check out my other DLC to see if they don't work, if they don't then could cost quite alot to redo. I know I've been getting old games that I've traded in the past but I am using a rental service which so far I've had 6-8 games for only £15, so it's costing me nothing really where's having to replace content for oblivion, mass effect, sam warriors, marvel, gow etc would be insane.

If it is too high then the challenge is over

Mass Effect 2

Cannot believe they already releasing data on the sequel, I loved Mass Effect...in fact it was my game of the year for 2007. After reading the news post on achievement.org I cannot wait, I love the idea that the choices you made in Mass Effect will effect what happens in 2. Might have to do several play through on the first one with different character's alive and dead so I can see all the endings on 2 lol.

If that wasn't enough they now mentioned another DLC for the first one as well :-D happy days! really need to crack open the first one again and work on it ready.

Finally to make things even better they released a teaser trailer..link

It's all too much, they got me too hyped up now lol

Weekly Challenge Report

I'm going to start posting at the end of the week to talk about how I think the challenge is going as well as any thoughts about the future of it.

Last week started off great with spiderwick and narnia finished along with a milestone hit, rest of the week flopped thanks to college work and online gaming. But it's not a problem because the rubbish games where getting to me and I needed a break, I realise now playing that many in a row will put you off gaming for a while if you not careful. I did end the week well thanks to avatar so it means around 3k gamerscore added at least, 3 games completed and 1 milestone for a week's worth. Don't think I can top that any time soon.


Future
I would like to say I will meet the next milestone this week but college is piling it on so not sure, but I am going to start some better games this week. Want to crack open Mass Effect at least and maybe Enchanted Arms, COD2, Dynasty Warriors etc, I know it would mean a ton of games to work on but it would be nice to have some decent to work on.



That's it for this week report, not much sorry but not that much to talk about really.

Time Hollow

Ok let me explain a bit of the history behind this game, about year/2 years ago I saw this game listed in a nintendo magazine. It was reviewing some of the new japanese games and this looked good, problem was no date for when/if it would come out in the west. In the end I gave up waiting, so you can imagine I was shocked to see it on the store shelf a week ago.

Now back to the present, I picked it up friday finally and decided to give it ago. I was shocked, really shocked...it's amazing. At first I was going to give it a 8 out of 10 but after spending the entire weekend playing it and finishing it last night I'm not settled on a full 10 out of 10.

The story was good, as you get closer to the truth the more you want to know. Graphic's are nicely done (I am big fan of anime so it went well with me). The game was split up with anime cutscenes for the important parts which was a nice touch and a opening theme, voice acting for the scenes was very well done. Gameplay is good as well, not too hard which was a nice change but of course this as lead to critics moaning it's too easy etc.


So overall I loved the game and it's now added to my permanent collection, no regrets :) just hope they make a sequel


Time Hollow
Platform: Nintendo DS
Score: 10/10
Status: Closed

P.S. It's added to the game of the year list and I would say it beats Dawn of War

LMAO

Well I checked the rental list yesterday to see what they where sending me to replace narnia, I've been worried since they only send the easy yet time consuming games. But not this time! they had sent the first game on my list, avatar LOL :) it arrived 10 minutes ago and is already back in it's packaging ready to be sent back. Quickest 1,000 I will ever get


Avatar: The Burning Earth
Date Finished: 20/02/2009
Final Achievement:

	One with Combat	300
	Achieve a Hit Counter of 50

That now bring's me up to 7,100 gamerscore along with six retail games finished, been a great week :)

Dawn of War II

Well I'm finally playing it and I admit it is amazing but they took quite a bit out though.

Basically the single player campaign is great, the army you work with is now more personal, the squads have leaders with names and backgrounds. You level them up which give you point's to spend on health/damage/energy etc, also you can pick up wargear (better damage, defense etc) through the battle's which helps alot. You also orbit above the planet and allowed to pick locations to deploy at giving that nice sense of choice.

Yet there is a but!, no base building, it seems to been taken out completely so far. So I tried a private match of 3v3 to see if it was just the single player, when it loaded there was the HQ but I found that seems to be it.

It allows two upgrades which allows for more different squads and a few tanks but that's it. They seem to have taken quite a bit out which disappoints me really since I did like having bases in the first one, made it alot harder for the enemy to wipe you when you had a secret second base and vice versa. The game seems to focus alot more on the squad fighting now because even the vehicles have taken a blow and now alot less compared to Soulstorm.


Overall though graphics are great, gameplay is sweet and it's amazing so far. So I would give it a 8.5 and will leave it open (Open means basically that I can come back to it later and change the score, I've touched the beginning of this game. There could be stuff I don't know about later that could make this game even the more sweeter or worse).

Dawn of War II
Platform: PC
Score: 8.5/10
Status: Open


P.S. It's the first game on my list to be possibly game of the year for me

Xbox Live

If your subscription is about to run out soon then hold until next week, next week Halo War's is being released and with it they bringing out the 12 month cards with a bonus of +1 more month. So 13 months for the price of 12 :-)

Link: Game Website

Wow

I just went onto Game's website to find some information that I wanted to post here, to my shock on the front page is the new's about pre-ordering the new DSI. It's only just got updated since I was on the site earlier but I'm really shocked how close the release date is, 3rd April. Was really hoping july time or later so had time to save up some money since of all the games coming out in the next month.

I do not use my DS much these days but that is because of my 360, I'm so addicted to achievement I do not give time for anything else lol. In fact my wii and ps3 are covered in dust, really need to start dedicating a few hours a week to some of them, have a change.

Anyway back to the DSI, looking forward to it, really looking forward to see what types of games they will bring out that will include the camera functions. This afternoon in fact I'm going to cinema with Lynn so while I'm up there I will pop into work and see If they taking pre-order's there.


Link: Game.net DSI Page

Last Night's Gaming Update

Pretty much spent nearly all of yesterday playing MMO's, I did start Space Chimps on the 360 in the morning (new rental game) but only did the first two levels. Think I needed a break really from the challenge which in the end turned out great because it meant my online characters got some time.

I did boost up two ranks in Warhammer since I spent several hours doing public quests, even solo'd one (was easy setting but still shocked me that I could since I suck lol). Really starting to get into game but still holding my judgement until I get bit higher up, in fact I'm now at where I quit the last time so this will be interesting.

On WOW I loaded up my Death knight and spend most of the night hunting in Nagrand, really enjoyed it to be fair and got over 400k exp for my efforts. Thanks to all the questing he also leveled up to 68 meaning he can now go to Northend, Woot!.


So overall was a good night


P.S. I was impressed with myself with the fact I did 400k in a few hours since normally that amount takes several days for me lol.

Torment!

Dawn of War II arrived this morning, I was like a kid at christmas...until I found out steam activiation will not work until tomorrow morning. It's now sitting on my desk in front of me, tormenting me. The only reason I ordered of the website instead of getting while I was at work was the early day head start.

*sigh* Knew it was too good to be true

Tempted to stay up to midnight and try it then or getting up super early in the morning to play it, will post later with what I decide on.

Warhammer

Had a blast last night with Warhammer Online, got my Black Guard upto level 8 while doing a public quest with a group of new friends I've met. Think it took us three attempts to finally finish the quest..

- First attempted we ran out of time, was learning the ropes
- Second attempt would had done it but the second final boss was bugged and vanished

I was not expecting to find my second attempt at this game to be enjoying, I joined when it first was launched but both of the career's I wanted where ditched (Black Guard and Slayer). So I had to pick Witch elf, now don't get me wrong I liked it but there was no....spark..nothing to really make me want to play. I love the tome of knowledge, the story details are wonderful as well but I just gave up after a few weeks.

When they announced Black Guard's where being put in I was tempted to go back but I waited, finally decided few weeks ago to give it another try. Best bit was they announced the day after they would be adding slayers! :)

But yes I am enjoying Black Guard and I really enjoy playing this game, hopefully it will stay like that as I progress through the teirs and not turn boring halfway through.

Bolt

My plan to have Bolt finished by friday might not work out, why? will power is the answer

I just really do not want to play it lol I was expecting something better then this, not amazing but better (like meet the robinsons).

Kill x number of bad guys, do puzzle 1, kill x number of bad guys do puzzle 1.2 (pretty much the same puzzle just father to travel), kill more bad guys and do same puzzle again!

I'm only on level 3 and already ready wishing it would end, I really have not got the will power to sit through this for several hours straight. I might try again later but I would not hold my breath

Another Achievement

The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian
Date Finished: 17/02/2009
Final Achievement:

	Treasure Meister	100
	Open ALL bonus chests in single or co-op play.

Well I got early this morning so I could finish this off, I had to pop into college so wanted to post it back while I was down there. Really happy with the fact I've completed two games and hit a milestone this week and it's only the second day lol.

Anyway even though it's going well I'm going to take a break today, I've got college work to do and might have to pop back down again and I want to play some games for fun (if i clock some achievements then that's just a bonus). Going to try and clock Bolt tomorrow or least by friday so I can trade it in for Dawn of War II, cannot wait to play that game.

I will be posting more later with updates on what I've been doing and what I'm planning on doing but for now I need to focus on my college work.

2nd Milestone

Just hit my second milestone, 5,000 gamerscore :)

	Caspian's Retribution	20
	Seek vengeance from 200 Telmarine soldiers.

I was just finishing off a level in narnia when I clocked the above achievement without trying, caught me by surprised since I was expecting to get this achievement until the end of the game.
Anyway so another milestone done and a game clocked in the same day, I'm happy with the results.

- 2009 Challenge List Progress -
1,000 - 2/02/2009
5,000 - 16/02/2009
10,000
15,000
20,000
25,000 (Half way)
30,000
40,000
50,000 (Goal Achieved)

- Bonus Goals -
60,000 (Bronze Medal)
70,000 (Silver Medal)
75,000
80,000 (Gold Medal)
90,000
100,000 (Platinum Medal)

Achievement!

I've just clocked Spiderwick Chronicles about 30 minutes ago :) bringing my total up to four retail games 100% completed.

It's an ok game and I did enjoy it up until the boss fight at the end (mostly because of bad camera angles getting you killed and horrible controls for climbing). I was going to write out a full review of the fight and why I hated it but my hands are still aching from it so I'm not wasting my time.

The Spiderwick Chronicles
Date Finished: 16/02/2009
Final Achievement:

	ISL Champion	100
	Score 100 points in a "Sprites and Goblins" ISL Arena match without taking damage.

It's done

Just finished Meet the Robinsons, it was a such a happy moment when I sealed the disc in its envelope to be sent back. Don't get me wrong I love the movie and I enjoyed the platform game, but having to go through it all again for those last two achievements was too much. If you are looking for easy achievement games then add this to your list, it will take a few hours since you got some collecting to do but can all be done in one playthrough (6-10 hours at a guess).


Meet the Robinsons - 1,000/1,000
Date Finished: 12/02/2009
Final Achievement:

	Found All Charge Ball Courts	50
	All Charge Ball VR Disks Collected

So now on a grand total of three retail games fully finished and a nice 3,771 gamerscore

Not again....

Just finished meet the robinson and to my horror I'm missing two achievements, I missed a collectable item from near the start of the game. What's worse I cannot go back, need to start again and collect all the disks in the same playthrough so I cannot just play to that level.


First potter now this, I'm starting to wonder if this will happen often

Update

At home for today and maybe tomorrow while I've got to touch up two assignments, so I will be doing some gaming when I take a break in between.

I've hit a snag in my challenge...all morning I've been looking at my 360 collection and I'm so tempted just to crack open some of the games and start them. But if I do that I know most will not get finished for a while, meaning I've got ton of uncomplete's again like on my old profile.

Thing is the games that are tempting me are my old favourites, Mass effect (love this rpg), Marvel Ultimate Alliance (no.2 is soon and i want to go through this again in time for it), Dynasty Warriors/Samurai Warriors (love this series), Gun (great game), the Lego series, COD series, star wars force unleashed and so on.

Along with several new ones that I've picked up, so now I really don't know what to do.

Online Gaming

The next few days/weeks will give me less time for console gaming, it's Valentines day Saturday so of course I'm treating Lynn to several nights out but also my online games have special events to celebrate the holiday. Warhammer is doing the night of murder event which as started, star wars galaxies starts day with their ewok holiday and world of warcraft starts tomorrow with love is in the air. Not only that but today is the last day for the lunar festival in wow so I need to finish off the last few achievements that I can get (not level 80 so cannot get them all, bit annoyed about that).

So more time playing online then working on the challenge lol of course I will make some time, I do want to get Meet the Robinson out of the way and start Lego Indiana Jones.

Complete at last

It's done, I've finally hit 1,000/1,000 for Harry Potter...this had to be the worse play through of the game so far. I had so many glitches/bugs/problems it was unbelievable (several times I found myself reloading the save file to get something to work), worse being to get the last discovery level you need to explore every room. Of course one room is locked and only open when you complete the game.

Anyway it's done and over with, hopefully all this will be corrected for when they bring out the half blood prince (still looking forward to the sequel).




Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix - 1,000/1,000
Date Finished: 10/02/2009
Final Achievement:

	Complete discovery level 13.	50
	Discover enough to complete discovery level 13.

That brings me upto 2 retail games completed, not a bad start to the challenge. Going to work on Meet the Robinsons next.

Weekend Update

Long time no write

It's the weekend again, and this means I'm at work most of the time and the rest spending with Lynn (girlfriend). I should be back home later tonight so I will be attempting to get some achievements, thinking of starting Harry Potter again to finish off the last 100 points.

On friday I started Civilization since I want a nice break with a game I like, been trying out the free map packs and they great for getting some achievements on. Hopefully can get a small chunk done this week when I got some free time in the evenings.

Finally this week I want to finish Harry Potter and hopefully get all of Meet the Robinson done, its a great platform game (one of my favourites) but with several games coming out the end of the month that I want (Dawn of War 2, Killzone, Halo Wars, Bolt etc.), I need to get a few of the lesser games out of the way if I want the time for them.


Anyway I need to go, going to go play on Warhammer online for a bit

Magical Error

I'm now standing on 900/1,000 for Harry Potter, but I now find myself stuck on some of the mini-games/quests. After checking out the net I found out because I'm playing hard it changes the settings to have timers etc meaning it's down right difficult to finish them, should be done on easy. Of course this means I'm not able to get the points meaning I cannot get the last discovery level achievement lol...

So need to do a run through on the easiest difficulty but doing all the exploring again. What i should had done was played through 100% on easy then just the story on hard to get the hard achievement, like I did on the first time with my other profile *sigh*. Not too bad i guess, I don't mind doing it all again but I was hoping to finish this game today and get another 100% retail this week.

Oh well...off to make a cuppa, might take a break and play WOW or Civi



P.S. Thanks to the snow, had four days off lol it's been great but going to hate the catch up work at college next week.

Finally

It's done, Hitman Blood Money 1,000 gamer points ... longest day of my life lol finished expert and professional difficulties along with x5 silent assassin ratings on both. Believe it or not i got the silent assassin ratings during the play through it was the last two missions on professional that held me up. So glad it's over now and I can just do repeats for fun now :) don't get me wrong I enjoyed playing it again but I hate the harder difficulty.

Anyway I've done my goal, Hitman is my first 1,000 and I can now start working on other games.



Hitman Blood Money - 1,000/1,000
Date Finished: 3/02/2009
Final Achievement:

	Professional mode complete	150
	Completed Professional difficulty

First Mile Stone

Thanks today's snow day, college was cancelled so I've spent the day playing games and relaxing (lucky for me tomorrow as also been cancelled too). I've made some serious progress on Hitman and did a mini game of monopoly, thanks to this I've hit the first mile stone.... 1,000 gs lol.


The last achievement that got me this milestone was ...

	5 Normal Silent Assassins	25
	5 Silent Assassin ratings awarded on the Normal difficulty

So not a bad day, got my first milestone and almost finished Hitman (just need to complete expert and professional with both x5 silent kills). Hopefully all goes well can get all that done by tomorrow.

Before I end this post, below is my list of milestones for my goal.

1,000 - 2/02/2009
5,000 -
10,000 -
15,000 -
20,000 -
25,000 - (Half-way point)
30,000 -
40,000
50,000 - (2009 Year Goal)

Anything after is a bonus :)

60,000 - (Bronze Medal)
70,000 - (Silver Medal)
75,000 -
80,000 - (Gold Medal)
90,000 -
100,000 - (Platinum Medal)