Review: Another Code R

I've written out this post about three times so far, finding it really hard to write what I want to say about this game. So let's start with the beginning, Another Code first came out on the DS and was one of the first games I bought for the handheld. I loved the game, the story was ok and I did like solving the mystery but it had nothing special too it.

What made me love the game was the puzzles, you had to think outside the box when it came to solving them. Two come to mind, one was to close the DS to stamp some paper and the other turning the DS on the side like a book to reflect the screens onto each other so you can see the whole picture. I loved it, of course since the story was just ok I never really wanted to go back and play it again.

Of course now there is sequel, this game came right under my radar. I was shocked when it arrived in store, normally I spot stuff like this months in advance before they released. Although the story in the original was lacking, I had my hopes up and could not wait to see what they did with the puzzles this time around.
Well after ... must be 15-20 hours at least, I finally finished just now. Spent 10 hours today working on it (my day off lol and was very determined to finish it today). Again I liked the game but it still doesn't have that spark, in fact it was lacking compared to the DS original. Think the thing that got me down the most about it was the loose ends. Before I go into any details I must give you warning


!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!STORY SPOILER ALERT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Three major points that let me down and they where Matt's Dad, Matt's Sister Kelly and the lakes pollution.


Matt's DadI was disappointed with the whole friend mystery, near the start of the game you meet Matt. A young boy who's father went missing five years ago, as you journey through the game solving the mystery about your mother you look for clues on his father. What seems ages you start to piece together a picture of what happened to him when suddenly, its forgotten about. Matt goes to a house to wait for you while you go talk to your dad and this part is the end of the game. You learn the truth about your mom and that's it, Matt is forgotten about. I was really shocked, everything you done seemed a waste of time. At the end all the characters come to say goodbye and you then learn someone as spotted a man that looks like his dad....that's it....wtf!

The game as a very slow start, the first 10 minutes are great. The story is setup but then you seem to waste like 10 hours about half the game getting small clues, chasing the boy around and around and around. This could had been shorted and the time used to answer the dad mystery.

Was really looking forward to seeing what happened to him and find the truth out, the game was really focused on his missing dad which shocks me they ended it like that.

Lake Pollution
And another thing, the lake pollution was caused by JC Valley at the end??!?!? "oh yeah are bad, it was us". Ok that we get hints about the pollution, its talked about a lot and that's it!. Why where they doing it? what was causing it? why did they blame Crusoe Resort?

Come on, would had been nice to have some answers
Matt's Sister
Finally his sister, this had to be the biggest shock in the game and the biggest WTF! Suddenly you find out she drowned at the boathouse, there are no hints that something bad had happened to her. Right out of the blue they drop this on your lap then we talking two minutes later the game forgets about it. The characters back to happy self's....

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!SPOILER ENDS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

No doubt if they make a third in the series I would play it, but honestly please please guys tie up the loose ends. I loved the extra mysterys to solve but not ending made this game poor, oh and please shorten the start of the game. Thank you!

Another Code: R (Wii) A journey into lost memories
Score: 6 out of 10
Gameplay: Average
Graphics: Good
Story: Average
Length: Long
Controls: Average

GOTY10 Update

Ok time to update the list

2010 GOTY
Mass Effect 2

Runners Up
Dante's Inferno

Still ME2 taking the lead with DI just added but only taking the silver so far. If the story and length had been better (See my review) then it would had been GOTY easily. Looking forward to seeing the next couple of weeks since we have Bad Company 2, FFXIII and God of War 3 coming out. Three of the biggest AAA games this year

Reviews

I know my reviews are short or pretty much rubbish lol. To be honest I'm not trying to be a review site or anything, just post my random thoughts of the game for friends to see since I pretty much play most games. That being said if you do want something changed like go into more detail about levels/bosses etc then ask and in future reviews I will try to add it. But as I said they here for fun, want proper reviews check out the professional websites :-) there are plenty!

Review: Spongebob's Truth or Square

I wasn't going to review but here goes lol

Graphics are ok for what it is and the game is well ... short but to be honest it's good in a way because if it was longer then I would had chucked it out the window lol.

Story is ... I think he lost something and basically you playing through memories which are past episodes. So if you are fan, then you will love it. Myself, found it boring but then I wasn't playing it for fun, just the gamerscore :-)

Overall good for gamerpoints or kids but its a rental, would not waste any money on it


Spongebob's Truth or Square (Xbox 360)
Score: 4 out of 10
Gameplay: Average
Graphics: Average
Story: Poor
Length: Short
Controls: Average

Dante's Inferno Review

Ok I'm going to just say it, this game could had been better. I know that's a shocking thing to say but just hear me out. This game is worth getting and playing, no doubt there. It's just it could had been so much more.

First off story is a big thing for me, I love movies/books/games that have a brilliant story that pull me in and make me not want to stop getting into it. Unfortunately I didn't feel connected with this game, the story was really lacking. I know its based on some epic poem but seriously come on, it tried and failed.

*****SPOILER******

The second and final issue I had was the length, Finished the game in two nights. The end felt rushed and not in the good way, I loved the first two circles (lust and greed) where you have this massive journey then face a boss that's linked to the circle. Then the rest ... well one minute you enter the circle next you out and wondering what happened. I know giving every circle bosses and big adventures would make the game super long, but it would had been awesome!

oh well maybe next time.

*****END SPOILER****

Other then those two problems I really did enjoy the game and would recommend it to friends, graphics are awesome. Some of the boss fights where amazing with the details that had gone into them, nicely done. Found game play to be very easy to get use to, there are tons of combos but you can just easily mash the x button lol. Of course its just a carbon copy of God of War, but who cares :-) just don't go around saying God of War 3 copied DI.

So in all, just go buy it!


Dante's Inferno (Xbox 360)
Score: 8 out of 10
Gameplay: Good
Graphics: Good
Story: Average
Length: Short
Controls: Good

80,000 Milestone

Last week I finally hit the 80,000 gamerscore mark, really pleased with myself since this is one of my personal goals. 80K Sounds so much better and I think the next 20k (upto 100k) might fly past better (well I hope).

It was a good week last week since I even hit 81k a day or two after, thanks to the spongebob game that was being rented. Of course, since then not earned much. Think I burnt myself out slightly, that and I'm working on two long/hard games (Star Ocean and Bioshock).

Hopefully I will be on soon saying I've hit 90k, wish me luck!

G.I.Joe Rise of Cobra Review

When I started playing I was enjoying this game, it did have some major flaws but I found the levels to be fun. Well that only last for the first six levels then after that, I could not but curse the game.

I was hoping to fully clock this game for the full 1,000 gamer score but its staying at 800 since I cannot stand to play another level on it. I was able to finish the story on hard mode and that's about it.

So why hate it so much? first off no camera, its stuck to the back of your guy and that's a huge problem. Especially when you go around the corner and the camera doesn't change!! that's right I actually died because the camera did not change and I went around a corner into a turret along with three minions. Worse when the health bar is above the characters head so you cannot see that too when I went around the corner. I had to run further to get the camera change then roll dodge to get out of the way of the gun fire on the second attempt.

Oh and if you die it wipes all the points you gathered so far from the last checkpoint, meaning getting that GIJoe point score can be annoying. This is where I gave up in the end, I've got three missions left needing full score and after the 11th attempt I cannot stand to do it no more. Either I die and lose a chunk of points or I fall short 20-40k.

No real story to the game either, seriously you work on 20 levels at least to a very poor story. Overall in the end I would not recommend this game, other then for a quick few points/trophies that's it. If you want the full 100%, prepare to throw a controller or two.


G.I.Joe Rise of the Cobra (Xbox 360)
Score: 4 out of 10
Gameplay: Average
Graphics: Average
Story: Poor
Length: Long
Controls: Average

Gaming List / Update

I mentioned not so long ago that I was trying to play games one at a time in a order, playing a brand new game then one old game. It's not that I don't want to play the older games just that the newer ones look more appealing, this system as worked well so far. It's like having something to work towards and I've found myself really enjoying playing the games I've missed out on.

So far I've done the following...

Mass Effect 2 (story only)
Ghostbusters (story only)
G.I.Joe (story only)

Now I'm working on Dante's Inferno which is putting me in the gaming mood again, G.I.Joe was a nightmare to work on and nearly killed my gaming spirit. Got over 800 gamerscore for it but I cannot cope with the last few, having to get perfect max score on those last three missions is killing me. Either one of my guys dies losing a ton of points or I will fall short at the end with the points. After 11 tries last night on one mission I realised that my time was being wasted, there is no light at the end of the tunnel.

So anyway after DI, I think the following will be the next games. Of course this can change thanks to my rentals and newer games coming out, or change of mind.

Spongebob (Rental)
Bioshock 1
Dark Void
Prince of Persia
Army of Two 40th Day
Tomb Raider Underworld (Hard mode)
Assassin Creed 2
End War
Mass Effect 2 (Insanity Mode)
Darksiders

End of Month Thoughts (Jan 10)

I know this is a bit late but who cares, hopefully each month I will stop being lazy and post my thoughts of how that month went, gaming wise and especially about the Challenge.

If I was to be honest, I think I had a good start to the year. Could had been better but I wont complain, really enjoying myself and that's what counts really in the end.

Hitting one of my goals in the first few weeks was a great accomplishment, especially with it being a PSP game as well. Over the year's, I have found myself regretting buying one since I never play on it, so completing a game made it seem a little worth it. Just hope I can keep this progess up now.

Other then completing a goal, i did finish a few games on my lists. Two 1k achievements games and one story was a good result for the motnh, could had better but can't change that now. Hopefully I can knock a few more off the list soon and maybe make a dent in my gaming collection.

That's it really for my thought's on January, lets hope Feburary is better

Game of the Year (2010)

Like last year i will be keep a upto date list of this years games i play and in what order I think they deserve the title. Of course so far I've only played one game fully so the list is kinda short lol

2010 GOTY
Mass Effect 2

I really did think Mass Effect 2 would be outstanding and hold the title this year. But there are so many amazing games coming out soon, it makes me wonder now. Espically since we only two months into the year, there still another 10 months of releases to go lol. We got games like God of War 3, FFXIII, Star Wars Force Unleashed 2, KOTOR, Splinter Cell to come and we have Dantes Inferno and Bioshock 2 already out. I think Mass Effect going to have tough competition

2010 is a good year for gaming, that's for sure!

Mass Effect 2 Review

-!Winner!-
GAME OF THE YEAR 2010

I been trying to think of a way to review this game and came up with this....



WOW!


Think that sums it up well lol.



Mass Effect 2 is a amazing sequel, I started playing this games with my hopes up but in the back of my mind I was worried since it was a sequel and normally they fail big time. But Mass Effect 2 proved me wrong, it's already 1st place for Game of the Year for me.

Story is brilliant as always and kept me wanting to know more, I won't go into details since I do not want to spoil it for anyone but you will enjoy. The game as had alot of changes since the first one and everything for the good. The first major change would be the customisation on weapons/armours etc. When I heard they took out a lot of the customisation I got a bit worried, I really liked that in Mass Effect 1 where you could change your ammo types to cause different damages. But my fears where for nothing. in ME2 ammo types are now like powers and it worked, it worked really well. Just simply select the ammo you want (radial or by the bumper buttons) and its changed, quick and painless which is great in a intess fight. I was shocked how good the combat system is now, everything fits perfectly.

You know what, I can't keep writing this...my words cannot describe how good this game is. Just go try it for yourself!


Mass Effect 2 (Xbox 360)
Score: 10 out of 10
Gameplay: Good
Graphics: Good
Story: Good
Length: Decent
Controls: Good

Too many games!

The new releases over the last few weeks is insane! It's become nearly impossible to keep up and my bank account is having a heart attack as we speak. It would not even shock me if I have over 10 pre-orders across numerous websites for new upcoming games.

*Bangs head on wall*

I think the trueachievement percent goal I set myself, will be going out the window very soon. I have tried to focus on just one game, complete the story/all the achievements before working on the next one. Was also trying to do it a list, new game then a old game so I could get some of my older games that have been sitting on the shelf finished. It worked at first but with more and more exciting games coming out, its making it a challenge to stick to one game.

The list started with Mass Effect 2 (finished the story), then went onto my Ghostbusters rental (finished the story) and now working on GIJoe which is the next rental which was to be followed by Dante's Inferno. As I said though, I'm struggling to stick to this kind of routine. I've always been the type of person to play half dozen games at once. All I can ask is, wish me luck! lol going to need it

1K/Plat Trophy List & Story List Challenge

Earlier this month I finally sat down and posted this year's challenge for myself. At the end I did a list of games that I wanted to either finish the story or 1k/plat trophy.

Last week or the week before (cannot remember lol), I finally finished one of the games on that list. When I checked the list out again I was shocked to realise how short it is compared to my collection.

For those that don't know, I'm a gaming addict, big time. Got hundreds of games sitting around my room waiting to be started/opened/finished etc. So this list I did earlier on, didn't even scratch what wanted to do. I've now decided to finally rewrite the list.

So here it is!

Completion Collection List v2.0
Finish the Story List
Ace Attorney Trails and Tribulations
Ace Attorney Apollo Justice
Afro Samurai
Another Code R
Battlestations Midway
Battlestations Pacific
Borderlands
Command & Conquer - Red Alert 3
Damnation
Dragonball Z Burst Limit
End War
Eternal Sonata
Farcry 2
Ghost Recon AW
Ghost Recon AW 2
Hawx
Infamous
Infinite Undiscovery
Killzone 2
LastRemnant
Lost In Blue 2
Lost Odyssey
Lost Planet
Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2
Metal Gear Solid 4
N3
Naruto Rise of a Ninja
Naruto The Broken Bond
Ninja Blade
Operation Flashpoint Dragon Rising
Orange Box (Half-Life's)
Rainbow Six Vegas
Rainbow Six Vegas 2
Resistance Fall of Man
Resistance Fall of Man 2
Resistance Fall of Man Retribution
Rise of the Argonauts
Spiderman Web of Shadows
Star Ocean - The Last Hope
Star Wars Lethal Alliance
Stormrise
Stranglehold
Timeshift
Trauma Centre Second Opinion
Trauma Center New Blood
Tomb Raider - Anniversary
Too Human
Two Worlds
Warhammer 40,000 Squad Command
X-men Legends 2
Zelda - Twilight Princess

1,000 Gamerscore / Platinum Trophy List
Assassin Creed 2
Battlestorm
Bioshock
Brothers In Arms HH
Command & Conquer 3 TW
Command & Conquer 3 KW
Crackdown
Darksiders
Dawn of War 2
Dynasty Warriors 6
Dynasty Warriors Gundam
Dynasty Warriors Gundam 2
Dragon Age Origins
Elderscrolls 4 - Oblivion
Enchanted Arms
Fable 2
Fallout 3
Lego Indiana Jones 2
Lego Star Wars TCS
Lost Odyssey
Marvel Ultimate Alliance
Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2
Mass Effect
Overlord
Overlord 2
Prince of Persia
Star Wars The Force Unleashed
Supreme Commander
The Simpsons Game
Uncharted
Viva Pinata
Warhammer Battlemarch

Well thats the entire collection, well sort of...there is a few games I've not included. But if I can just dent this list I will be happy, think every gamer suffers this problem of having too many games to play and not enough time.

75,000 Gamerscore

I hit the 75k milestone this weekend, very pleased with myself since I was stuck on 74k for like a month which was annoying me to hell.

Have to admit this last bit upto 100k is going really slow, painful slow to be honest. I think it's because instead of playing every easy game I got for quick achievements, I'm working on a few of my better games. Trying to complete the stories or to get 1k in them (C&C3, Mass Effect etc).

Hopefully my spirit will pick up soon, would had hate to take a break from the challenge so early into it

Game of the Year 2009

Sorry it's took so long to sort this post out, it was mean't to be up yesterday but with my PC dieing it couldn't be helped.

So anyway lets get on with it! Going to start with the runner ups list..

8th Halo Wars
7th Borderlands
6th Dawn of War 2
5th Dragon Age Origins
4th Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2


In 3rd Place is Assassin Creed 2

I really thought this would be my game of the year, but I don't know...something more was needed but I just cannot put my finger on it. It's still amazing and worth every penny, just...it was missing that spark to make it beyond words.

In 2nd Place is Time Hollow for DS

This game held first place for most of the year thanks to the gripping storyline that kept me addicted to the end. Even throughout christmas I wanted to sit down and replay but stopped myself since I got other games need completing lol.

Review Score: 10/10




Finally game of the year for me is....

Batman Arkham Asylum
It sucked me in, I really did not think I would enjoy this game but yet I could not stop for several days until I had finished it. I found it amazing how the combat and stealth blended in so perfectly without it mattering if you where seen or not.
It was amazing! It really does deserve the game of the year award

Well that's it, I know the post was anything amazing (no fance trophy pictures or anything) but who cares. It's not like I'm famous, just my personel opinion :-)

For reference here is some of my past "game of the year"

2006 - Shadow of the Colossus
2007 - Mass Effect
2008 - Gears of War 2

2010 Gaming ChallengeTracker

Just created a goal tracker on TrueAchievements to keep a track of the progress for my xbox gamerscore. Of course it starts from today and not 1st january but oh well :-)

http://www.trueachievements.com/gamergoals.aspx?gamerid=15334

Reset

Resetting the labels on last years posts so I can have a clean slate for this year, all of the posts from last year will now be under the label "2009".

Game Reviews

This year I'm going to try and attempt to review the games I play again, like i did before. This time though I wont be going into big posts about the game, instead just keep it short and sweet with a score at the end.

The score system will work like this...

GAME NAME (CONSOLE)
Score: 0/10
Gameplay: Poor/Average/Good
Graphics: Poor/Average/Good
Story: Poor/Average/Good
Length: (Too Short/Long)/(Short/Long)/Decent
Controls: Poor/Average/Good

As you can see there are five categories, each result will give a point which is totaled for the overall score. So 0 points for a bad result, 1 point for a average mark and 2 points for a good mark which would mass up to a total of 10 for full marks.

The categories are pretty much self explanatory as well, although gameplay for me is ... did i enjoy it, did i find the game easy to get into etc.


So keep an eye out in the future for the scores :-)

see you all later

Good Start to the Year

Well its only few weeks into the new year and I've already completed one of my goals. As of five minutes ago I finished Resistance Retribution on the PSP :-) happy days!

Goal 2: Complete at least one PSP game - SUCCESS!!


At the start I really got addicted to the game, story was decent enough and the gameplay was enjoyable. Found the controls where very easy to use for the PSP, since the lack of a second analog stick they decided to use the triangle/square etc buttons for aiming. Great way to make up for the lack of a stick, the added auto lock on if a enemy was near the cursor was really helpful as well.

Of course there was some bad points, by the end it did seem a little too long for what it was.
Could had done without the last area (around 4ish small levels), reason being its the same couple of type of enemies every few minutes and when you do it for 4-6 hours you will get bored very quickly. Last bad point would be some of the boss battles and them moving around the room quickly, thats fine but the camera was already hard to use with the triangle/square buttons.


Overall though I did enjoy the game, kept wanting to play it and it as made me want to go and complete Resistance 1/2 on the PS3 so i can see the rest of the story. So here is the score



Resistance Fall of Man: Retribution (PSP)
Score: 7 out of 10
Gameplay: Good
Graphics: Good
Story: Average
Length: Long
Controls: Good

Game of the Year 2009

Will be posting the results of my Game of the Year later, reason for this I had to wait for two games for christmas. So once I've had ago at them I can then post my results :-)

New Year's Resolution - 2010 Gaming Challenge

Through out the year I've been saying to myself and everyone that knows about the challenge that I would not do another one this year. Well forget that lol I'm setting myself several more goals again! I like working towards a goal, makes it alot more fun when you accomplish them.

Let's start with the consoles I barely use, think at least something complete on each one.

Goal 1: Complete at least one Wii game
Goal 2: Complete at least one PSP game

I've came up with two goals for my DS since there are a few games on there that I want to try and complete this year.

Goal 3: Complete at least one Pokemon game

When i say complete i mean beat all the gyms and the elite four, only done it once on Pokemon Red and that is going back a good few years lol.

Goal 4: Complete Phoenix Wright ace attorney 3 and Apollo Justic

This year they releasing a new spin off series based on Miles from AA, so i really need to finish the past ones first.


I did well with the PS3 goal last year by getting two plat's, so going to raise the bar slightly this year and hopefully it will mean using my PS3 more.

Goal 5: Get x3 Platinum trophies

Now for the Xbox 2010 challenge I've decided to make it alot harder lol, espically since I've got a back log of games to play which I really want to get through but never try and make the time for. So here is the huge list of goals...

Goal 6: Reach 120,000 gamescore by December 31st 2010

I know its a quite high but this year I did 30k and that wasnt even a full year, so hopefully I can do this one but even I don't I will be having fun trying :-D

Goal 7: Complete at least one japanese RPG
Goal 8: Complete at least three arcade games

Finally the last bit is more of the list of games I would like to get complete in my collection. The list is split into two, one being finish the story and the other is for 1k/plat complete.

Finish the story
Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2
Star Ocean - The Last Hope
Command & Conquer - Red Alert 3
Tomb Raider - Anniversary
Lost Planet
Orange Box
Rainbow Six - Vegas 1
Ghost Recon 1
Timeshift
Afro Samurai
Battlestations Midway
Spiderman Web of Shadow
End War
Dragonball Z Burst Limit
Naruto Rise of a Ninja
Resistance fall of Man
Resistance fall of man 2
Star Wars Lethal Alliance
Trauma Center Second Opinion
Legend of Zelda - Twilight Princess

1k/Platinum Complete
Mass Effect 1
Mass Effect 2
Marvel Ultimate Alliance 1
Bioshock
Dynasty Warriors 6
Uncharted
Lost Odyssey
Lego Indiana Jones 2
Overlord
Overlord 2
Prince of Persia
Viva Pinata
Assassin Creed 2
Battlestorm
Fable 2
Enchanted Arms
Uncharted
Fallout 3
Star Wars The Force Unleashed

Quite a list really lol but it will be so worth it to get some of them done. Right now I'm not setting any goals for the list like complete x amount but just try to get some done on my challenge. I will be adding a counter on the site though to show how many on the list as been done though and will keep you post if any of the list is done.

Anyway that's it, this is the 2010 Gaming Challenge!!!

Wish me luck

End of Year Wins and Epic Fails

Well its the 1st of january and time to look at the results for my gaming goals.

First up is the small PS3 goal of one Platinum trophy lol, I know it doesn't seem much but if you know me, then you will know that I barely play the PS3. Maybe once a year if lucky :-p lol anyway I did make time to finish a game and got myself a platinum trophy along with a second one as well.

Goal 1: One plat trophy - SUCCESS!!

Next up was a goal I did not write on here but I did set myself it, and that was to finish at least one Wii game. Well that was an epic fail, since my Wii time this year was probably 1 hour in total lol.

Goal 2: One Wii game completed - EPIC FAIL!!

Ok this goal is going to hurt and that was to finish at least one japanese RPG. I started off well with Lost Odyssey in the year and got to disc two then I just lost my mojo and forgot about it. Since then I did not even start another RPG. Think I was most disappointed with not completing this goal.

Goal 3: Complete at least one Japanese RPG - EPIC FAIL!!



Finally the big goal, the Xbox 360 Achievement challenge. Well we all know I failed that months ago lol, i knew mid october that I would not hit it. With more time at work etc and me being lazy :-p I only hit 74k but still it was a good run to say I did not have the full year, in fact it was amazing since it took me nearly two years to get 44k and I did 30k in a several months.

Was hoping to get to 75k and maybe hitting 80k but since I took on more hours at work, the achievement collecting pretty much went to 0 mid-november. Oh well just have to make sure to do better year!


Goal 4: Hit 100,000 achievement gamescore - EPIC FAIL!!





1 out of 4 goals hit and it was for the playstation, bet Ian (my ps3 fanboy friend) is doing a victory dance right now.


EDIT:
Forgot that I did set a fifth goal which was to complete at least one arcade game. Finished Maw early on in the year with all of its DLC so at least I did complete another goal after all.

Milestone Hit!

It's been a long two weeks but I finally hit 65,000 gamerscore :-)



Thanks to Ice Age and the Brothers in Arms 17th sep achievement today I hit over the border, the last achievement to do it was from Ice Age.

	Pursuit	15
	Complete The Pursuit

So just 35,000 to go until I hit my goal for the year, lol honestly I really cannot see myself hitting it right now. Kinda hoping for a christmas miracle :-) anyway here is the updated stats, enjoy!

2009 360 Challenge 2.0
Goal: 100,000 by December 31st 2009
- Progress -
Start: 44,719
1. 50,000 - 16th March 2009
2. 55,000 - 28th April 2009
3. 60,000 - 17th June 2009
4. 65,000 - 17th September 2009
5. 70,000
6. 75,000
7. 80,000
8. 85,000
9. 90,000
10. 95,000
End: 100,000
- Bonus -
Bronze Award: 105,000
Silver Award: 110,000
Gold Award: 115,000
Platinum Award: 120,000

So close

Well I'm roughly around 1,500 points away from next milestone (65k), with this in mind I decided to pick up some easy point games while at work. I did say I wouldn't buy them anymore and just rent, but being this close I just want to get it out of the way. So I got the following..

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs
Ice Age 3

Also picked up Section 8 on the PC but I wouldn't say that's a game for achievements since I don't spend too much time on multiplayer unless my mates do.

So hopefully this week I will hit the next milestone and boost myself onto the next one, keep your eyes open for future posts this week about it.

Daily Update

Going to give up with the daily updates on achievements earned etc, mostly because over the last few day's I've earned easily 30+ achievements and to be honest it takes way to long to write it all out. Instead I could spend that time getting more achievements and trophies.

:-) Will of course I update when I hit big milestones

Daily Update (30/8 and 31/8)

Sorry I didn't post sunday or last night but with work pretty much tiring me out, I lost the will to do any posts. So here is the update for the past two days

SUNDAY 30/8/9
Xbox 360 Achievements Unlocked
None
Playstation 3 Trophies Earned
None
World of Warcraft Achievements Earned
1,000 Daily Quests Completed - 10 Points (Iznic - Alliance Druid)


MONDAY 31/8/9
Xbox 360 Achievements Unlocked
Elegant Dancer - 15GS Dynasty Warriors 6 Empires
Playstation 3 Trophies Earned
None
World of Warcraft Achievements Earned
Rapid Defense - 10 Points (Katsuhito - Alliance Death Knight)
Black War Mammoth -10 Points (Iznic - Alliance Druid)


Not much really but least it's better then nothing. Anyway that's it for now, talk to you all later once I've got something decent to post.

WOW Magazine

This morning I subscribed to the World of Warcraft magazine, so hopefully in the next several weeks the first issue will arrive. When it does come I will post my thoughts of it on here.

I'm a huge fan of Warcraft, pretty much collect everything to do with it (Comics, Novels, Trading cards, mini's and figures) so I got high expectations of this magazine which I know it probably will not meet (although it could shock us and be great).

But we will see, keep an eye out in the future for a review post on it

Daily Update

Lately when I've earned a trophy or achievement, I would post it on my twitter. Well I'm going to change that now since I think it might be annoying a lot of people who follow me. From now on I will post here on the night with a full list of achievement's that I've earned etc.

So for yesterday (sat 29th aug) I earned no achievement's lol, I'm at Lynn's for the weekend so no XBOX or PS3. But I do have my laptop so I can play WOW but it's not great (max 20/30 fps), news from WOW ... I did level one of my alts.


Katsuhito - Death Knight - Level 73

:-) that's it for yesterday

Star Wars The Force Unleashed

When they announced the Sith Edition, i was annoyed especially since I've already got the temple dlc as well. Few weeks back I did see a post about the hoth level not having achievements, great so don't have to go out and buy it just pay for the new dlc and that's it.

This week was the patch release for the PS3 trophies, so I rented the game from Lovefilm. While I was going through the list of trophies, look what I came across...

	Official PETW Member	Silver Trophy
	Make it through the Ice Caves without killing a single Wampa
	PETW Hates You	Silver Trophy
	Kill 10 Wampas in the Ice Caves

	"I’m Not Your Father, But..."	Gold Trophy
	Take Luke to school

Great, going to hold off on the tatooine dlc and wait for the sith edition because I can see these being achievements as well. Lucasarts you need to get your act together and not screw us over again (especially when you pay 800points for a 20 minute level, what's up with that).

WOW Cataclysm

The rumours have been going on for a while now about a possible new expansion and the huge revamp to Azeroth. Of course like most people I did hold off my opinion until Blizzard announced something and now that they have...well what can i say...

WOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'm really excited for these changes, from the images and trailer it looks awesome with what they done. I cannot wait...I'm like a kid in a candy store.

The two new races where a surprise to me but I am looking forward to playing both, more the Worgen then Goblins to be honest. The Worgen area/city looks amazing and the whole transforming between human and Worgen forms ... brilliant!. I am interested to see what their mount will be and dance lol. I was asked by my mate how would they fight, would they carry weapons or use their claws, I really do wonder (maybe something like druid cat/bear form where you cannot see the weapon). Not exactly too hyper with the Goblins but I do love their racial abilities and mount so I will be making one to play lol

I do hope they add some more character slots because I'm going to need them lol especially since the Dwarf shaman picture looks amazing and now I want that combo lol.

Also looking forward to seeing more of the new dungeons and I love the idea with the Icecrown airship fight. There really is too much that I like about this new expansion, think the next few months I will be hyper, dreading the launch lol

Only down part is now have to rush my Horde characters so I can see the old quest storyline before its all changed.

Think I will end the post now, that's enough random writing for one day. Hope it didn't confuse too much



P.S.
I hope they announce a collectors edition

Playstation 3

I've said this hundreds of times, I barely play my PS3 and the reason why?...wish I knew to be honest. I do play my PC (WOW) and Xbox more, there is no passion there for the PS3 (and Wii). Amount of problems I've had with online play is a joke, lack of good titles with trophy support etc just doesn't help one bit. Since I've joined Lovefilm I have started to use it more for blu-rays but last week there was a silver lining in my clouds.

Ghostbusters

It shocked me, it really did, I enjoyed the game to the point I could not put it down. Two days straight I played until the campaign was finished (including collections), I would be playing online with it but it's too bugged for me right now. When the patches do come out, I will be going out to buy a copy so I can play online with my mates.

Now of course since I sent it back to Love, I did wonder what will happen next, will something else keep me using the console or will it gather dust again.

Well it seems Star Wars is getting trophies finally :-D this thursday as well, so I will be hunting for a cheap copy to pick up. Might even finally buy the lastest DLC for Eye of Judgement to get the trophies on it. So good news for me in the end, my PS3 wasn't a waste of money after all and lets hope it stays this way.

Just hope Wii can prove it's worth now

Update

Once again sorry for the lack of updates but college is now over and I'm waiting for the results. Hopefully now I will have some spare time to post more often again and get back into the 360 challenge.

Anyway here is a current update with what's going on gaming wise.

Playstation 3
Ghostbuster's is good game so far but no spark to get me into the console, think it's going to take a miracle to do that (maybe God of War or Last Guardian). I did attempt the multiplayer for Ghostbuster's on wednesday night but all I kept getting was the "Failed to connect to game" error message.

Xbox 360
Finally finished the story of Army of Two yesterday, it was ok but nothing amazing. Going to attempt few of the achievement's but I do not see this being a game I will fully clock. Also working on Harry Potter and Star Wars, hoping to clock both in the next few weeks.

Wii
Nothing to report other than it's gathering dust lol might get Wii Sports Resort but worried it might be another game that will keep my interest for one week then end up on the shelf for year or two without being touched.

PC
Wow, Wow and WOW lol spending way too much time in this game, will do a post on what's been happening for my character's later.



So as you can see not much really to report about, hopefully over the next few weeks you sill see alot more activity. Anyway take care and see you next post

PS3

My PlayStation barely gets used these day's, the only time it's turned on is for blu-ray's. I've even got the infamous collector's edition still sealed sitting on my desk. For some reason I just don't have that spark to want to play on it like the Xbox or PC (same for Wii really). At the start of my old Collins UK challenge I did put I wanted to get at least one platinum trophy this year.

So to attempt this I have put a few PS3 games on my rental list, the rental list right now as only two high propriety games and they are Harry Potter and Terminator for the PS3. Unfortunately they still not in stock but I did get something good sent, Ghostbuster's is on the way so hopefully it will turn out to be a good game for me and push me to get a full complete on it.

Maybe over the next few week's you will be seeing some post's to do with the PS finally :)

Dynasty Warrior 6 Empires

I got a chance last night to have a good play of the game, seriously I'm really enjoying this newer version.

• At the start you can pick a ruler or a officer, officer's explore the land and then join upto a ruler so that was a nice touch.
  
• When invading/defending you no longer have to move your forces to the nearest country, they automatically can attack/defend any land.
  
• Weapons no longer drop as loot, instead you can go to the forge and upgrade your current weapon (attack power, skills, effects etc) which is a blessing, I hated in the past having a ton of different weapons.

That's just what come's to mind, cannot forget how good the graphics are and gameplay etc. Finally the achievement list look's pretty good/easy so far, mostly complete a battle with one character. I would say a solid 8 out of 10

WOW - Multiboxing Part 2

The first night went well and got to level 10 before I even start the level 5 quests lol, but I got hit by some terrible lag and server disconnects. Found it later that the server I joined as huge population so on the peak times their can be problem's (I did notice on my travels other multiboxers so maybe that's why the population is so high). Anyway after like an hour I decided to give up on the server and joined another with a medium population.

So once again Kiyone and Mihoshi are reborn :) as of last night they where about level 17 and now heading to the ghostlands. Most of the quests are grey for me lol loving the triple experiences. Did try a dungeon last night but got wiped (Ragefire), but I will be trying again later on.

WOW - Multiboxing

The last few night's I've been watching Justin TV live and pre-recorded show's of multiboxing in WOW (http://www.justin.tv/multiboxing). It looks simple and very cool, so last night I decided to take the plunge and try it. The software is from pwnboxer.com and cost's $18.95 which is about £11.35 at the time, this is for a year's lience along with free updates. The software is updated pretty much weekly, in fact in the show the other night he mentioned he has another patch going up in a day or two.

In less then 10 minutes I was ready, using the refer a friend program I've set up a trail account and was happly playing two hunters. No joke it was amazing, it does take some time to setup if you new to macros etc but once you get into it you will not want to go back.

It's all legal too btw since all the software does is run two wow instances and just broadcast your keystrokes to the other instance, nothing done for you :) the programmer followed blizzard's words by the book.

Anyway this morning I had to pop down town for some stuff for college, so I picked up a copy of the WOW battlechest and now my second account is full retail with burning crusade. So right now I'm taking a break from my work and going to have a game at multiboxing. My first two characters are female blood elf hunter's, Kiyone and Mihoshi (wonder how many Tnechi fans read this blog, if anyone reads this blog that is lol).



So here they are, Kiyone on the right and Mihoshi on the left currently at level 2 :) got to love the triple experience thanks to refer-a-friend program.

I will be posting on their progress as well so keep an eye open

Update

I know I don't post much here but that's because I've got nothing really to report right now, too much college work mean's less gaming time. I will be playing more of Transformer's soon once my work is finished so I will post a update about it.

Going to be playing Dynasty Warrior's 6 Empires in my spare time, so once I've done a few fight's will post my thought's on it too (Achievement's look easy so hoping there will be a few good hard earned secret achievement's mixed in).

In WOW new's, thanks to the lovely midsummer event alot of my character's have leveled. The bonfire quests give out some large amount experience so today my mage went from level 38 to 40 and my warlock 30 to 31 along with 32 soon. Will be running all my alts through azeorth doing the bonfires for easy experience.

That's it for this random post

Friday's Huge Launch

This friday feel's like november with all the games that are coming out that I want, wish they would spread it out a little more since july/august are partly empty.

This friday:
- Transformers 2 Revenge of the Fallen - 360
- Dynasty Warriors 6 Empires - 360
- Another Code: R - Wii
- Overlord 2 - 360
- Monster Hunter Freedom Unite - PSP
- Tales of Vesperia - 360
- Valhalla Knights 2 - PSP

I've only ordered the first two since I really cannot afford all of them, I really hope Transformers turns out good because Another Code on the DS was in my top 10 favourite games.

Got doubt's on Overlord because the first one made me wonder what was going on (saving villagers from the good guys, I thought it should be the other way around), but I have heard you will be more evil this time around so we shall see.

Really looking forward to DW6E since the 5th one was the one that got me addicted into the series, just hope the gameplay is good and backed up with a decent achievement list.

Transformers as got alot against it, the film was awesome and the first game was ok not brilliant so I'm really expecting the 2nd to be a improvement.

Finally the other games are just random RPG's I'm interested in getting, might rent them first to see if they are worth getting/keeping.

100% List

In the time of no communication I did clock two more games for the challenge, they where Night at the Museum 2 and Terminator Salvation. Both where average games, nothing amazing except the easy achievement's lol. Anyway it came to me that I cannot remember how many I've clocked, so here it is... the 100% List.

- 1,250 GS -
Samurai Warriors 2 Xtreme Legends

- 1,000 GS -
Assassin's Creed
Avatar
Call of Duty 2
Civilization Revolution
CSI: Hard Evidence
Dynasty Warriors 5 Empires
Eragon
Harry Potter: Order of the Phoenix
Hitman Blood Money
Jumper: The Griffin Story
King Kong
Lego Batman
Lego Indiana Jones
Lost
Meet the Robinsons
Night at the Museum 2
Open Season
Prince Caspian
Spiderwick Chronicles
Samurai Warriors 2 Empires
Terminator Salvation
TMNT

23 Total

Rental

I mentioned quite some time back that I joined the GAME rental service on their website, it's a nice service. Been using them since the start of the year and had no real problem's with them (8 out of 10 no problem). The only thing that is putting me off is new released games, it can take some time for them to be allowed to rent and when they are up for renting you can be waiting along time to get a copy (guessing they don't have too many copies of the new titles).

Anyway I'm going to give Lovefilm a try since I do want to start renting films too, they offer the same deals and prices as the game one. Also they do allow you to reserve new titles for rental (plus in my books) so kinda hoping they will have plenty of copies of each one. But we will see when the trail starts

Will post my thought's on Lovefilm once I've given them a try

It's Alive

Thought it was time I did a post, I've still got a ton of college work to do but I'm taking a break :-)

Well it's been over a month since my last post and not much as really happened with the achievement challenge. Actually that's a lie, I've clocked several games, hit a new milestone last night and made a bit of progress in other area's so things have been happening, just not as much as I would had liked.


Last night I took the night off since my project's where getting to me, instead I played Madagascar 2, Burnout Paradise and Trivia Pursuit which clocked my final 600 points needed to hit 60k. Long way off hitting my goal of 100k but I'm still happy about being at this marker. Hopefully when college finishes I will have some more spare time to clock some more games.


Anyway that's it for this post, sorry about the bad spellings/grammar etc never really been good in that area. Might do a few more post's in a bit (doubt it since always something comes up when I write that line). 65k here I come!!

2009 360 Challenge 2.0

Goal: 100,000 by 31st December 2009
-Progress-
Start: 44,719
1. 50,000 - 16th March 2009
2. 55,000 - 28th April 2009
3. 60,000 - 17th June 2009
4. 65,000
5. 70,000
6. 75,000 (Half way)
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)

Good Offer's

I thought I would make a post about some of the offers I've seen over the last week, that have caught my attention. There are three in total, but I have to say I've not looked around so you might find them better somewhere else.

First up is the Xbox 360 Wireless controller, normally priced around £32.99, now only £19.98 in the Game Sale. Not seen it that low before, but I could be wrong :)

Next up is the Wireless Adaptor for the Xbox 360. Again it's in the Game sale for £39.98, instead of £59.99. If anyone does find it cheaper then that please drop me a message.

Finally the last item is the new Xbox 360 Entertainment pack. For those of you that don't know it's usualy something you get when you buy a console bundle. (Shop's normally do not sell them separately). It can be a couple of games bundled together, sometimes with an extra pad included. Last time it was Kung Fu Panda, Indiana Jones Lego, and a wireless pad. The new one is a pretty sweet one. You get the following...

• Wireless pad
• Burnout Paradise the Ultimate Box
• Trivial Pursuit
• Connect 4 (arcade game).

I found out last week that my local Asda sold these pack's separately for £49.99, so if you need a extra pad, and was after Burnout then this is for you.


Well that's it for good offers, if I do see anymore I will post them, and if you find anything good please drop a message.


~Iznic

2nd Milestone

Finally hit the 2nd milestone in my challenge last week, quite happy about it but I should had got it week's ago ... oh well. On the same day I also finished off Assassin's Creed which I was pleased about. So overall not a bad week :) question is, what next to play


The achievement that pushed me over the marker...

	Visions of the Future	50
	A strange vision has appeared to you. What could it mean?

2009 360 Challenge 2.0
Goal: 100,000 by 31st December 2009
-Progress-
Start: 44,719
1. 50,000 - 16th March 2009
2. 55,000 - 28th April 2009
3. 60,000
4. 65,000
5. 70,000
6. 75,000 (Half way)
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)

100,000k seems so far away lol I'm starting to have my doubts about doing this challenge

Completed: Jumper

This morning I finally finished off Jumper and will be sending it back to the rental company later, I'm now standing on 54k which mean's I'm only 1k off the second milestone (should had hit that a month ago lol).

Jumper
Date Completed: 22/04/2009
Final Achievement:

	Hard Target	50
	Play through the game without dying.

Right time for the good and bad points of this game, first off the good ... hmmm ... oh it only takes 2-4 hour's to complete and that's two playthrough's of the game lol.

Bad point's...bugs...bugs...bad story...bugs and guess what! bugs. I would list all the bug's but I would be wasting my time on a game that's not worth it, honestly the bug's are annoying but since the game only takes 2 hours to finish a playthrough it really is easy to bite your tongue and get on with it.



P.S. Here is some tips for those achievement collectors out there, first off save the Hard Target achievement to the second run through. You get all the weapon upgrades from your first game at the start meaning it's alot easier to take on the earlier bosses.

Second tip is to do with boss fights, when you do a series of attacks against them at the end you knock them down. Do not stand/attack them while they down, they instantly get up and get a perfect hit on you (with some bosses this can cause around 30-40% health loss) so run away when they go down and wait for them to get back up.

Long Time No See

It's been nearly a month since I posted, shocking ... really did not think it had been that long. Well sorry for the lack of updates but with college, work and everything else It's been a busy month. Expect several posts over the next hour or so to catch you all up with what's been happening.

360Voiceblog

I've noticed over the last few days that the stat's on this website are wrong for me.

On 360 Voice I've gotten the 5 completed games badge and yet I've done at least 17/18 (cannot remember lol), no badges for game genres either. When I checked out the badge calculator page which displays the stats for your profile it says I've only got 12k gamescore lol basically it only tracks the games you have loaded while you been apart of the site, it will list your actual gamescore but for badges and other stats it will only display what it has seen.

So to get the stat's right I've got to load past games up...right now I own at least 100 xbox games and alot of my completed ones where traded in when I was finished with them(might rent out my old ones when I run out of games to rent lol).

Going to start loading my games now and cannot wait to see the blog for today lol it will list everything I load.

Review: The Spiderwick Chronicles

Warning: Review does contain spoilers to the game



It's not a bad game, it's just the ending that hold's it back for me. Let me start from the beginning, there are 8 chapter's to this game and only 7 are the story while the 8th is just to finish off all the collections.

The story is really easy, run to point a, kill x amount bad guys, run to b, do action and run back to point c. Nothing hard and nothing too long, I would say around 4-6 hours maybe to finish the story, was not really tracking the time though.

The only problem with the story is the boss fight at the end which uses two mini games that are horrible, you have to move the analog sticks in opposite directions (up down, down up) as fast as you can while the boss chases you. One slip up (which happens alot since fingers getting tired/sore) and you taken back to the beginning, which means doing both games again (Easy way to get around this check out the tip section on my last point).

Why you put this in? it's bad enough doing it once but twice is taking it overboard and adding the startover if you fail was a stupid idea. This what held the game back from getting a higherscore.


Anyway enough with the ranting

The collections are very as well, just take time running around to get them. There are some bugs in the game but nothing too major to stop the game from being played. Graphics are ok, story is meh could be better but I don't expect much from a game based on a film that was based on a book. Overall I give it a 6.5 and would recommend it to anyone wanting achievement's. Just expect to spend some a few hours getting them




The Spiderwick Chronicles
Platform: Xbox 360
Score: 6.5/10
Status: Closed






P.S. I have listed some tips on this post on completing some of the achievement's easier

Salt + Tomato Sauce + Vinegar + Oatmeal = Anti-Goblin Potion

Well I finally picked Spiderwick Chronicles again yesterday and just finished it :), because I've already done it on my other profile it went alot faster with the boss battle and collecting since I knew how things worked this time.

The Spiderwick Chronicles
Date Completed: 25/03/2009
Final Achievement:

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

Anyone wanting to get the thousand points here is a few tips for you.

Multiplayer Achievements
Either get a friend/family member to help (one who as patience) or setup a second pad with a player and charge wire (So does not disconnect).

1. Both choose who ever and set the game settings to Tunnels Map / Sprite Collection Only / 5 Minutes. Both players need to get 50 points which are given by catching the sprites, this can be done with 2-3 minutes spare. Once finished you should get the first achievement

2 Front Yard Night Time / Sprite Collection Only / 25 Points

3. Forest Meadow / Sprite Collection Only / 25 points

4. Both choose Simon as the player, game settings should be Front Garden Day / Sprites and Goblins / 100 Points. This is the hardest achievement since you need to get 100 points without taking damage. This is what I did on both profiles to get this achievement..

- Both run behind the mushroom ring, goblins cannot cross it
- Both move to the far left of the map still behind the ring
- Have player two stand on the ring limit to attarct the goblins to him (this is why you need someone patience because they need to stand there and do nothing lol)
- Player one stand right at the back then hold a to pump the water gun for its super blast, hold a down then wait for the goblins to be near the ring then let go. It releases a huge blast which can take them out with two hits, the blast lasts for second or two which normally hits them twice anyway.
- Green goblins give one point so need to kill 99, just keep doing the above and they will respawn
- There are red goblins who give two points and blue ones that give 5 points problem is blue can throw rocks that can get through the ring. Luckly they static spawn on the far right of map and since you are on the far left they do not come for you :-D
- Stay away from the edge of the ring since you can take damage from lunges

If you did right you will get the 100 point no damage achievement and all multiplayer maps.


Single Player
xbox360achievements.org is a great help but I also found this walkthrough to be alot better (some of the sprite collection locations on x360a.org to be wrong).

Print a copy of the locations all the sprites off and tick them as you get them, normally the guides say do not collect any to the end but you will find collecting some them will boost your health meter etc. which helps alot later on.

When painting the sprites do a zig zag up/down on the screen with gaps between each stroke, the ink runs and will fill in the gaps so you can finish quickly before the timer run's out.


Boss Fight
***SPOILER ALERT*****




This is the most annoying quicktime event I've ever done so far, basically you start in the hall way and need to run towards the camera into the kitchen while the boss chases you. When in the kitchen you just run across until you reach the dumbwaiter, then go up into the study. In the studey you dodge a few goblins, jump over a bookcase then through the window. Climb the roof then the ladder, that's it all done...sounds simple ? it can be if you know what expect.

- If you get caught you got to start from the beginning, even if you where 90% done with the event
- When you enter the kitchen the camera angle changes and for some reason even through your holding down your character moves up and runs into the boss. Instant death
- To move the dumbwaiter up you need to move the analog sticks in the opposite directions (up down, down up) as fast you can, makes it easy for your fingers to slip and tire. Problem is one slip up and he catches you, start over and have to do this all again.
- Study is not hard just need to remember not to fight the goblins and run against the bookcase to climb over it.
- The roof you need to climb and guess what, analog up down trick again... doing this minigame twice is bad enough on your fingers but if you die you got to do it all again.

Here is my tip for this mini game, grab a pillow and put it on your lap. Place the controllers on it then use the palm of your hands on each analog stick. I know it sounds weird but the pillow will keep the controllers in place and you wont have sore fingers by the end of the game.


***End Spoiler****


Hope this helps you :)

Review: Lost Odyssey

When I first opened this game I felt bit overwhelmed, finding four discs for the game will make you wonder what you getting yourself into. Couple of weeks ago I decided to give it a shot and try to complete this huge game, at first it looked complicated with all the different stats/systems that you can use but after a while you get the hang of it quite quickly as progress through.

Graphics are amazing but you expect that from Square Enix and the story is good but does get a slow start. So far I've only done about 4-5 hours which really does not even dent the first disc lol so expect to lose alot of time to this game.

So good points, combat is turned based and the ring system is a good idea. Basically rings give you extra bonuses to attacks like +fire damage/wind etc. but to get the bonus you do a minigame. When the character attacks you hold down RT, a small ring appears around the opponent as you charge while a second ring comes from off screen getting smaller each second. When they overlap you let go, closer they match the better the bonus and of course if you fail it does not effect your normal damage so penalty if you do. Found this to be a good little feature.

Skill learning was another that got me as good, immortal character's do not learn new skills as they level up instead they learn skills from mortal character's. You select who they should learn off and as you battle you gain points to learn, you can also learn skill's from items too which was a nice touch.

If you are after achievement's for this game I would recommend going to 360achievements.org and checking out the information their. They have a detailed list of spells, skills, dreams and treasure locations so print them off so you can tick them off as you progress through.


So anyway I really cannot say too much about this game since I'm not that far into it but I will come back and update if there any changes, but with the good graphics, nice story and good gameplay I would give it a 8 out of 10.

Lost Odyssey
Platform: Xbox 360
Score: 8/10
Status: Open

50,000

Well I've finally did it :) 50,000 was just hit five minutes ago thanks to Bionicle Heroes, it's took a few days to get those last 600 points but it was worth it. It's only just hit me how hard this challenge is going to be since this is the first milestone lol, that 100k seems along way off but it will be fun trying.

	Shattered Wreck completed	20
	Shattered Wreck completed

That was the achievement that gave me 50k :)

2009 360 Challenge 2.0
Goal: 100,000 by 31st December 2009
-Progress-
Start: 44,719
1. 50,000 - 16th March 2009
2. 55,000
3. 60,000
4. 65,000
5. 70,000
6. 75,000 (Half way)
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)

Weekend

Cannot believe how fast the week's fly by lately, anyway not much to report this weekend since no consoles about (well do have the handheld's but no passion to play them right now).

I did pick up a few more games for the 360, first up is Resident Evil 5. I wasn't going to get it at first since I'm not a fan of horror but after watching a few minutes of it on friday I thought I would give it a shot. Should be playing it monday and might write up a review for it later on if turn's out any good. Second up Hawx, again another type of game I would never really play but I tried the demo last week and really did enjoy. Did not seem too hard to play and yet somehow I ended up in the river, wish I knew how.

Finally the last two games I picked up was Paintball and Secret Service, mostly picked them up for the achievement points. I doubt I will get the 1,000 for paintball since I cannot see myself doing the multiplayer but still worth a good couple hundred. Secret Service does look ok, reminds me of Eat Lead so really looking forward to playing it (Btw I will be reviewing Eat Lead sometime this weekend).



Well anyway that's it for this post, I will be posting up several review's sometime this weekend hopefully (Lost Odyssey, Eat Lead, Empire Total War and The Maw) so keep checking back.

Review: Eat Lead

I got this game for the sake of achievement's since the list looked easy, but it turned out to be a good game after all. It's a simple generic shooting game


Eat Lead
Platform: Xbox 360
Score: 7.5/10
Status: Closed

Open Season

Since I've had most of the week off thanks to my cold, decided to spend the day on wednesday working on Open Season. So another one for the 1k club :) so now standing on 19 games finished.

Open Season
Date Finished: 11/03/2009
Final Achievement:

	Maximum Wild Points Obtained!	100
	Complete the game with maximum Wild Points

It was a cool game which shocked me alot, took about five to six hours to complete so pretty easy 1,000 after Avatar.


P.S. Sorry for the lack of post lately

Update

Still in shock with the fact I've finished both Samurai Warriors 2 and Empires, really did not think I would ever complete them lol. Anyway while I was working on these I finally started a japanese RPG, picked Lost Odyssey and I'm loving it so far, I will post a review about it when I get bit futher into the game. Start of the year I promised myself I would complete at least one RPG since I got so many that I never even given a start too.

Oh yeah! The next two rental games arrived this morning, Bee Movie and Lego Bionicle Heroes. Time consuming but easy 1,000's, well I thought they where until I looked into the lists. Bee Movie as me worried that it could turn out like Bolt/Space Chimps and end up on the pile to never be touched again (Bolt is not on that list...yet). Guess we will see later

Anyway time to get back to it, been sick with the flu the last few days so I'm spending the time just playing games lol :) it's a good cure.

What a week!

I did it!!! Woot!!!

Just finished Samurai Warriors 2 along with it's downloadable content Xtreme Legends, it's taken 32 hours just to get the last 6-10 achievement's but it was worth it. Last night I went all out and got the last five rare swords and did 50 stages of merc mode to finish off the xl achievements then this morning I've been playing Sugoroku mode in the hope to get lucky enough to win, second game and I won by chance :-D So now standing on 18 games finished and this is the first that's above the 1k mark.

Samurai Warriors 2 + Xtreme Legends
Date Finished: 11/03/2009
Final Achievement:

	Okuni Unlocked	50
	This character will become available by satisfying certain conditions in Sugoroku.

Very proud of myself for clocking this game, got to be at least 60 hours plus to clock it

Week Two Report

Well another week as gone and I would love to know where the time went. This week started really good with games completed and two more games having their campaigns completed, really happy with myself. Also on thursday I've started a japanese rpg "Lost Odyssey" so looking forward to having some fun with that this week.

Oh yeah need to give a big thanks to Matt for helping me last night with Gears 2 Horde mode, finally finished the missing 20 levels so clocked two more achievement's worth 50g. Need to do that more often since it was alot of fun, espically when it was just me left against several boomer's lol ran out of bullets and went charging in with chainsaw (didn't even get close).


Week: 2 (2nd - 8th March)
Gamerscore Start: 45,469
Gamescore End: 47,054
Difference: +1,585

Total Retail 100% Start: 15
Total Retail 100% End: 17
Difference: +2

Total Arcade 100% Start: 0
Total Arcade 100% End: 0
Difference: 0

No. of New Games: 0

Game Achievements Increase:
Samurai Warriors 2 Empires - 1,000/1,000 (950/1,000) 95% - 100%
Dawn of War 2 - 460/1,000 (40/1,000) 4% - 46%
Halo Wars - 270/1,000 (75/1,000) 7.5% - 27%
Samurai Warriors 2 Xtreme Legends - 1,100/1,250 (1,020/1,250) 81.6% - 88%
CSI - 1,000/1,000 (400/1,000) 40% - 100%
Space Chimps - 275/1,000 (85/1,000) 8.5% - 27.5%
Gears of War 2 - 490/1,000 (440/1,000) 44% - 49%


Not a bad week but I hope to top it this week so wish me luck

Late Post

Sorry for the lack of post's over the last few days, kept meaning too but just got busy/slipt my mind. Anyway on Wednesday I finished CSI :) so now standing on 47k gamescore with 17! retail games 100% completed, really happy with how this week as gone. I will be posting again in a few minutes to update with what's been happening.


CSI Hard Evidence
Date Finished: 4/03/2009
Final Achievement:

	Case 5 - "The Peacemaker"	200
	Solve "The Peacemaker" with any ranking

Halo Wars Review

I had my worries with this game from day one, I enjoy Halo but I was not that impressed with the last one in the series. I am big fan of the novels and the background story, any game with a good story can make me a fan. So anyway with the demo released a few weeks back my worries got worse, I had friends telling me it was rubbish. Well those worries where for nothing...

I am impressed, it came out amazing!!

The story kept me interested, graphics where very good and the cgi cutscene's blew me away (I hope this is what we expecting for Halo ODST). The gameplay itself is very good, at first I was worried with the lack of base building (what's with RTS lately, they all seem to ditch base building) but you realise after a match or two why that's a good thing, there's so much going on you dont have time to guard a ton of buildings...one is hard enough.

For the score I would say a 9, and that's just barely got it. Only reason it got that is I can see myself playing the skirmish games/multiplayer with friends for fun so it does keep you coming back. Reason it failed to get a 10 is the game did not make me want to keep playing none stop and that's what is needed to get a 10 in my books.

Anyway overall I loved it and would recommend it to friends, it's another one to add to the list for game of the year. Well done!



Halo Wars
Platform: Xbox 360
Score: 9/10
Status: Closed

Evening Update

Wow...just wow, yesterday I finished sw2e getting the full 1,000 gamerscore for it then decided to do some Dawn of War 2. This morning I finished the story campaign for it and I've got to say I did enjoy it but man the bugs are annoying.

Now here is the wow...just finished the Halo Wars campaign :) so two stories finished with one game clocked, in just under two days, now that is progress.

Going to make this short since I want to write out some reviews

First Completition

Well I finally did it :) I've clocked Samurai Warriors 2 Empires yesterday, that had to be one of the hardest achievements I've done in my time.

Samurai Warriors 2 Empires
Date Finished: 3/03/2009
Final Achievement:

	Stage: Osaka Campaign	50
	In Empire Mode, play the special stage "Osaka Campaign" and save your game.

Big thanks goes to Jake of Spades who posted at 360achievements (near the bottom of the page) with his version of getting the achievement, worked like a charm.

End of Week Report

Well the first week of my new challenge is over so I thought it would be a good idea to report on what happened, of course since this was the first week not much did happen but you get the idea.

Week: 1 (23rd Feb - 1st Mar 09)
Gamerscore Start: 44,719
Gamerscore End: 45,469
Difference: +750

Total Retail 100% Start: 15
Total Retail 100% End: 15
Difference: 0

Total Arcade 100% Start: 0
Total Arcade 100% End: 0
Difference: 0

No. New Games: 5

Game Achievements Increase:
Halo Wars - 75/1,000 (0/1,000) 0% - 7.5%
Dawn of War 2 - 40/1,000 (0/1,000) 0% - 4%
Space Chimps - 85/1,000 (0/1,000) 0% - 8.5%
CSI - 400/1,000 (0/1,000) 0% - 40%
Samurai Warriors 2 Empires - 950/1,000 (800/1,000) 80% - 95%

Not a bad start to the week but still wish I had got that final achievement in SW2E, going to try it again this week since I found some more tips on how to do it. Hoping to finish CSI this week and maybe if I got the time clock space chimps to but will see.

Later