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