Updates and Cleaning up

Afternoon folks,
Been a few days since my last post but what can I say, the Vita was out and I was busy with Dante's Inferno as well. This morning I've been working on a few things for the blog, cleaning up some of the labels, adding share buttons and deciding on what I want to do with the blog in the future.

Over the next few weeks I want to tidy up the pages that are linked at the top (Challenges, stats etc) and probably create a few new labels to spread out my posts so they are more easier to navigate for specific information (maybe have console labels).

Big thing that I want to change is to do more reviews of the games I play, especially after I checked out my review page and realised that all the games listed there where from the start of last year. Of course like I always say the reviews are not meant to be professional, just my feelings and thoughts about the game. Although this time I'm thinking about writing the review as I play and maybe make the review a little big longer, that way the experience is still fresh in my mind instead of writing it several weeks after I've finished the game.

The last thoughts about the future of the blog is to redesign it, layout and theme/colours but I've not decided on anything yet except less dark colours. So that's it really for my thoughts on what to do with the blog, will keep you all updated with how it goes. If you have any thoughts or ideas about the blog just leave a comment, I'm always up for hearing new ideas.

Have a good one for now,
~Iznic

Day Before

Afternoon folks,
Well tomorrow is the big day and the Vita is finally launching, good news is I've got the day off so I can play it all day but the bad news is no Uncharted Golden Abyss until the weekend (thank you Amazon). The only thing that's stopping me from being angry is the fact I'm only having to pay £28 for it since I put the pre-order down back before the prices where decided and it was a price promise.

I am thinking though about picking up Dynasty Warriors Next and really tempted to also get Dungeon Hunter Alliance, although with the later I'm still unsure about. Have to see what happens tomorrow with the out come of the bill, I did trade a ton of games which pretty much covers the entire price of the console so it should not be a big blow to the bank account lol.

Anyway that's tomorrow so for now let's talk about now and last week, in fact let's start with the challenge. I did say the increase of gamer score would drop. Ended the week on 130,654 so I've only gained 205 points, dang that's a lot worse then I thought it would be. I really thought I would be on 400-500 at least, although I think its because I was putting quite a bit of time into the valentines event for Warcraft.

Also I've started playing Dante's Inferno which I did mention in one of my past posts just before the weekend. This week I should be clocking some more achievements from Batman on the PC and I'm trying to clean up on Minesweeper and Sudoku on the Windows Phone (these two are very addictive games). Of course with the Vita out tomorrow and Uncharted on the weekend I can see that taking over for sure (plus Mass Effect 3 in three weeks time).

Week 6 - This Week
Starting Total: 130,654
To Earn: 1,547
Achieved: 0
Difference: -1,547

Week 5 - 

Starting Total: 130,449

To Earn: 1,512

Achieved: 205

Difference: -1,307

 

Total So Far -

To Earn: 6,833

Achieved: 4,375

Difference: -2,458

Wow so I'm 2,458 behind for the year and that's not including this weeks target as well, lol really cannot see myself hitting that 200k marker. I'm toying with the idea of actually starting Enchanted Arms this week but I think I will still wait and see, I rather get Dante and Batman out of the way first.

Going to stop here and go play some games, I do have work in a few hours so I want to get some game time in. Probably be on later and make another post about the Vita so until then have a good one
~Iznic

Diablo 3 CE

Forgot to mention that earlier on the week the pre-order went up for Diablo 3 Collectors edition, so far both GAME and Play.com are taking orders and when I say it's limited, it really is! Think Starcraft 2 but worse then that, in fact we been told it's not coming into store just web only unless they can get more stock.

Check out the Blizzard web site for the full list of contents with full details but here is a short run down of what you get.

USB Pen Drive (shaped like a Soulstone with a Diablo Skull holder)
USB contains both Diablo 2 and the expansion Lords of Destruction
Ingame WOW Pet Fetish Shaman
Ingame Angel Wings for Diablo 3
Ingame Banner for Diablo 3
Ingame Dyes for your armour in Diablo 3
Diablo 3 themed Starcraft 2 Portraits for Battle.net
Soundtrack
Artwork Book
The Game of course
Behind the scenes DVD

Blizzard always do a great collectors edition, in fact I've got four so far and just missing the original one (which goes for about £250+).

By the way if you got the World of Warcraft annual pass which is giving you Diablo 3 for free don't worry, if you get the collectors edition you still get all the in game stuff and they will give you several months of WOW time for free since technically if you will have two copies of the game.

 As you all can guess my order is already down and in fact I might put a second one down just in case of any trouble.
~Iznic

Weekend Finally

Morning folks,
Been one hell of a week with lots of gaming and news, you been keeping up? love the Assassin Creed stuff that really made my week. If you not heard the news then basically Ubisoft gave the release day of 30th October for Assassin's Creed 3, at first I was worried that this was rushed then they also said they been working on it for three years. Cannot wait to see what the new assassin and time line, if you remember last year there was American Revolution, Egypt Pharaohs and Japan Shogun period all on the books. All of these would be awesome and you know what just make all three, there you go that's Assassin's Creed 3, 4 and 5 sorted!

That was not the only news though, just a day before the achievement list appeared for new DLC for AC Revelations and its single player!. Some very interesting achievements as well, first one is take the introduction leap of faith. Could this mean using a new assassin? from the looks the DLC is more a Desmond level, the second really interesting achievement is crossing the river Styx. Is that not Greek Mythology??? so many questions and I guess we will have to wait and see what happens. Although it should not be too long for the DLC since the achievement list is now out and if you want to see the list check out xbox360achievements.org.

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Not really done much gaming this week since I did not want to get into anything too big because of two factors. First one being the launch of the Vita and Uncharted Golden Abyss next week which I'm looking forward to getting into. Then in three weeks time is Mass Effect 3 which is one of my top ten games of all time and I had a small go at the demo at the start of the week and it's pretty much hyped me. Might as well say that March will be Mass Effect month and nothing else will be touched until I finish it.

I have been putting a lot time into the World of Warcraft Valentines event to get the daily quests done for tokens, in fact I finished this morning and picked up the Swift Lovebird mount. Also was luckily enough to get the Toxic Wasteling pet off the boss event as well which made my week. There is one day left of the event so I will attempt the boss one more time in the hope that I might win the Love Rocket mount but I have my doubts since the drop is super super super super rare.

The only other thing that took up my time was my new Windows Phone, finally upgraded and been playing on the Xbox Live with the free games (Sudoku, Minesweeper etc). Soon as pay day comes around I will be picking up quite a few games on it so no doubt see achievements popping up left and right for it.

My plans for the next few weeks is to work on Dante's Inferno since I do enjoy the game and it's my current rental, it will take two play through to complete but the game is quite short so I should have at least one and half done by the Vita launch. Other then that I would like to work on a JRPG and Batman Arkham City (PC) but not sure with all these new games coming out, really don't want to start anything then shelve it because something better came out.


Guess will have to see what happens, anyway that's it for now and I will talk to you all later.
Have a good weekend folks
~Iznic

Batman Arkham City Valentines Event

Morning folks,
Happy Valentines and don't forget to visit Calendar Man today in Batman Arkham City to add towards your achievement/trophy.

Not done it before? basically the achievement/trophy "Story Teller" requires you to have twelve dates with the villain Calendar Man. All you got to do is talk to him each month on a special day to hear a small story about one of his killings, yes this will take a year unless you change your date/clock times on your console but I find it more fun doing it legit.

To visit Calendar Man you need to have at least saved Catwoman from Two Face, after that all you need to do is go back to the court house but before going in just fly around to the very back of the building to find a second entrance. Pop inside then go down the stairs to the cell area and find him locked up in the last cell and that's it. Make sure to talk to him on the days required and listen to his story, when hes done he will sit back down and when you talk to him again he will give you the next day to come back on. Make sure to pass a saved point when done (if you leave the court house through the door again it auto saves after you get outside which is very handy).

Also to note on the wall is a industry wall calendar with all the dates out lined for you, also every time you go to talk to him again you will notice the months you completed will be scribbled out.

That's it anyway folks, next event is Saturday 17th March - St Patricks' Day
~Iznic

I Hate Mondays

Morning Folks,
Another Monday ... meh! ... not a fan, always find myself getting nothing done at the start of the new week, not sure why but it's just that way. Guess I should stop ranting and get on with the post, well good news I finally cleaned up Dante's Inferno last week and now have the original 1,000 gamer score for it. I'm not picking the DLC up at this point in time due to the fact Dark Forest is a rip off (400 Microsoft Points for less then 10 minutes of game play) and I'm also hearing the second co-op DLC is bugged so no last achievement. Since I cannot get a verified answer if it is bugged or not I don't want to chance it, hate wasting money. Maybe I will go back to it at a later date when they fix everything and make it cheaper as well.

That was it really for the week, I have been doing the Valentine daily quests on WOW still and this week I did have a big marathon on Old Republic which got me to level 14 so I've now got my space ship. Cannot wait for my next session now, just need to free up an hour or two so I can.

Oh yeah last night had a blast on Gears of War 3 with some old work colleagues which was awesome, did some Horde, Beast and Insane campaign. Also picked up the Lambency achievement in a Versus Team Death match so that was a nice 50g achievement boost. Starting to get back into Gears again so could do with freeing up a night for it or maybe an hour or two every few days, would love to get the Seriously 3.0 achievement.

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Mentioning achievements you have no doubt read my last post about the results for the challenge, it was a shame that I did not even dent the weekly target but I knew it was coming. I really want to clean up my collection this year, I'm sick of having tons of games that never get played but in order to do that I need to put the time into the big games which means less achievement whoring. I did promise myself I would not allow the challenge to take over and so far I've kept it, I do have doubts about hitting 200,000 but I really want to get as close as possible. So with the failure from last week that means this week as increased a bit, here is the target for week five.

Week 5 - this week

Starting Total: 130,449

To Earn: 1,512

Achieved: 0

Difference: -1,512

Not sure what I will be playing this week since I've got quite a few games I want to work on, new and old along with the fact I really want to start a JRPG finally. Too much to work with, might just pull a name out of a hat again and let you know later on in the week with what I'm doing.

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Before I end this post I really wanted to talk about this morning announcements, you seen the new Pokemon? its a deer type Pokemon called Keldeo. Check out Serebii.net for all the shots of it and what's been announced which is not much right now. They did say that in the next few months they where announcing a new game, so maybe a true Pokemon Game for the 3DS? that would be awesome. By the way the Mewtwo event I talked about the other day went live early so you can now download it!

Anyway that's it for me today folks, have a good one and thanks for reading my random ramblings about the world of gaming and my life.

Results: Week 1-4

Since I'm posting the results for each week together it will eventually make the post too big, so every four week's I will "archive" the results on a separate post that will be linked on the challenge page at the top.

So with that in the mind here is the results for last week and the total so far, of course last week was a big fail but it was expected since I was working on cleaning up an old game. As I said before this will become a trend since I really do want to get through my back log of games that has built up over the years. In truth as well I don't really see myself hitting the 200,000 mark since it needs so many achievements but in the end its all for fun!

Going to wrap this post up now since this will be archived, stay tuned for the normal general post in a minute and that will contain this weeks target.
~Iznic

Total So Far -
To Earn: 5,321
Achieved: 4,170
Difference: -1,151

Week 4 -
Starting Total: 130,274
To Earn: 1,484
Achieved: 175
Difference: -1,309

Week 3 -
Starting Total:  128,499
To Earn: 1,491
Achieved: 1,775
Difference: +284

Week 2 -
Starting Total: 126,759
To Earn: 1,498
Achieved: 1,740
Difference:+242

Week 1 -
Starting Total: 126,279
To Earn: 848
Achieved: 480
Difference: -368

Pokemon Event Download

Morning folks,
Keep meaning to post this up but there are two Pokemon Events running right now, well technically just one the other will be starting soon.

First up is a level 70 Mewtwo for Pokemon Black and White, this event will start on the 12th February so this Sunday and it's a simple Wi-fi event. Just connect to your Internet and download it through the Mystery Gift system on the menu.

Mewtwo will be holding the Kings Rock and as the following moves Psystrike, Electro Ball, Shadow Ball and Aura Sphere. The event will also end on February 26th and is available to Europe and America.

The next even which is currently running is for Arceus on the Global Link website and will end on the 1st May. It's level 100 and no special abilities that make it exclusive but still its level 100 and a very cool Pokemon. Just log in into the site (link here) and connect through the dream world, password is ARCEUSVOTE.

That's it folks so don't miss out and if you want more information pop over to serebii.net which is awesome for all things Pokemon.
~Iznic

Morning Chat

Morning everyone,
This is the third attempt at writing this post and in fact the last post about last week result took several attempts as well. Think I'm a bit too tired and could do with a solid day off just to chill out and do nothing, maybe next week if I'm lucky.

Currently just working on the Kingdoms of Amalur demo on the PlayStation 3 to get the unlocks in case I want the games on their, although it did just freeze and crash so not going well so far. Over the next few days I'm just going to focus on my rental game which is Dante's Inferno, plan is to get this play through completed so I can finish off the last of the achievements then I might do the Dark Forest DLC then send it back. The other DLC I've heard is hard and broken at the same time so I really don't want to waste my money on it if that is true.

Other then my rental I'm just playing World of Warcraft and Old Republic, currently the valentines event is live on WOW so I'm doing the daily quests. This year they have added a new mount which can be bought using the tokens you use, plus there is a daily dungeon which gives you a chance for a second mount plus some cool gear and a new pet. Of course the drop percent is very low so I havent got my hopes up on the later stuff but one can wish.

I did have a several hours on Old Republic on Sunday like I said in my last post and I was really getting into it, hoping to put some more time in later or tomorrow. I love how the conversation dialogue works, I really do feel apart of the story more. Also I'm hoping to earn a few levels this week so I can unlock my ship which I will post a screen shot soon as I get it. Oh that reminds me my mate told their is a bug in game to do with the stretched character graphics and its to with the nvidia graphic cards, so drivers soon hopefully.

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 Apart from that not much else to say other then Square Enix are doing a huge sale on Xbox live for the week and I pretty much want to buy everything. It's amazing that most of the stuff I was thinking about buying yesterday morning is now in the sale. Deus EX Missing Link DLC, Tomb Raider DLC and episodes etc check out the full list at xbox360achievements.org. Also next week they knocking down the Batman Arkham City dlc as well so I might pick up the Nightwing bundle finally.

Plenty to keep me busy for the time being, although I was already busy with getting through the huge pile of games that I already own. Anyway I'm going to shoot for a bit so I will catch you all later, have a good one
~Iznic

2012 Games List

Just like last year here is the full list of games I've bought so far and it will be updated through out the year has I add more too it. Hopefully this time I can finish most of them...

1. Final Fantasy XIII-2 (Xbox 360)
2. Uncharted Golden Abyss (PlayStation Vita)
3. Mass Effect 3 (Xbox 360)
4. Plants vs Zombies (PlayStation Vita)
5. Lego Harry Potter Years 5-7 (PlayStation Vita)
6. Shogun 2 Total War Fall of the Samurai (PC)
7. Witcher 2 (Xbox 360)
8. Pandora's Tower (Wii)
9. The Last Story (Wii)
10. Plants vs Zombie's (Vita)
11. Welcome Park (Vita)
12. Sniper V2 (Xbox 360)
13. Pure Chess (Vita)
14. Dynasty Warriors Next (Vita)
15. Kid Icarus (3DS)
16. Minecraft (Xbox 360)
17. Ghost Recon Future Soldier (Xbox 360)
18. Rune Factory Oceans (PlayStation 3)
19. Dragons Dogma (Xbox 360)
20. Diablo 3 (PC)
21. Lego Batman 2 (Xbox 360)
22. Resistance Burning Skies (Vita)
23. Gravity Rush (Vita)
24. Pokemon Conquest (DS)
25. Lego Batman 2 (Vita)
26. Spec Ops the Line (Xbox 360)
27. Borderlands 2 (Xbox 360)
28. Angry Birds Trilogy (Xbox 360)
29. Lego Batman 2 (PlayStation 3)
30. Dishonored (Xbox 360)
31. Pokemon Black 2 (Nintendo DS)
32. Pokemon White 2 (Nintendo DS)
33. XCOM (Xbox 360)
34. Professor Layton and the Miracle Mask (Nintendo 3DS)
35. Testament of Sherlock Holmes (Xbox 360)
36. Mass Effect (PlayStation 3)
37. Mass Effect 3 (PlayStation 3)
38. PlayStation All Stars (PlayStation 3)
39. PlayStation All Stars (PlayStation Vita)
40. Ratchet and Clank Qforce (PlayStation 3)
41. Assassin's Creed 3 (Xbox 360)
42. Assassin's Creed Liberation (PlayStation Vita)
43. Call of Duty Black Ops 2 (Xbox 360)
44. Zone of the Enders HD Collection (Xbox 360)
45. Hitman Absolution (Xbox 360)
46. Uncharted Fight for Fortune (PlayStation Vita)
47. Wonderbook: Book of Spells (PlayStation 3)
48. Lego Batman 2 (PlayStation 3)
49. Lego Lord of the Rings (PlayStation Vita)
50. Lego Lord of the Rings (Xbox 360)
51. Virtue's Last Reward (PlayStation Vita)
52. Halo 4 (Xbox 360)
53. Family Guy Back to the Multiverse (Xbox 360)



Updated:1st January 2013

Week Three Results

Morning folks,
Sorry for the lack of posts over the weekend but had some real bad news on Saturday, anyway don't want to get into it. On Sunday I decided to have a huge gaming marathon which was pretty awesome, finally sat down and finished FIFA 06. It killed me to do it since I'm not a sports fan and can't stand FIFA with a passion but having it on my profile with only 500g  was annoying. Sunday morning I had that in the bag then played several more games (Harry Potter, Halo CE) then finally sat down with Old Republic. Levelled up several times and got myself to level 10, won't be long before I get my own ship.

Stats wise it was a good haul for the and I'm now in the plus for the challenge, currently on +158 for the whole challenge. This week I think will see a dip along with the next few weeks due to the fact I will be working on my longer games now and not easy gamer score games. But it will be worth it in the end if I can finally get through some of my back log of games.

Anyway that's it for now, bit too tired to get into any writing so I will post later.
~Iznic



Week 4 - This week
Starting Total: 130,274
To Earn: 1,484
Achieved: 0
Difference: -1,484


Total So Far -
To Earn: 3,837
Achieved: 3,995
Difference: +158

Week 3 -
Starting Total:  128,499
To Earn: 1,491
Achieved: 1,775
Difference: +284

Week 2 -
Starting Total: 126,759
To Earn: 1,498
Achieved: 1,740
Difference:+242

Week 1 -
Starting Total: 126,279
To Earn: 848
Achieved: 480
Difference: -368

Just a quick one

Evening folks,
Just quickly popping on to say hello and that I'm still alive, along with a quick update before I dash out. It's been a long stressful week but it's now over and I'm off for two days so plenty of time to game and catch up on my jobs I need to get done. I did update my 2012 gaming stats in the week since I clocked Truth or Lies (horrible game) on both Xbox and the PlayStation, never again! its unbelievably broken beyond words.

Thanks to that 1,000 game score though it means I only need around 400 to finish this week off for my challenge and if I can make up the missing 130 from week one the better. Not sure how I will do that right now since not sure if I got any easy achievements left to collect. I'm currently working on mopping up achievements on some of my games but it will take time before any reward is seen (Dante's Inferno, Saints Row the Third).

Apart from that nothing really to report other then I did pick up Final Fantasy XIII-2 a few hours ago when I finished my shift, also the collectors edition strategy guide. Nice hard book guide with plenty of in depth details for areas, monsters, items etc. Also got my pre-order bonus steel book too which is really nice, in fact here is a picture of the lot.

Anyway I need to shoot since I'm going out but might be on later but if not will be on tomorrow morning since I really could do with some tiding on the blog and posting some more. Until then anyway have a good one.

~Iznic

Monday Gossip

Good morning folks,
Thought it was time to catch you all up with my weekend, so I've got my cup of tea ready and just need a biscuit and we can start. I had a wonderful start to my weekend by going out for a few meals and having a day trip with the girlfriend. Of course you not here to hear about that are you, I'm guessing you are here to find out what gaming I've been up to and how the challenge is going.

So let's start with that shall we, all week I've kept away from working out the stats and instead just enjoy my gaming. I did start Harry Potter like I said I would and it was ... was... hmmm... well it was just ok, nothing special at all to be fair.

The game is called a spell shooter and it's truly is that, think third person shooter with just a wand instead and Harry shouting the incantations rarely (think they forgot about it). You can take cover the same as any other games, zoom in to get the better accuracy etc. 

Luckily the zoom also does a mini lock on to enemy targets because the aim system is terrible, even if you spend time making careful adjustments the enemy A.I are all over the place (then again I guess that's good in way since no moron would stand still in a battle). Part from that though its ok and it's not that bad, spent about an hour on it and got quite far but just ran into my first set of  side missions. You get side missions where you go protect muggleborns on the run or attack death eater camps etc, basically game filler but it works ... so no complaints there (not yet anyway).

Anyway back to the story so where was I, oh yeah I've not looked at my stats all week until Sunday morning when I finally caved. It was my day off and had plans to pretty much game all day so I thought I would check out the score and see where I stand with it. As of Sunday morning I was on roughly 750 gamer score for the week so was just about half way there and with just one day to go. Now as I said at the start of the challenge I would not let it control my life, I wanted to still enjoy my games and not keep thinking "achievements".

And that is what I did, Sunday was amazing and one of the best gaming days I've had in a long time. I played everything and I do mean everything, I didn't work on just one game instead I just let myself play what ever I was in the mood for. Started off with uDraw which I just picked up in the week since it had dropped to £40 finally (plus get my staff discount). Spent all morning just doodling and having laughing, in fact I've only got five achievements left to get on it which will take abit of time. From it I must had clocked roughly 600-700 on top of the 100-200 in the week.

Tried out Damnation as well (another game I bought, will talk about that later) and did the first act which was several levels long. Not a bad game at all, a lot of platform jumping with a steam punk civil war era. At first I was a bit annoyed with the controls since you have to hold down the left trigger to stay in combat mode for shooting but after a while you just get use to it. Soon as the first act was completed I decided to take a break for lunch.

Then was the awesome part in which I just went through my library of arcade games, decided I was going to finally finish that level on Toy Soldiers with the Rail Gun boss which turned out to be the last level of the campaign so clocked that game. Then Found a old demo for Sealife Safari which is pretty much Pokemon Snap with sea life, so decided to buy it since I was enjoying it and did three of the five levels (not bad for 400 Microsoft points).

After that found two games I had picked up and not touched, first up the free game Harm's Way which is basically a racing game like Mario kart except there are turrets around the course that other players can control to blast you apart. After a couple of games I clocked 190 out of 200 with the last achievement only needing to play one game online, so should have that cleaned up by the end of the week. The other game was Undertow back when Xbox Live went down for several days and they gave out for free to say sorry, it's not a great game but can be a little fun if you got some spare minutes. Did the first story act and gave up on the next level since my allies where, well to put it politely rubbish.

Finally I finished the night by completing the second restaurant on Diner Dash which took me several attempts and then ended with Dead Space Ignition which is an interactive comic with puzzles. There is no combat just three different type of hacking puzzle games that you come across through the story, you have several options on paths through the story and I have heard it takes four play through to do it all. But the game is really short and I had the story finished in 55 minutes, would had been a lot quicker if I knew what I was doing and did not keep pausing.

Anyway so that's my Sunday in a nut shell, a huge gaming marathon that was brilliant and to top it off I hit my goal in the end. I was able to score a total of 1,740 so in just one day I hit 1,000 gamer score and I'm very happy to say I enjoyed every minute of it. So week two as brought me back on course for my challenge and hopefully week three will be just as good.

Week 1 -
Starting Total: 126,279
To Earn: 848
Achieved: 480
Difference: -368

Week 2 -
Starting Total: 126,759
To Earn: 1,498
Achieved: 1,740
Difference:+242

Total So Far -
To Earn: 2,346
Achieved: 2,220
Difference: -126



Week 3 - This week
Starting Total:  128,499
To Earn: 1,491
Achieved: 0
Difference: -1491

This week according to TrueAchievements I need to earn 212.8 a day still so round that up to 213, going to take a few weeks before I start to see that number any less. Happy to see I pulled back some of week one and now only 126 beyond the total target. Anyway with that thought I'm going to shoot, took a while to write this and I want to get some gaming on before work. So take care and I will catch you all later
~Iznic

Mass Effect 3 Multiplayer

Don't think words can describe how good this looks

Good Morning

Morning all,
Currently playing the Kingdoms of Amalur demo, I'm mostly after the Mass Effect 3 DLC and to get that you need to finish the 45 minute demo to get the last item. Although I am enjoying the game, it reminds me of a more mature Fable game with the regards of it being a bit more violent when doing finishing attacks. At first I thought it would be quite a linear game with the tutorial pretty much guiding me through the tower but now that's finish the world is open to me and I'm now hearing that the developers are quoting 200+ hours. Very tempted to pick it up but I still think it won't be day one purchase but I will get it eventually.

So apart from that I bet you wondering what game I'm going to go with next, well I'm going to try out Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part 1. Been wanting to play this for a while and with the second part already out I thought it would be time to give it a chance, expect to see some achievements for it later hopefully. While I'm talking about games I'm going to play just been sent a e-mail from Lovefilm saying they sending Dante's Inferno for the Xbox 360, so looks like I will be doing that final play through soon after all.

While I was typing this up I was also playing the demo, just finished the timer and unlocked the weapon for Mass Effect. As I said earlier its not a bad game and I really did enjoy playing a caster but still cannot justify getting it on day one. Might download the demo on the PlayStation 3 so I've got the unlocks on that system too since the demo is console specific for its rewards.

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Bit of rant coming up now and that's with game publishers and DLC, just saw a post announcing the upcoming DLC to be released for the new Soul Calibur. Really? really? come on the game is not out yet until next week and now they announce content to come out for it a week later. I'm sick of this keep happening, it's clear they cut out content from the game to hold it off for a week to charge you for it. It's worse when they release it on launch day or when the content is on the disc! but just locked. DLC was meant to be a way to extend the game's life span, to give it a new life several months down the line so gamers can jump back in after completing it. DLC is basically meant to be the console version of PC games expansion packs, not a way to be greedy!

Another one to peeve me off is Call of Duty, guess what folks you getting 20 DLC included with your Elite Subscription. Sounds awesome right, quite a bit of DLC but it did shock me to see the announcement that this week we will see the first two DLC. 

Two Maps...yeah now it clocks doesn't it, it's not 20 map packs, it's 20 maps if we lucky anyway. There is a rumour list going around showing the full list of content we meant to be getting, extra modes, maps, survival missions etc. Of course I'm not trusting that rumour list since as anyone else read the fine print yet? maximum of 20 it says on the bottom. So technically it could be a lot less, now I'm not a big fan of the Call of Duty Multi player and in a way it doesn't bother me that much but I did pick up the subscription since I got the Hardened Edition. I was looking forward to seeing some of the survival missions extra content, maybe even an extra single player story level etc. Now I got a feeling this subscription was just one big rip off and I was kidding myself, but then again everyone said that on day one.

So that's my rant for today and I hope this year we don't see this trend kicking off any more.

~Iznic

P.S. I forgot one more DLC rant! Mass Effect 3 is putting codes into their figurines and art books for DLC on the multi player, extra weapons, races etc So if you want to play that awesome new race with that great assault rifle as well, expect to have to buy that expensive art book and over priced Shepard figure. Not to mention the codes are going to be random as well, seriously talk about milking it.

Annoyance

Afternoon folks,
Well I've finished the story campaign for Generator Rex this morning and I've had enough now, I was going to attempt the full 1,000 gamer score but my Patience for the game as run to thin. It's an OK game and with a little bit of time it's a doable thousand but I'm really not in the mood to go through the entire game again in time trails. Then there are levels that need to be done with out taking damage and that means doing that level several times to get it right, then achievements for taking no damage on certain boss fights or taking a boss out in a certain time. Finally the achievements for collecting DNA of the evo's which is a random drop so very time consuming.

So yeah I'm on 500-600 gamer score and sending it back to Lovefilm for now, maybe rent it again in the future when I feel up for attempt all that rubbish. Always like a challenge but usually on a game that I enjoy and feel passionate about. Hoping to get sent Dante's Inferno next either on the Xbox or the PS3, just need to do one more play through on the Xbox version to get the full 1,000 for it, then there is the DLC to do afterwards.

Now that's being sent back I'm not sure what to play right now, there are several games I really want to get stuck into but I'm not sure where to begin. I do want to finish a JRPG and I've got my mind set on Enchanted Arms since that was the first RPG I picked up for the Xbox 360. Plus the factor that and I've so far attempted the game three times which always ends up with me getting further and further into the game to just stop. I will finish that game one day! and every other JRPG I've got sitting on my shelf which is quite a lot at this point in time.

Back to the games I want to play, there is also Batman Arkham City and Fable 3 for the PC which both have stack able achievements lists with their Xbox counter parts. Also got Velvet Assassin, Damnation and Majin Forsaken Kingdom screaming at me to be played for the last two weeks. So many choices and oh not to forget there are tons of games need cleaning up with the ways of achievements, both Assassin Creeds (Brotherhood and Revelations) have ton of achievements I can pick up easy. Saints Row side missions, Deus EX needs another couple of play through's and still not tried out the DLC "Missing Link" yet. Gears of War has released the Shadow of RAAM dlc that I've still not looked at yet, I did download it but caught up in Saints Row the Third.

Argh!!! where do I start?

You know what I'm going to do, write down all the games I want to play and put them in a hat and pull out a random one to play. Probably the best solution at this point, so time to change the subject for the time being.

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Well I was shocked yesterday to hear that Blizzard will not be doing a Blizzcon this year and that the next one will be in 2013. At first I was a bit disappointed and could not figure out why, yes they did state they wanted to focus on their new games but did not feel like that was the whole picture. Then it come to me with Diablo 3 about to release, Starcraft 2 Heart of the Swarm this year and the new expansion for World of Warcraft possibly at the end of the year. Blizzard really don't have anything new to announce other then their mysterious MMO project Titan. So I guess it does make sense to postpone this year and start again next year, hopefully with the more time working on the games we will see all three this year! that would be awesome. Still going to miss watching the streams though, one of my favourite things to do in October but least still got the Starcraft 2 tournament.

You know what I'm going to call it a night, I'm tired and had a long day at work so I need my bed. Will chat some more in the morning and decide on a new game to play, so until tomorrow have a good one folks.
~Iznic

Announcements

Over the last week I have been talking about the upcoming games I'm looking forward too, while I was doing this several more got announced and I swear February is turning out to be worse then November for releases.

So I want to talk about some of them and so in essense this post could technically be called "Upcoming Games Part Three". Let's start with today's announcement which is Warriors Orochi 3 that is coming out on the 30th March (official website link). You should all know I'm a big of fan of the Warrior series by now so as you can guess I will be picking this up on day one.

I was shocked to see this time its got some characters from Dead or Alive staring in it, Ryu and Ayane are listed along with Joan of Arc from the Bladestorm game. Should be interesting to play as these characters but I do get the feeling they running out of ideas on what to do with the Orochi series.

One thing that annoys me is that I've not finished the other two Orochi games yet, in fact I got stuck on the first one when I was fighting one of the end level bosses and think I gave up in the end. I would say I would wait to buy this one so I could finish the first two but the Warrior series is one of those that normally vanish off the shelves in the first few weeks to never be seen again. In fact it just came to me I still got several of the Dynasty Warriors to finish off as well, dang I need to do some catching up.

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The second and last big announcement was last week and a game I'm really now looking forward too, Total War Shogun 2 Fall of the Samurai. It's a standalone expansion like Napeoleon was for Empire, this game is pretty much the movie "the last Samurai". Love playing the skirmish games on Total War and my favourite so far is Empire, this looks to be a mix of Empire meets Shogun so its going to be ace.

As I was getting the trailer link I just read that it will come out in September and it's a downloadable game only from the looks. Hmmm I like the hard copies because most shops do different dlc or extra cool special edition boxes, guess have to wait and see what happens with regards to release

So that's two more games to the buy list this year on top of the other twenty plus, anyway I will catch you all later!
~Iznic

Challenge Update + Weekend

Morning folks,
Don't know about you but I'm starting to hate Mondays, so far my HDD for my TV decided not to record since it was turned off Saturday night of course it forgot it was turned back on Sunday with no problems but that did not stop it from not recording this morning. Least I have a cup of tea and had a brilliant weekend to go with it.

Yesterday I finished the story campaign for Saints Row the Third, what a game! every bit of it was outstanding. It's just over the top madness and that's what kept me going back to it, wish I had played it sooner. Seriously how many games do you fight a wrestling match with a chainsaw or making a getaway in a slave driven cart pulled by a gimp. I kid you not the game is just that insane and the amount of fun it makes of things is just great, there's even a Tron style level too which is just awesome. Go try that bad boy out and you won't regret it, I feel bad for ever doubting the game and cannot wait for the fourth.

So with that game now clocked I'm standing on just three games finished this year, I was going to replace it with something else but I think I've got a little too much to play. I found it pretty hard to juggle a main game with two achievement/trophy games on the side, so I'm hanging off until I finish either Lego Indiana 2 or Generator Rex.

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Time for the challenge update and we all knew I would not hit that 800 weekly target in two days but I did get more then I thought would. Picked up 480 thanks to Saints Row plus a few games on Forza to round it up a little, of course a level for Generator Rex as well yesterday. It's not a big loss since I only missed out on 368 so it should not really push the daily average up but I cannot allow this to keep happening or it will get harder. This week target will be the first real week so it should be interesting to see what happens.

Damn! according to TrueAchievements my average as gone up to 213.5 a day now, blimey I did not think it would be that bad. So round that up to 214 and my second weeks target is 1,498, ouch that hurts. It's only the second week and already I'm dreading this challenge.

Week 1 -
Starting Total: 126,279
To Earn: 848
Achieved: 480
Difference: -368

Week 2 - This Week
Starting Total: 126,759
To Earn: 1,498
Achieved: 0
Different: -1,498

Think I need another cup of tea to calm me down, catch you all later
~Iznic

Morning Report

Thought I would do an update before I  jump into some gaming, the other night it really did hit me after I posted up the challenge how hard it was going to be. 200 Gamer score a day is a lot, in fact that's 1,400 a week so that's two Batman Arkham Cities a week (current score is 700+). I have no idea on how Stallion83 can clock 600-900 a day, the man is a gaming god.

So my idea is instead of looking at 211 a day I'm going to work out the week total and report how I'm doing towards it, saves me having to keep thinking I need to do 200 a day instead just think by the end of week I need to be here. Hopefully I can hit the total and more, the more I do the less the daily average goes down and so does the total for the week. Need to make sure I don't let this challenge rule my life still of course, its hard though not to keep thinking what achievements I need to get.

Anyway since I started the challenge in the middle of the week the total will be a little less, challenge was issued on Wednesday so need four days. The daily average is 211.8 so going to round that up to 212 so that comes to 848 by the end of Sunday.

 ....just turned my Xbox on to get some information and realised it was still paused when I went to get my drink yesterday (turn my TV off so it doesn't pixel burn) and so my xbox as been on all night.

So with that stupid moment out of the way here is the information for this weeks challenge.

Starting Total: 126,279
To Earn: 848
So Far: 30
Difference: -818

Need to clock some stuff over the next two days, it's a good thing I've got the days off!

2012 Upcoming Games Part Two

Morning folks,
It's time for the sequel of last week's post about what games I'm looking forward to this year and there is plenty to talk about. So we finished part one with the 3rd person shooter Inversion and now we hit it off with a new console.

That's right, the next big thing after those games will be the launch of the PlayStation Vita, everything the PlayStation Portable should had been. I've been really looking forward to this launch for a while now but I am still in two minds about getting it on day one, especially with the price being quite high and Japan having a price drop.

My order is for the Wi-fi model which is currently costing £230 then let's now forget you need to add on a memory card to save so the price is increasing quickly and then the games. I can see it getting close to £300 plus and I really could do with out that. Right now I'm thinking the smallest memory card since I only want to pick up Uncharted at this point in time. Although they have announced Dynasty Warriors Next and if it's going to be like the other Warrior games then we will see a few copies on launch then that's it, so maybe make that two games then.

But on the positive side the console looks amazing, two touchscreens, two analog sticks as well finally! and graphics on par with the PlayStation. We not talking small handheld games any more, we are talking full blown console games (length, graphics, story etc) that you can take any where and let's not forget the icing on the cake as well, full trophy support.

Overall it's got to be a day one buy so I guess I better start saving.



Above is the video for Uncharted Golden Abyss being demoed on the Vita, have a watch and tell me you not impressed. I love how easy it is to jump from touch controls to normal with out having to change any settings.

I'm also a big fan of the Uncharted series so it's pretty sweet see it's not lost anything on the portable, when ever a big game series brings a release on a handheld its never close to the normal high quality that's expected (e.g. Assassins Creed ). The game setting is going to be a prequel to the first so it should be very interesting to see Nathan in his early years.

Still cannot believe this is a launch title, normally I struggle to find a game I want on launch for my new console.

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Next game I mentioned is Dynasty Warriors Next which was only just announced for a launch title, finally watched the trailer for it and I'm not 100% sure now. Think I need to see a bit more about it and read up on it, maybe wait closer to the date before deciding. The touchscreen controls look awesome (See below) but I feel like its taken a step back in a way. Example being the soldiers only appearing when you are few feet away from them in some of the trailer parts, one on one with a enemy leader is cool but as I said have to see more before I decide. Think I was expecting more since the Vita is light years ahead compared to the other handheld consoles so I was expecting the games to be on par with it.

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Next up is a game for the Nintendo Wii believe or not, The Last Story is pretty much a Final Fantasy type game. In fact its made by Hironnobu Sakaguchi who is famous for his work with Final Fantasy so that's why the game is so similar. The story is a tale of a group of mercenaries looking for work, although I have heard they basically looking for work so they can get out of the life to become full fledged knights. So far its an action rpg so no taking turns and reports say its awesome, with a one detailing talking about sneaking into a castle using tranquiliser darts to take out the sentries. Its not a typical JRPG, I do want to pick it up but again I think will wait for the time being since I don't see myself playing it straight away. But it is nice to see that the Wii is getting some love finally, first Xenoblade and now this.

That's it for this part and expect part three soon with the last of the February releases and March, then part four will list the games that don't have a date yet.
Until then have a good one folks,
~Iznic