I have been off my game. I blame L.A. Noire.
I didn't update my progress on this blog last month because I had such a poor month of gamerscore hording in May. The first half was consumed by a lot of the Gears of War 3 Beta. I was determined to unlock the Gold Lancer for the retail version, though I don't really know why. I didn't play the multiplayer of the first two games for more than an hour, not sure why I would for the third. But I sure put a lot of time into the beta. And then I picked up L.A. Noire.
I'm not saying it's a bad game. It's just incredibly dull, repetitive, pretentious and overly long. And there is a ton of uneventful driving (Which you can skip, but there's an achievement for hitting a certain mileage... and that's the point of this endeavor of mine). After playing nothing but this game for a few straight days, I was burned out on gaming for a couple weeks! And I didn't even finish the game. I'm afraid to go back to it, even though I'm on the last disc.
The year is half over and my gamerscore stands at a sturdy 90,565. That is a 5400 point increase from my last blog update. Too bad that last entry was two months ago. This only averages out to 88.5 gamerpoints per day for the past two months, a bit shy of the 100 I aim for.
I have completed 7 games since the beginning of May. However, only 3 of those were games I had already started. I have six months to complete 22 more Xbox 360 games to achieve that portion of my Gaming Resolution.
Completion Statistics:
Guitar Hero Aerosmith: 410 out of 1000 gamerpoints. I honestly don't remember buying this game. I know when it was initially released, I purchased the guitar bundle of the game for the PS3, planning to get a Guitar Hero instrument set for Playstation to compliment my Rock Band setup for the Xbox. That didn't pan out. I ended up with more than a full set of each for the 360. I sold the PS3 copy of this game not too long after I got it because I didn't care for the song selection. I don't think Joe Perry should be allowed near a microphone. Then again, neither should I. Anyway, I obviously picked up the 360 version at some point and I got around to finishing it in May.
Portal 2: 455 of 1000 gamerscore. I just beat the single player. I had such an incredible amount of enjoyment playing this game, I even forgive all the times I wandered around wondering where I'm supposed to be going. (Valve never has been much for hand-holding in their games. It's a pretty old school mentality. It does make you feel smart when you figure something out without clues, but a manual guide arrow to where you need to go would save some frustration.) I played most of the way through the co-op storyline as well, but I co-op buddy has been too busy to finish the game so far. Hopefully soon though.
Kung Fu Panda: 690 out of 1000. It's annoying that most of these achievements are for completing all bonus objectives on each level on normal & hard and yet they don't stack. I've been going back to this every now and then to pick up a few more 'chieves. Maybe I'll 100% it someday.
Duke Nukem Forever: 765 of 1000 gamerpoints. This game isn't godawful that a lot of reviews have been saying, it's just quite outdated and rather lame. Now, a lot of the minigames are rather godawful. Worst pinball ever. And they've finally made me despise air hockey. Congratulations.
Halo 3 ODST: 465 out of 1000 gamerscore. I was apparently pretty close to the end of the game on this one, though I couldn't tell you what happened for most of the storyline. I didn't like how I had to start over working on accumulation achievements if I didn't get 10 headshots (for example) on a single level. Pretty much every other game let's you acquire such stat-based achievements over the entire game, and I like it that way!
The First Templar: 745 out of 1250 gamerpoints, for a decent 60%. I was really quite surprised by how much I enjoyed this game. The trailer on Xbox Live was atrocious and really highlighted the stiff animation and framerate problems. Yet, despite its obvious budget-title nature, I had fun with the combat. It's not very deep (though it is surprisingly long: 20 levels.) and the stealth stuff is pretty dumb, but it's an interesting game. I rented this at the same time as Dungeon Siege 3, and I didn't finish that game because I was playing this one too much. I'll definitely buy this when I see it circling the $10 mark somewhere.
Red Faction Armageddon: 550 out of 1000 gamerpoints. Another game I enjoyed a ton. Blowing stuff up is always great fun. Cool blue glowy lighting effects makes it classy. Add a magnet gun which lets you send objects and enemies into each other and it tops my must-play list. I was only annoyed by a couple levels (where you're stuck on a ride and have to survive with limited movement capabilities) but the total destructiveness in this game by far outweighed the bad parts. Reviewers complain about this being linear storyline, as opposed to the open-world type of its predecessor, but this compelled me to play and play until I finished it while I have yet to make much progress on the old game. Hmm.
So that's a hardy 56% gamerscore completion rate for those completed games. Not too shabby. I just gotta keep at it and no let myself get discouraged from playing games for long periods if I'm going to make my goals by year's end. Eye on the prize and all that. Of course, if there really was a prize I could earn, that would make a good incentive. What, am I just supposed to play video games for fun???
