Gaming Update - August

My Xbox gamerscore now stands at 100,155. Six digits!

According to my Achievement Progress bar on my Xbox, that's out of a total of a possible 332,290. 30 percent! Making it to my goal of 35% by year's end may be difficult with all the upcoming new releases. I started 6 new games this month, and only managed to finish two of them. Catherine is hard!

I increased my score by 3,570 during the month of August, finishing 4 games.

Finished Game Breakdown:

Lego Star Wars III The Clone Wars: 400 of 1000 gamerscore. Lego games are still mostly the same. They haven't really fixed the problems from previous games... the vehicles are absolutely atrocious. But they add new stuff, but they aren't fleshed out enough to improve the experience.

Transformers The Game: 1000 out of 1000 gamerpoints. This game would have been a lot better if it had just ended one story level shorter than it was. There were annoying parts to the game, such as the whole uber-slow lifting function, that didn't bog down the game too much until the final levels where they all became overused. Oh and having to track down 100 hidden items in each level wouldn't have been as annoying if you didn't have to do it in the same map three times.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince: 870 of 1000 achievement points. After finishing Deathly Hallows Pt 1, I realized I hadn't finished this game. Now I have. And I am 3 achievements away from 100-percenting it. More hidden-item hunting, yay.

Call of Juarez The Cartel: 630 out of 1000 gamerscore. This is just one of those middle-tier shooters that really fails to make much of an impression. It wasn't really very good, and it wasn't broken. It was just kinda there, cussing at you.

So, just kind of an average month. Not overly impressive, despite the 100k milestone. Four finished games down, only 6 to go. Will I break that mark in September? Could happen!

Gaming Resolution Update - July

Now that was a banner month.

On my last update, I reported that I acquired 5400 gamerpoints and completed 7 games in a two-month period. I beat both those marks during the month of July.

My gamerscore now stands at 96,585... a phenomenal 6,020 increase in one month. And I completed 12 games, including my nemesis, L.A. Noire.

A third of the completed games were ones I had begun before this year. A third of the games were movie-tie-in games. But only a quarter of the games were XBLA games. Shucks. Almost had it all add up.

I achieved 100% gamerscore on two games this month, both of which are listed as finished games, although technically I got the last 2 achievements for A World Of Keflings about 15 minutes after midnight, into August. But I'm going ahead and counting it all as July because I'm still awake.

Oh, and while I'm on full disclosure, I cheated a little bit this month by deleting all the Zero-Point games from my profile. There were around a dozen of them. They range from played for a couple hours and still haven't unlocked anything yet (Onechanbara, Record of Agarest War) to barely played and haven't felt like going back to it (Culdcept Saga, NFL Tour). Even with over 10,000 points being taken out of the average, my overall completion percentage only moved about 1%.

Finished Games Breakdown:

L.A. Noire: 750 out of 1400 gamerpoints, for 53% completion. Getting 3/4 of the achievements while being so frustrated by tedium is quite an accomplishment. I was being more stubborn than determined, though. One of the achievements I did not get was for collecting all the gold film reels... because I never saw a single one. Usually designers throw a few collectibles in plain view so you at least know what to look for, but I guess not. I'm sure I'll return to more achievements when the DLC goes on sale. And I'll probably complain about the game then, too.

Earth Defense Force Insect Armageddon: 180 of 1000 gamerscore. Yeah, that's a really low score. Damn near Homefront low. The achievements are all grinding. I beat the game on normal. I'll have to play through again on Hard and Inferno and will probably have at least half the achievements at that point. Oddly there is no Easy difficulty.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part One: 620 out of 1000. Ugh, no stacking achievements means if I want to 100% this game I have to play through it three times. I beat it on hard, so it's not very challenging. It's just unnecessarily long. And lame. I don't remember a part in the book or movie where Harry keeps going off on his own to save random wizards, and yet that accounts for about a third of the game.

50 Cent Blood On The Sand: 560 out of 1000. This was a fun game. A just crazy blowin'-stuff-up game is always welcome. I definitely want to play the co-op online sometime soon.

Army of Two: 340 of 1250 gamerscore, for only 27%. Some extremely dumb co-op A-I nearly ruined this game. And with EA shutting down the online servers for this game, I may never find out if it's actually fun to play with real people.

Shadow Complex: 130 out of 200, 65% completion. How have we not gotten a sequel to this game yet? It is a run-and-gun game that feels like what a modern Contra should be, with some craft secrets and awesome melee moves. Other some inconsistencies with the depth-aiming, this is a totally wonderful game.

Captain America Super Soldier: 1000 of 1000! This may be the most fun movie-tie-in game I've ever played. The only other real contenders would be Toy Story 3 (a by-the-numbers story mode is offset by the more-open Toybox mode) and X-Men Origins Wolverine (which did seem a bit too long for amount of variety in gameplay). Captain America is pretty much a straight forward knock off of Batman Arkham Asylum, only he is a faster character so it plays more actiony and you don't have to bother with all that stealthy stuff. Good voice work, too. The story would have been better if they hadn't had to avoid the movie plot (Red Skull shows up, attacks briefly, then walks away to return to the movie).

Full House Poker: 275 out of 300 gamerscore, which is about 91%. I maxed out at level 50 the same day I beat the All-Pro Tournament, so I didn't have to decide which one of those would be considered beating the game. I only have one more achievement to get, I just need to remember to play on a tuesday or saturday to get in on the online Texas Heat game.

Green Lantern Rise of the Manhunters: 900 of 1000 gamerpoints. I can't believe they charge a full $60 for this cheap God-of-War knock off when most Movie-Tie-Ins go for $50. Captain America was $50 and it's so much better. The lamest part of this game is that Green Lantern doesn't fly during most of it. There are three flying levels (which are the most enjoyable parts of the game) but the for rest of it, you can't even double-jump. It's all just bleah. And though there is local co-op, player two gets no achievement points. Double bleah. Add in some glitches that made me reload a checkpoint and this is one generic overpriced bleah-soaked game.

Transformers Dark of the Moon: 750 out of 1000. This is basically the same game as War for Cybertron, with a few improvements such as unlimited ammo. It's unfortunately short (less than 4 hours) and you don't get to pick your character like in the previous game. However, I liked it a lot. Fun times.

Shadows of the Damned: 710 out of 1000 gamerscore. Another game that doesn't stack difficulty achievements, which means it would take three playthroughs to get all the points. It was enjoyable, but without the "What the hell am I playing??" factor on repeat visits, I don't know if it'd be worth it. I enjoyed it while it lasted though. Except for the running from the instant-kill parts.

A World of Keflings: 200 of 200! I really like these Keflings games. They make me wish there was a much bigger, more in-depth version, as long as they retain their goofiness.

Believe it or not, I actually completed every new game I started in July. It was close, however, as I started A World of Keflings with less than 12 hours left in the month. Just barely made it. But that's also why I haven't started Bastian or From Dust. I can safely do so now.

Of the games I completed this month, I gathered about 62% of their available gamerpoints. This brings my overall gamerscore percentage to 29.5%. With only 5 months left in the year, I'll need to raise that by just over one full percentage point each month in order to reach my 35% goal. Doable, but it'll be close.

However, with the 12 games finished this month, I only have 10 more to go by year's end. That'll be difficult not to achieve, provided I actually continue playing games for the entire time.

And the reviewing-games goal... Pphht.

Gaming Resolution Update May - June

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???

Gaming Resolution 2011 - April Recap

Full Steam Ahead! April netted me 4005 gamerscore, with 10 completed games! Six of those games were ones I began in previous years, so it was a very productive month on my backlog!

I earned enough achievement point during the month to put my average a full third above my goal of 100 points a day. And I now only need to finish 29 more games by year's end to hit my goal of 150 total finished Xbox 360 games.

The review-writing portion of my resolution is still floundering, however. I didn't really like how I was presenting them. I plan on returning to my Those Games We Play webcomic and including all these new game reviews there, but that is a ways off.

Recapping my finished games progress:

de Blob 2: Finished with 845 of 1000 achievement points. An excellent help to the overall standing of my score's percentage. I want to go back and pick up the remaining points, but that requires replaying each chapter's storymode so that is several hours of time consumption that might be better spent finishing other games. Really enjoyed this game, though.

007 Blood Stone: Gathered 425 of 1000 gamerscore. Kinda dull shooter, only tried one game online.

Call of Duty Black Ops: 325 of 1300 achievement points, 25%. This is the only Call Of Duty single player game I've yet to complete, and I pretty much had to force myself to do it. I found it rather uninteresting and it long overstayed its welcome.

Blue Dragon: 795 out of 1000 gamerpoints. It only took me about 3 years and over 100 hours, but I beat the game with the majority of the achievements. Other than 20 hours or so of level grinding at the end, I enjoyed this JRPG.

A Kingdom For Keflings: 180 of 200 gamerscore, for 90%. I forgot about this game. All I had left to do was the castle for a quick completion.

Beyond Good and Evil: 200 of 200 achievement points. This was a game I never got around to completing on the original Xbox (hence the eventual need to make a resolution to finish more games). Glad I finally got around to it.

Mortal Kombat (2011): 220 of 1000 gamerscore. Rented this one and enjoyed the story mode, as it explained the history and relationships of the characters in a very comprehensive way. I'll definitely buy this when it hits $20.

Wallace & Gromit Episode 1: 155 out of 200 achievement points, for about 77%. I was initially put off by the non-authentic voice for Wallace. But it still was enjoyable, and I'll get the other episodes whenever they go on sale.

Star Wars The Force Unleashed 2: 470 of 1200, for 39%. An entertaining game for the most part, aside from the overlong boss fight stages. Might playthrough again to pick up some more points.

Guitar Hero World Tour: 275 out of 1000 gamerscore. I had difficulty with 3 songs, but I managed to beat the guitar career on hard. Yay me.

Overall, I managed to get 48% of the total achievements for those completed games. That help boost my total percentage to just over 26%. I'll have to keep up the pace to hit 35% by the end of the year. I'm game!

Gaming Resolution 2011: March Recap

March was a productive gaming month!

My gamerscore reached 81,160, an increase of 3,690 from February's total. That's keeping with the 100-points a day average, with a few hundred extra points on top.

I also completed 7 games, bringing me to 39 left towards my year-end goal. Unfortunately, only 2 of those games were ones I had started before this year. So while they're really helping out in my totals, they're dragging down my overall percentage goal. Well, not so much dragging it down, since I'm earning enough points to cover their entrance into the project, but they are slowing down progress as they keep me from increasing existing percentages much. My gamerscore percentage stands at 25% at this time.

Here's the individual games break down:

Dragon Age: Origins - finished with 930 of 1750, for a good 53% completion. I have yet to play the Dragon Age Awakenings add-on, though I am eager to. I'm also eager to replay the whole game, with a different class to see how much it changes.

Dragon Age 2 - 765 out of 1130, a solid two-thirds of available points. I want to replay this game after a second play through of Origins, but I will wait until more dlc comes out and for the first dlc to go on sale.

Homefront - finishing this game game me a pathetic 150 out of 1000, for a lousy 15%. Should I have expected more points for my 3 hour investment? Would have been nice.

Ghostbusters: Sanctum of Slime - 130 of 200, 65%. Another short game, though slightly longer than Homefront. Too bad the percentages don't average out between them.

Naughty Bear - 500 out of 1250 gamerscore, a decent 40% completion. I'll probably try to find time to squeeze out a few more achievements from this one. It's strangely addictive once you get past the sometimes cheap presentation.

Bulletstorm - 480 of 1000 points, a solid 48%. I want to try this again on a higher difficulty, but I cringe thinking about a couple of chapters that gave me problems on normal.

Crysis 2 - 450 of 1000, a well-enjoyed 45 percent. Even now I'm wondering if I could play through this again on the highest difficulty and still have as much fun with the game.

Another aspect of my goal, the written reviews... I've actually made some progress on that note. I've written up a review of 3 XBLA games (including Bejeweled Blitz and Full House Poker, two games I haven't documented as "completed" because of the lack of a storyline to finish) over at my cheapassgamer.com blog (http://www.cheapassgamer.com/forums/blog.php?u=51731). I'm preparing to post more reviews, but I'm working to get screen captures... but my capture equipment is old, I'm not sure the picture quality will stand up well.

So, I hope to improve my old game/new game completion ratio for next month. There's not too many new games that look all that compelling coming out this month(besides Portal 2!), but I've got a stack of games I've started this year I want to complete. And new is usually more exciting than old, ya know. We'll see how it turns out. Stay tuned!

Gaming Resoltions 2011 Update - Top O' The March

Wow, February was not very productive for me.

Not only did I fail to get much gaming accomplished, but I majorly failed in updating this blog about my failing.

Putting bygones behind me, let's see where I stand.

My gamerscore stands at 77,470. That is up only 1745 since my last blog update a month ago. For the month, that puts me about 1000 points behind my established goal of "about 100 points a day". Thankfully, the very productive January I had more than balances out the total.

However, I only finished 3 games during the month of February. That leaves me with 46 to finish over the next 10 months.

I completed Doritos Crash Course, with 70 out of 200 gamerscore; hitting the 35% goal.

I completed Plants Vs Zombies, with 125 out of 200 gamerscore; a very solid 62%.

And I completed Marvel Super Hero Squad The Infinity Gauntlet, with 600 out of 1375 gamerscore; a helpful 43%, not bad for such a short game... too bad it wasn't much fun.

I suppose I could claim to have "beaten" Bejeweled Blitz Live, since you just play 1 minute rounds over and over. I did surpass the 35% gamerscore goal for the game, but I'll wait until I get the "level 50" achievement to call it complete.

My big misstep this month was the number of new games I started that I've yet to complete. Bulletstorm, You Don't Know Jack, Marvel Vs Capcom 3, Zuma, Two Worlds 2, Sonic & Knuckles, Sonic The Hedgehog 3, and Deadliest Warrior. I purposely play games in short burst and play a variety of games each day to avoid getting frustrated or burnt out on a single game. But, as I've mentioned before, this is what leads me to having so many unfinished games.

I'll need to crack down this month and get back on track finishing games and improving my gamerscore average. It will be difficult, as there are a lot of new games I'm very interested in... in fact, Beyond Good And Evil HD comes out today! I can't wait to see if I remember how to play it!

Oh, and yes, I've also failed at my promise to write reviews for every game I finish. Haven't completed a written review all year. That's about as much as I can fail at that, right? Stay tuned to find out!

Gaming Goals 2011 - January Wrap-Up

My Xbox Gamerscore stands at 75,725.

That's a total increase of 5,165 since I began working towards a goal just more a month ago.

I've completed the main portion of ten games. I need to only complete 49 more in the next 11 months to hit my goal of 150 by year's end. I'm on a good pace so far.

Three of those completed games were ones I began after the new year started. I've started four others (Deathspank, Plants Vs Zombie, Blood Stone and Crash Course) that I've yet to finish. Can I complete every Xbox game I begin this year? That's not an official goal, but it would be quite an accomplishment for me and might prove that I'm capable of actually finishing projects.

What I'm not doing so well with, is writing reviews. I'm waaaaaay behind on that. "One down, Nine to go" isn't very encouraging. I'll have to work on that.

Is it monumental to note I've played exactly 360 games on my 360?