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!
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
Saturday, April 2, 2011
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!
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
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!
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!
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
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?
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?
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
Venetica: Finished
Wrapped up my first playthrough of Venetica.
I had a great time, and only yelled at the game a couple of times.
I'll play through it a couple more times, I'm sure, but for now I'll move on to something else.
I would like to correct my last post, however.
During the final stages, I saw a tip on a loading screen informing me that there is, in fact, an option to have "dynamic shortcuts". Once I turned that on, I was able to pick four skills/powers to assign to each weapon type (and a fifth, always assigned to the B button stayed constant). So that helped a lot.
Still could have used a separate magic wheel, though. I think there are four sills to learn for each weapon... that would have allowed them to be automatically assigned and still grant full access to each power, plus have a quick-use button for a consumable item.
But I digress...
I had a great time, and only yelled at the game a couple of times.
I'll play through it a couple more times, I'm sure, but for now I'll move on to something else.
I would like to correct my last post, however.
During the final stages, I saw a tip on a loading screen informing me that there is, in fact, an option to have "dynamic shortcuts". Once I turned that on, I was able to pick four skills/powers to assign to each weapon type (and a fifth, always assigned to the B button stayed constant). So that helped a lot.
Still could have used a separate magic wheel, though. I think there are four sills to learn for each weapon... that would have allowed them to be automatically assigned and still grant full access to each power, plus have a quick-use button for a consumable item.
But I digress...
Monday, January 17, 2011
Gaming Goals 2011 - Stepping out of the DCU
Well, DC Universe Online turned out to not be the total distraction that I thought it might be.
It's kind of sad, actually. I spent more time installing it than playing it.
The gameplay pretty much epitomizes everything I think of when I think of MMORPGs. You get a fancy, well produced, high quality opening cutscene, and then... lame gameplay. Go beat up 10 of these constantly respawning enemies over there, then go hold down the "O" button over here. No creativity to the missions, no alternative ways to do missions, and your powers don't really matter, because they don't have any bearing on your objectives whatsoever.
It's really disappointing because the created characters you make are really well done, and well animated (though the power skill tree abilities are mostly lame). This could have been an incredible single player game, if they put effort into mission structure, and animations and perhaps even lipsyncing the mouth movements to the horrible voice acting (instead of the Beaker Muppet-mouth-flap. That's one way to make Superman look ridiculous, good job guys.).
DC Universe Online is an example of why these type of games are horrible outdated. Had they made it a 4-player online co-op game, such as Crackdown 2, it could have been great.
Oh, and the trophies are terrible, too. Really first-year developer stuff.
There is one trophy for winning a race with a platinum time. The only race I did, to beat it I needed about 1:30. Platinum time was 1:00. I did it in about 37 seconds, and it wasn't even a great run. There's a trophy for me.
All other trophies are grinding out levels, and replaying the game over and over. Seriously.
Trophies for hitting level 30 with each of the six trainers. There's six playthroughs right there. As long as you diversify your characters, you can get the other half dozen trophies as you grind your way up to that.
And that's it. 14 total trophies. Good thing I'm not resolving to increase my Trophy... score? Collection? I'm not even sure how it's referred to on the PS3. Oh well. Maybe next year.
I just have to figure out how to cancel my DCU subscription so I'm not charged $15 bucks for another month of this.
Back on the Xbox, I had a great week of gaming.
My gamerscore now stands at 74,290.
That's up over 1500 from last week. More than doubled the 100-a-day average that I'm trying to achieve.
And, perhaps more importantly, I finished 5 games last week!
I'm counting Harm's Way as finished. There's not much to that game. Just a three race set and you're done. I did the races as a gunner, because I didn't care for the driving all that much. And I just played single player. My friends played through it months ago, so I'm behind and didn't have people to play it with anyway.
I also finished Splatterhouse, Split/Second, Battlefield Bad Company and Saint's Row.
Did you know Saint's Row has no achievement for finishing the whole storyline? Might as well stop doing missions after you wipe out the rival games. But I was only one escort mission away from completing all the Activities, so I finished that and got plenty of points that way.
Splatterhouse was a new game I started after I began tracking my goal. The ironic thing is, being a new game, it threw off my total score goal, but I earned much more achievement points by game's end than I did with Split/Second or Bad Company.
I ended Split/Second with exactly 35% of its gamerscore, and Bad Company only gave me 30%.
I also started playing Venetica. I'm really enjoying it. It's a $40 title, so I came into it with lowered expectations, but I've already spent 20 hours in it and I like it quite a bit. It's like a budget Fable. It just doesn't set itself up with such lofty goals, and settles for a normal experience.
The worst thing about this game is everything to do with the dialogue! A lot of lines are bad. Subtitles often don't match the line read. Ambient dialogue will be louder than your conversation. The wrong audio will play during a conversation. Characters emoting will change from line to line as if the performance was cobbled together from greatly varying takes, sometimes seeming like they had different voice actors doing the lines.
The only other really bothersome thing (although the inventory is a bit cumbersome, and your quest list isn't good about updating what you've done... but remember: budget title.) is your shortcuts: how you use your skills and powers. You can have 30 or more powers/abilities, but you only have 5 shortcut slots to assign them for use. If you want to use a variety, you'll be playing in the menu a lot during battles. A power wheel, like in Mass Effect, would have been a great benefit here.
You have 4 types of weapons: Sword, Spear, Hammer (or Axe... apparently they're the same "blunt" class) and your magical Moonblade. You have to learn abilities for each of these separately... including block. And then you have to have the correct block ability assigned to a shortcut for the weapon you're using! There's one dodge button, why couldn't they have made a universal block button?
What they really needed to do was make four separate loadouts, one assigned to each weapon type, so as soon as you switch to a different weapon (switching is made easy, with a button to cycle through them or you can assign the control pad for weapon selection) you'd have usable skills ready to go.
But despite all of its flaws, I really like the game. It has sort of a Beyond Good and Evil vibe.
And I'm over the 35% mark with the achievements already!
I have fallen behind on writing reviews, though. Whoops. I'll catch up after I finish Venetica. I'll just have to write 8 reviews this week while I'm playing LittleBigPlanet2.
It's kind of sad, actually. I spent more time installing it than playing it.
The gameplay pretty much epitomizes everything I think of when I think of MMORPGs. You get a fancy, well produced, high quality opening cutscene, and then... lame gameplay. Go beat up 10 of these constantly respawning enemies over there, then go hold down the "O" button over here. No creativity to the missions, no alternative ways to do missions, and your powers don't really matter, because they don't have any bearing on your objectives whatsoever.
It's really disappointing because the created characters you make are really well done, and well animated (though the power skill tree abilities are mostly lame). This could have been an incredible single player game, if they put effort into mission structure, and animations and perhaps even lipsyncing the mouth movements to the horrible voice acting (instead of the Beaker Muppet-mouth-flap. That's one way to make Superman look ridiculous, good job guys.).
DC Universe Online is an example of why these type of games are horrible outdated. Had they made it a 4-player online co-op game, such as Crackdown 2, it could have been great.
Oh, and the trophies are terrible, too. Really first-year developer stuff.
There is one trophy for winning a race with a platinum time. The only race I did, to beat it I needed about 1:30. Platinum time was 1:00. I did it in about 37 seconds, and it wasn't even a great run. There's a trophy for me.
All other trophies are grinding out levels, and replaying the game over and over. Seriously.
Trophies for hitting level 30 with each of the six trainers. There's six playthroughs right there. As long as you diversify your characters, you can get the other half dozen trophies as you grind your way up to that.
And that's it. 14 total trophies. Good thing I'm not resolving to increase my Trophy... score? Collection? I'm not even sure how it's referred to on the PS3. Oh well. Maybe next year.
I just have to figure out how to cancel my DCU subscription so I'm not charged $15 bucks for another month of this.
Back on the Xbox, I had a great week of gaming.
My gamerscore now stands at 74,290.
That's up over 1500 from last week. More than doubled the 100-a-day average that I'm trying to achieve.
And, perhaps more importantly, I finished 5 games last week!
I'm counting Harm's Way as finished. There's not much to that game. Just a three race set and you're done. I did the races as a gunner, because I didn't care for the driving all that much. And I just played single player. My friends played through it months ago, so I'm behind and didn't have people to play it with anyway.
I also finished Splatterhouse, Split/Second, Battlefield Bad Company and Saint's Row.
Did you know Saint's Row has no achievement for finishing the whole storyline? Might as well stop doing missions after you wipe out the rival games. But I was only one escort mission away from completing all the Activities, so I finished that and got plenty of points that way.
Splatterhouse was a new game I started after I began tracking my goal. The ironic thing is, being a new game, it threw off my total score goal, but I earned much more achievement points by game's end than I did with Split/Second or Bad Company.
I ended Split/Second with exactly 35% of its gamerscore, and Bad Company only gave me 30%.
I also started playing Venetica. I'm really enjoying it. It's a $40 title, so I came into it with lowered expectations, but I've already spent 20 hours in it and I like it quite a bit. It's like a budget Fable. It just doesn't set itself up with such lofty goals, and settles for a normal experience.
The worst thing about this game is everything to do with the dialogue! A lot of lines are bad. Subtitles often don't match the line read. Ambient dialogue will be louder than your conversation. The wrong audio will play during a conversation. Characters emoting will change from line to line as if the performance was cobbled together from greatly varying takes, sometimes seeming like they had different voice actors doing the lines.
The only other really bothersome thing (although the inventory is a bit cumbersome, and your quest list isn't good about updating what you've done... but remember: budget title.) is your shortcuts: how you use your skills and powers. You can have 30 or more powers/abilities, but you only have 5 shortcut slots to assign them for use. If you want to use a variety, you'll be playing in the menu a lot during battles. A power wheel, like in Mass Effect, would have been a great benefit here.
You have 4 types of weapons: Sword, Spear, Hammer (or Axe... apparently they're the same "blunt" class) and your magical Moonblade. You have to learn abilities for each of these separately... including block. And then you have to have the correct block ability assigned to a shortcut for the weapon you're using! There's one dodge button, why couldn't they have made a universal block button?
What they really needed to do was make four separate loadouts, one assigned to each weapon type, so as soon as you switch to a different weapon (switching is made easy, with a button to cycle through them or you can assign the control pad for weapon selection) you'd have usable skills ready to go.
But despite all of its flaws, I really like the game. It has sort of a Beyond Good and Evil vibe.
And I'm over the 35% mark with the achievements already!
I have fallen behind on writing reviews, though. Whoops. I'll catch up after I finish Venetica. I'll just have to write 8 reviews this week while I'm playing LittleBigPlanet2.
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
DC Universe Online - So Far
My copy of DC Universe showed up this afternoon, and I eagerly put it my PS3 to get what I knew would be a massive download installed.
I sure didn't think it would take four hours to download two gigs.
It's been four hours!
And it's only 70% complete.
Good thing this game came with the first month free, because it needs it just to install the game!
The entire time, there is a single image on the screen. No music or anything entertaining during these hours. Would it have killed them to have made a slideshow of tips and instructions for you to read while you waited and waited and waited for this time to install?
And I had to delete about 10 GB of stuff off my hard drive to fit this thing. Nearly a quarter of my 80GB hard drive is being used up by this game. And that's if it doesn't ask for even more space later (it already made me add more space three separate times).
I'd like to take this opportunity to point out that I dislike the menu system for the PS3 when it comes to deleting files. I have to go all over to find things. In order to find the file size of each individual item, I have to select options and then information. Then I have to back out of that and then reopen the option menu to select delete.
I don't know what the bulk of my hard drive is filled with, because there is no central memory allotment table to show me how much is being used for what. So I have to pick and choose game saves and data from games I guess I just won't play until I get a bigger hard drive. And unless I writing down these files sizes, I still don't know how much I've freed up, because it doesn't just tell me how much unused space I have. Why is user-friendly so complicated a concept for Sony to grasp?
Also, I don't think my PS3 has been on this long before. And I watched a movie on it right before this mess of an install process began. 9 straight hours. Even when I play long gaming sessions, I'll turn it off my console for an hour or so every five or six hours to get something to eat.
Please don't melt, Playstation. You were expensive.
I sure didn't think it would take four hours to download two gigs.
It's been four hours!
And it's only 70% complete.
Good thing this game came with the first month free, because it needs it just to install the game!
The entire time, there is a single image on the screen. No music or anything entertaining during these hours. Would it have killed them to have made a slideshow of tips and instructions for you to read while you waited and waited and waited for this time to install?
And I had to delete about 10 GB of stuff off my hard drive to fit this thing. Nearly a quarter of my 80GB hard drive is being used up by this game. And that's if it doesn't ask for even more space later (it already made me add more space three separate times).
I'd like to take this opportunity to point out that I dislike the menu system for the PS3 when it comes to deleting files. I have to go all over to find things. In order to find the file size of each individual item, I have to select options and then information. Then I have to back out of that and then reopen the option menu to select delete.
I don't know what the bulk of my hard drive is filled with, because there is no central memory allotment table to show me how much is being used for what. So I have to pick and choose game saves and data from games I guess I just won't play until I get a bigger hard drive. And unless I writing down these files sizes, I still don't know how much I've freed up, because it doesn't just tell me how much unused space I have. Why is user-friendly so complicated a concept for Sony to grasp?
Also, I don't think my PS3 has been on this long before. And I watched a movie on it right before this mess of an install process began. 9 straight hours. Even when I play long gaming sessions, I'll turn it off my console for an hour or so every five or six hours to get something to eat.
Please don't melt, Playstation. You were expensive.
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