Two two nine nine nine

Thus stands my Gamerscore. A not so nice and round number no thanks to a couple Xbox Live Arcade games that give out weird number achievements like 4, 6 and 7, etc. Can we keep to 5 as the smallest and go in increments from there please?

Currently enjoying Lego Batman. Those that say it is not much of a leap from Lego Star Wars or Indiana Jones are very mistaken. I found a lot of innovation and change in this game. The puzzles are super easy, it starts at a 10+ age rating, but they are definitely different. The one knock is no Xbox Live co-op, especially with a co-op achievement in the mix. That means I am going to have to work two controllers at once to get it.

It appears I will have no trouble getting to my 24k goal for the end of the year. You know, unless both Xboxes RROD on me.

Twenty-six K plow

Making round Gamerscores is going around. Look what I found tonight when I got home:

As I said before… Amazing!

Twenty K

I magically hit the 20k gamerscore mark early this morning.

Okay, it wasn’t magic at all, but was with a sorta magical game… okay… a game with a small magical component… yeah… anyway, I had just defeated Ninja Gaiden II and was left just 30 points shy of 20k. My choice was simple, but completely ridiculous, get the Mission pack and complete 4 Karma Attack missions for the nice, round 30 I needed. Done and done. (More later on why this was ridiculous.)

Meanwhile, Ed blew past this mark long ago. In fact, that was his goal for the year and he smashed thru it roughly a third of the way in having already added 10k this year alone! He’s going to hit 30k by year end and I’m still going to shoot for my 24k mark.

He might be why I haven’t done one of these in awhile… due to my shame in not keeping pace with the father of two, husband of one, owner of two (might be other way around), full-time office drone and homeowner. I know he sleeps in there somewhere when also not gaming or writing reviews for Avault and posts for The Ed Zone. Amazing.

Ill communication

I just listened to Ill Communication on my way home from work tonight. I left at 9.00p. I realized that it would be a great title for a blog post, so…

I was at work for the second night in a row until 9p, so that’s ill. I have gone just over a month without posting, so that’s ill. If I went a calendar month without a post, that would be ill… therefore, here’s your fluff piece to put a stop to that.

Seriously though, I intimated in the last real post that I’d fill in blanks later, so I guess this is it. I think that blogging during the summer can be a bit tough when you don’t have some regular topic to shout about. I definitely have never had that, so it is here and there. Well, weekends are straight out because the last thing I want is to be in front of a keyboard on a weekend. Weeknights have also been straight out because I have been getting home late most nights and since those are due to work, I have had enough of the keyboard for a day. When not, I want to spend it on the couch in front of the 360 for a game or catch up on summer shows.

Now, I am not complaining about work in any shape or form. I am very much enj... Continue reading »

RRoD roundup

Well, even though it didn’t matter that much, the second go around with Microsoft’s Xbrick 360 replacement program was smoother than the first. For the most part, it was always informative in what was going on and it was certainly a bit faster. That said, I thought I’d post a little wrapup/roundup for the heck of it. I mean, if I end up using it, it will die again and I’ll have a third opportunity to evaluate the process…

Anyway, it didn’t matter as much because I did go out the day after mine died and pick up a newer Arcade model with the Falcon chip and HDMI port. While I don’t think it is any quieter than the older one, it has been nicer with the HDMI, except for the ghosting, but that is only when I turn it off, never in gameplay, and I think that has more to do with now using HDMI over Component cables as I never noticed it prior to that… so, whatevs. This one has a newer DVD drive too, but it seems to spin just as loud as the older, so no change there either. Bottomline, the only difference I have noticed is the HDMI is brighter, but that could just be a need to adjust the TV brightness… which I might have done on... Continue reading »

RRoD

+2

Another one bites the dust.

At first, I thought The Simpsons Game was just glitching when Lisa blew a Saxophone attack and Marge was coming back to health. Then, it froze again on another big, loud event a minute after I started playing again. That was an exploding car. The third time happened about 10 seconds after I fired it up. The fourth power on was greeted with the Red Ring of Death.

Apparently this animal is not in danger of extinction.

Now, the current system was *manufactured* on 2007-08-23, therefore it has the older 90nm Zephyr chipset. It was the replacement for my first Red-ringed 360 last Fall. I have no idea what will be sent back this time, so tomorrow, I am going out to buy a Xbox 360 Arcade system. No, I am not playing GTA IV, I am playing The Simpsons Game (the one that revolves around Marge’s quest against an Itchy and Scratchy game of the same genre ) and Army of Two (with Ed) at the moment, but I am not waiting 3-4 weeks for a replacement given I use mine as a Media Center Extender and unlike last time, there are new shows being recorded that need watching in the living room. (Nice run-on dude.) This is especially true g... Continue reading »

Year in consumables: 2007 games

Time to finish this series off for 2007. The first two parts were music and movies. Also, I just read my 2006 games post and damned if I wasn’t entertained by it. Maybe you should read it (again?)… for added incentive, I make fun of Mookie a little bit.

Speaking of which, I heard via Ed that his 360 finally red-ringed him. (Did we have a pool somewhere about this?) Well, I’m actually sorry to hear that. I thought it was going to beat the odds, but it might have finally succumbed after being subjected to the indignity of the Bee Movie game. I mean, a 360 that thinks it is owned by a man can only take so much girl/kidz games over the course of a lifetime, right?

(I kid ya Mook, you knows I luvs ya!)

Back on track, the good news of the year was Ed got back into the 360 fold and we did a lot of good co-op gaming together. As I referenced in last year’s post, we did play Gears of War together, twice, so that was fun. Insane was… insane, but utlimately beatable. Anyway, that game doesn’t count for this list.

The bad news of the year was my 360 red-ringed me having just broken the 10k Gamerscore boundary. That put me out ... Continue reading »

Fourteen K

Well, I had to do some marathon gaming over my vacation, but I just got over my goal of 14k for the end of the year. Of course, trying to do so while playing Mass Effect will cause you to spend a lot of time getting points, but at least it is fun. I had to bust out Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga today to get 80 points to put me over the edge.

Anyway, both Ed and I busted over the 14k mark for the year, which was about an 11k (or so) increase for the year — probably really 10 months — and that is pretty awesome. Actually, I did it in less than that given I was sans 360 for about two more months due to being red ringed.

So, Ed’s goal is 20k by the end of 2008, which is very doable given what we did this year. I’m setting mine at 24k, which is a bit more aggressive, but then, I don’t have a Wii (or a life for that matter) to take away any time from gaming.

Twelve K

Well, Halo 3 has vaulted both Ed and I over the 12k Gamerscore mark almost three months earlier than our goal. I’m glad I was able to make it given I had no 360 for a month. Pretty cool.

Ed, Jason and I completed the Halo 3 campaign cooperatively on Legendary this past Thursday night. That had me 40 points away from 12k and I picked up the Marathon Man achievement for exactly 40 on Friday. We have now moved on to playing the campaign again with the meta/scoring turned on to complete those achievements.

Shocking

What a weekend!

(Now, what a week too!)

I started writing this post on Monday night, but I got sidetracked by one of the topics, which I will get to in a minute. Funny thing about the post was everything (five things) revolves around the word shock, hence the title shocking. I find it even funnier that an event happened on Tuesday to add a sixth, so the word of the month is now shocking. Anyway, I’m trimming some of the fat since I have more to add on…

I was going to talk further about the Pat’s spying scandal because some of the other information that came out during the weekend (losing draft pick(s)?!, leak of tape, even more penalties if Belichick doesn’t turn over all data), but there is just too much and I am just too sick of it all. Now, don’t we have the Mangenius being accused of something by the Ravens? Oh, and can we stop referring to every scandal as a “Gate”? It was just Watergate. Let it go already! Anyway, I’ll just leave this one as disappointing on many angles, but particularly because it tarnishes, right or wrong, the home town team’s image, history and coach. No matter what, it just sux.

Shock... Continue reading »