Month: March 2008

An unimaginative title for an ordinary week, variety-wise; whilst I mentioned a number of target games in my last post, I managed to play only two of them.

Burnout Paradise pretty much stole my weekend with huge amounts of time spent online trying to get the last few multiplayer achievements. This weekend was also a sponsored weekend of Xbox Live, so I suspect a lot of people who were in the various Paradise games were unfamiliar with good online etiquette. I’m being as nice as I can. Needless to say, after struggling over the course of three hours to share 3 Challenges with various random strangers, I decided to perform as many future Challenges with friends instead. 6 hours on a Sunday morning saw the 250 Challenge Achievement pop up, and lots of goodness for all those who chose to participate. Co-operation really works.

The other focus this week was Kameo. I’ve got a stack of A-Rankings left to acquire, and – having previously A-ed the first level – decided to attempt the second. A little reading indicated that it’s widely regarded to be the hardest of the A-Rankings and, having spent a good number of hours on it, I can see why; there doesn’t appear to be much room for error there. My top score is a touch over 5 million, the target is 15 million – but Kameo‘s somewhat exponential scoring scheme means there’s probably only two or three little mistakes separating those two scores.

Speaking of wacky scoring schemes… Ikaruga should be appearing on XBLA on April 9. Whilst I’ve still got the Gamecube version on The List to complete, I’m sorely tempted to splash my 800pts on this, simply to let The Man know that it’s appreciated. The Achievements look like a bitch, though; I reckon my best rank ever was a B. So: do I buy the game that will be long-term on the list, or just pretend to get the Achievements on the Gamecube version? Decisions, decisions…

Well, after four or five weeks writing about other forms of entertainment, it’s good to be back in the land of the Gaming.

The big news is, of course, my absolute lack of willpower regarding Burnout Paradise. A mere day after vowing that I’d not purchase it until after all my Festival and Fringe hijinks, I made a completely self-fulfilling “deal” with myself that saw me purchase the latest Burnout and a Live Vision camera. Much fun ensued; Paradise is a really lovely game, and completely bereft of all the difficulty spikes that existed in the last iteration I’d played (Burnout 3). Sure, there’s still some broken bits – the Stunt Runs when you’re approaching your Elite license are seriously broken – but it’s mostly bloody good fun, especially when you take it online.

As well as Burnout Paradise, I also gave Undertow a bit of hammer over the last month or so (when I should’ve been writing up Fringe shows). Managed to get a group of like-minded souls together to push through its Ultra difficulty, which managed to be equal parts frustrating and fun. One of our hand-picked band disappeared just as we hit the final level, to be replaced by a young American chap who appeared to be experiencing the game for the first time. Our simple instructions to him – “stay over there, in the corner, and don’t die!” – may have seemed a little abrupt and cruel, but he scored an Achievement out of it and seemed happy with his lot.

Over this (Australian) long weekend, I thought of no better way to celebrate the death and resurrection of JC than to dress my hot young female avatar in a (skimpy) schoolgirl’s uniform and leap about (upskirts, ahoy!) killing Geist. Yes, it was a return to Bullet Witch – the game that just keeps on bringing the disappointment – in a bid to conquer Hell Mode, the hardest difficulty level in the game. The reward for such a monumental task? A solitary 1 GP. Cheeky bastards. Still, it’s been done now – so that’s another game off The List.

I’ve also returned to Perfect Dark Zero – which is most definitely not a shit game, with the exception of Mission 10 – in an attempt to garner some of the points there. I’ve enlisted the help of an English chum for the co-op levels, but he’s a n00b to the game and deserved a bash at the early skill levels. So far, so good – but I’m aware this is a long-term project.

Finally, the only other games I’ve missed were Geometry Wars (which I fired up to see whether I’d magically gained some new, hard-core skills… I had not) and Outrun 2, a real blast from the Xbox past. I really like Outrun 2, but I’m stuck in Mission Mode Stage 8; I can’t, for the life of me, nail that last Single Race. It’s no Ridge Racer 6 – I seem to be fighting drift all the time. More practise required, I think.

So now we’re all caught up. The aim for the next few weeks is to clean up the online elements of Burnout Paradise, continue plodding through PDZ, start working on those A-rankings in Kameo, and satisfying my O/C Needs in Katamari Damacy. And writing a longer post on Bullet Witch, which should be good for a laugh.