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…