This week started off like any other – a bit of Stranger’s Wrath, a few practice games of Geometry Wars and Lumines – but, after a bit of discussion by the members of the Way of the Rodent Leaderboard, I thought it appropriate that I focus on getting my completion percentage up to 85% – especially since I reckon that Rez HD will get a release this week, and I’d be guessing there’ll be some less-than-straightforward tasks in there (something tricky like 100%-ing each level, for example). The 85% target meant that I needed to scrounge up 66 points from my (seemingly) already tapped-out games.
First step: Mutant Storm Empire, with its cheap multiplayer Achievements. I enlist the SO again, who proves to be utterly piss useless and completely unable to process the visual cues of incoming death. We fluke it through to my intended multiplier-whoring spot, only to discover that time-limited levels mean that whoring is not really an option. “Cheap” multiplayer Achievements, indeed.
Next stop: Empire‘s predecessor, Mutant Storm Reloaded. Surprisingly, I manage to snaffle the Black Belt Achievement at first attempt… 30 points. Impressed with the ease of that task, I figured I’d give the Black Belt Grandmaster a bash: I lasted 3 levels. Of 89.
Given my apparent improvement in Reloaded, I thought I’d give the grand-daddy of twin-stick shooters another bash: Robotron: 2084. And lo, my first three games all saw me bump up my high-score; eventually, the High Score Achievement pops up. A day later, a joyous bit of blasting say the Wave 10 toast appears. 30 more points, woohoo!
Looking down my list of games, Astropop stood out – a mere 60 points from the game. A bit of poking around revealed an glitch which relieves the time-pressure of the game somewhat; exploiting that yielded another couple of Achievements, another 40 points… and the job is done, I’ve hit 85% completion on the Xbox 360.
So – the next target is, logically, 90%… but I’m hamstrung by the bastardic Gears of War, with 620 points – nearly half – from multiplayer. I’ve never got on with Gears in multiplayer, and I generally regard ranked Achievements as evil; but then I realise that the “additional content” Achievements are not listed as “ranked”. Cue 2-player local games, and another 90 points… with a further 160 points in the wings.
The best thing about this week, however, was the re-exposure to Robotron. It’s a fantastic game, and really knocks Geometry Wars into a cocked hat… if only because it doesn’t jar when restarting the game. I was also surprised at my apparent improvement in ability – I put this down to the effort I’ve put into with Geommie Wars. My word, this “practice” stuff really pays off!
Next week: hopefully, we’ll see an awesome Rez HD, more Stranger’s Wrath, and (hopefully) the return of Killer7…