After last weeks commitment to Achievement whoring, I thought I’d continue and commit one round of Gears of War a day, building up to the release of some more of those shitty online Cheevos… this commitment lasted all of one day.
Stranger’s Wrath: completed a second run through, did a lot of the little side-tinkerings that I didn’t manage the first play-through… these tinkerings mostly involved Clacker abuse. Knocking them all down into the sewers, knocking them into the water, that sort of thing. Anyhoo, Stranger’s Wrath is now crossed off The List.
Halo 3: last week, I felt a sense of dread regarding online Achievements – what happens when players abandon your game-of-interest for the next big thing? So I thought I’d try and knock off my remaining Halo 3 tasklets… only problem being, they were all bloody tricky. Two kills at once with the Spartan Laser? I’ve been lucky to get one – ever – and I’m pretty sure that was someone on my Team.
So – I gave the much-publicised language-filter trick a try. Bang – the first ranked game that came up had five like-minded chaps who organised Achievement scavenging with ruthless efficiency. Within thirty minutes I had my five remaining ranked Achievements, and my eyes were opened to the seedily-perceived world of Boosting. Bloody funny stuff, though – helping other people get their Achievements when they’ve not got a headset to communicate through is certainly an amusing exercise in machinimatic mime.
With the ranked tasks out of the way, I went back and finished the rest of my pending Meta-Game runs… bloody hell, that Cortana level shits me up badly. It’s no Library, that’s for sure. And so came 1000/1000 for Halo 3, but no crossing-off The List yet – my goal is to beat single-player on Legendary. Which has to wait for Halo 2 to be finished on Legendary…
Halo 2: fired this up for the first time in aaaaages to discover that my current checkpoint – Heroic, Gravemind, end of Detention Block – is incredibly badly placed; I’m instantly set upon by those bastard Drones and killed. Try again – dead. Again – dead. Again – and I escape. Tip-toe sniping, I take out the little bastards, then the Elite Guards (who I’d completely forgotten about). Room cleared, I move forward… to be ambushed by more Drones.
Shit.
Start again. 3 more tries to last longer than the opening salvo, take out the Elites, trigger the Drone ambush, run away, snipe, creep into next room. I see some text appear in the top left corner of the screen and, assuming it was the “Checkpoint” text, I save & exit.
It was not the “Checkpoint” text.
Double shit.
Start again. 2 more tries blah blah, take out the Elites blah, go to trigger the Drone ambush… oh poo, where’d this Brute come from? And why is he pummelling me so? And why do my melees, so effective in Halo 3 on Normal, do him no harm? Oh dear, I’m dead. Again.
Sigh. Power down Xbox.
Astropop: two more Achievements. I’ll be glad to see the tail end of this bugger.
Bullet Witch: finished Chaos difficulty. HELL is waiting for me, and then the opportunity to write about the heartbreak that is this game.
Texas Hold’Em: I rue the day I downloaded this for “free”. It will remain the noose around my neck, even when Astropop has gone. As I type this, my 360 is churning away, trying to randomly conjure a Luck Of The Draw Achievement. Sigh.
In other news – no Rez HD, obviously. And Microsoft has seen fit to offer everyone a copy of Undertow for persevering through the Live “difficulties” over the New Year. In general, the response was unfavourable and, given the “joy” I’ve had with the last “free” game, I’m not exactly waiting for the chance to download this freebie.
But I know I will.
Sigh.
How the hell do you get the time for this? I’m 1/3 of the way into Bioshock and I’ve had that since the launch. And I’ve only completed Portal out of the Orange box in a similar time.