As might have been evident from last week’s post, life has been consumed by Rez. For a week, it was pretty much all I played, and I’ve got a crippled RezThumb to prove it.
Rez‘s Achievements were perfect for the game, and pretty much matched my definition for 100%-ing the game (as I’d previously managed on both the Dreamcast and the PS2). But I really savoured this one, using the 30 Score Attack runs to explore the alternative graphic and sound filters. The new graphics filters were wacky – Tile ups the challenge mightily, and both Bloom and Glare are distractingly scary when you get to the Area 4 Boss. And, even though I’ve snaffled all 200pts from Rez, it remains on The List – I’m committing myself to 100% Shot Down / Collecting each Area… any less would feel disrespectful.
Also did a little whoring post-Rez – racked up a few kills in Undertow (anyone want to co-op Ultra?), and collected the rest of the DLC Achievements in Gears of War. That’s enough to bump my GamerScore Completion percentage over 90% – something I’m immensely proud of, and yet find pricklingly goady at the same time. But, given my roster of games, getting to 95% is going to be nigh-on impossible… too many points are tied up in ranked Gears, Perfect Dark Zero, and the twin-stick triumvirate of Robotron, MutantStorm, and Geometry Wars.
Also pottered around with the Burnout Paradise demo – lovely stuff, and very reminiscient of the freedom found in Crackdown. So I’ll be picking that up in a month or so.
A little housekeeping: hopefully-regular commenter Aureole mentioned…
I think the point of the GOW multiplayer, like them all really, is to do it with people you know. Of course, I was way more into the co-op than the versus mode, and I think the game is biased towards that. Halo 3 is a multiplayer game served along with a functionless parsley leaf of a single player campaign daintily perched on top.
The first point is spot-on, and the co-op campaign of Gears is truly a wonderful thing. The problem for people checking their GamerCards on a daily basis – like me – is that Gears‘ Achievements are mostly weighted to the Ranked online stuff – which is, frankly, rubbish (as I’ve noted before).
And I’ll also respectfully disagree with Aureole’s dissing of Halo 3‘s single-player campaign – which I found much more engaging than Gears‘ big-men-go-bang “story” ;)
He goes on to say:
BTW: Bioshock is shockingly generous with the points – even the “ultra hard” Brass Balls achievement which turns off the bit of the game that makes you effectively invincible and immortal.
Thanks for that – but ease-of-Achievements wasn’t the thing holding me back from Bioshock – it was the fact that I nearly shit myself playing the demo! I couldn’t subject myself to 20 hours of that! ;)
Alas, this is likely to be the last weekly report for a month or so – my other compulsive habit, the Adelaide Festival & Fringe, kick off soon, so I’ll be tending to my other blog where I write up everything I see. I reckon 90 shows is looking doable this year which, as you may imagine, is going to be a bit of walking and writing. Hopefully, the writing I’ve been doing here will help me slip into the groove a little quicker this year :}
See you in a few weeks!