Saturday, September 26, 2015

Double goose eggs, really?

So I was playing a couple of new games recently.  Nothing serious, just trying to dink around in some games to get a feel for them.  And I got a couple of achievements in the process.  But they weren't worth anything.

The first game I tried out was Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes.  It was free to Gold members on Xbox One so I thought I'd give a shot.  It's been a long time since I've played a Metal Gear Solid game.  I've been thinking of trying to play the whole series for my YouTube channel but that would take forever.  Plus there are a couple that I'm missing in order to complete the series.

There was also a couple of achievements highlighted for that game and one of them was to start the game within the time frame that that achievement was active.  So I did.  I started the game and the achievement popped up.  But there was no gamerscore tied to the achievement.  Bummer.

So I put in another game.  One I've played before, but not on an Xbox.  Abe's Oddysee for the original PlayStation was remade for the PlayStation 3 (and probably the PlayStation 4) and was now available for the Xbox One.  It's now called Oddworld: New 'n' Tasty. 

I played this game on the PlayStation and I wondered how it would translate to the Xbox One system and controller.  For starters, it looks stunningly beautiful.  I was blown away with the upgraded graphic and how smooth things were.  So blown away that I pulled a level to open up the floor before I realized that one of the Mudokans I was suppose to rescue was sitting on the trap, scrubbing the floor.  Oops.  Which is exactly the name of an achievement that popped up.  But it also wasn't worth any gamerscore.

What's the point of having "achievements" where you actually have to do something and achieve something if you don't get rewarded for doing it?  I'm not saying turning on a game and pressing the start button is worthy of an achievement, but if you're going to have it in the game, give me something for it.

And I know there's an achievement for rescuing all the Mudokans in a level and that's worth something.  Why can't accidentally killing one be worth something too?  If you give points for doing that you might have gamers actually feel sorry that they failed and got someone killed.  They might try even harder to save everyone the rest of the game.

There were a lot of these types of "no gamer score" or "stupid actions" achievements in the beginning.  Developers weren't sure about achievements and how gamers would react to them.  But hey guys, it's been awhile.  We all know what achievements are and what they mean.  People are obsessed with increasing their gamerscore (present company excluded of course, but you're not buying that are you?).  Developers, you can do better man.

I got both achievements in about 10 minutes of each other and that double dose of goose eggs were enough to turn me off of those games for awhile.  I will play them.  But right now I want to play games that reward me for playing them.  Is that so much to ask.

Friday, September 11, 2015

I'm in Dead Space

I totally forgot something.  I only remembered it as I was playing a game.  I'M IN DEAD SPACE.  At least my name is anyway.  My gamertag is Pengwenn but all my friends call me Peng.  And that name can be found in Dead Space.  And there's an achievement tied to the name and all.  I haven't unlocked it yet, but I'll be sure to let you know when I do.  Here's a little screen shot of Dead Space with Issac lovingly looking at my name that I took from my gameplay.  The video will be up in October for my Halloween/scary month of video games.

Tuesday, September 8, 2015

September YouTube schedule

So, now that Lego Star Wars is complete I can finally focus on some other games.  The problem is I'm not sure exactly which game to focus on.  For completing the story or earning all achievements/trophies.  So for the month of September I'm trying a few games out.

I'll still be playing and posting Rayman Origins.  I think I'm getting close to the end on that one so I want to see it through.  Those videos will continue to be posted on Thursdays.

For Monday's I'm posting some Dark Cloud videos.  This is an old PS2 game that I had almost finished before my stuff got robbed.  I loved the game so I would really like to see if finished (even though there are no achievements or trophies to earn).  This can be a really long game and I don't know if I want to tie up Mondays with this game for a very long time.  We'll see how it goes and if anyone watches those videos and says anything.

For Tuesday's I'm posting Halo videos.  I have a confession to make about Halo.  I've played Halo in the multiplayer a lot, but I've never completed the campaign in any of the Halo games.  So . . . I thought this game might be a good one to keep myself on track and finally finish the campaigns in all the Halo games.  Kind of like what I did with Lego Star Wars.  This too might take a while but at least I can finally say I've played them.  Even though I own all of the versions for the first Halo game I am playing the one in the Master Chief Collection on my Xbox One.  It looks pretty.

On Wednesdays I'm trying out some Prototype 2 from my PS3.  This isn't a game that I would normally pick up and play but it was a free PSN download a while ago and I tried it and liked it.  It's vastly different than any type of game I've played so far.  And while I'm loving the game I'm having a hard time going back to it.  I can't seem to remember the controls and I fumble around trying to do things that came naturally the last time I played it.  I just might need more practice in the game.  This is one I'm not sure if it will be a full play or not.  I'll have to wait and see what people think before I decide.

On Fridays I wanted to do something special, but I couldn't decide what . . . or exactly which game.  I'm going to do "Final Fantasy Fridays" and post videos from Final Fantasy games.  The problem is I can't decide which Final Fantasy game to play.  I like so many of them.  I want to finish FF X-2 because I'm curious about the story because I've finished FF X.  But I was almost finished with FFIX when my stuff was stolen and I REALLY liked that game so I want to finish that game.  Plus, I really like Final Fantasy Tactics and FFVII is a game that started this whole blog so I should really try to finally finish that game.  Maybe I'll rotate and do a different game per month.  We'll see.

As for October, I've got some Halloween inspired games that I'll like to post so anything that I post in September might take a break for awhile.  I hope you don't mind, I'm just trying new things out here.  I'll keep you posted.

Is there any of those games that interest you?  Have you played any of them yourself?  What game would you like to see me play instead of those?  I'll take suggestions.  If I don't have the game I might be willing to go out and get it so I can post videos of it on YouTube.  Just let me know in the comments.  And check out my YouTube channel to watch me play games, die (a lot) and generally make a fool out of myself.  That's me.