New Year Resolutions

So today's the last day of the year and I'm still questioning whether or not I'll survive the year.  I just can't get rid of this nasty cough.  Oh well.  This cold/mono/whatever has really whipped my ass.  I got sick the week of Thanksgiving and I've been sick ever since, to varying degrees.  It's the cough and extreme tiredness/exhaustion that I'm having the hardest time with.

But the sun keeps coming up and life goes on.  And tomorrow is a new year.

With a new year comes New Year Resolutions.  I make them every year, but I don't always complete them.  Some last almost the whole year.  Some are forgotten or given up on before the end of January.  Either way, I like setting goals.  It's fun and gives me an idea of what I want to accomplish in the next 12 months.

For starters, I have a lot of games.  854 to be exact.  And that doesn't count my PC games, just console games.  I have a really good inventory system.  I kind of have to with all those games.  Of all those games 435 are Xbox, Xbox Arcade or Xbox One games.  Of those 435 I don't have any achievements in 167 of them.  That's 38.39% of games with no gamer score.  So one of my New Year Achievements is to get at least one achievement in all the games I own.  That's a lot of games to play.  I'm pretty sure I won't be able to get an achievement in all of them.  I know, because I've tried in some of those games.  Either way, I'm going to try.

Speaking of gamer score I think I want to get my gamer score at or above 40,000.  I currently have 32,637 and I hope to get a couple more tonight before the new year rings in.  That means I have to get 7,363 in 12 months.  That's an average of 614 points a month.  I think that's very doable.  Especially if I'm going to be playing a lot of games.  I know a lot of people don't care about achievements and gamer score, but I like to see what I've accomplished in the year besides just knowing I spent X amount of time playing video games.  Besides some of those achievements might be hard to get.

I'd also like to complete (i.e. get to the end credits) of 12 games.  That's one a month.  Might be doable, but it will take some effort and planning to achieve.  I'm not sure what those games might be, but I know that a couple of them should be Summoner (PS2), Jedi Outcast (Xbox), Super Mario Sunshine (GameCube) and Final Fantasy VII (PS) since those were the games that started this blog way back on March 2nd, 2007.  That's a long time . . . 8 years exactly . . . and I still haven't finished those games.  I have noticed that since I started my YouTube channel I've finished several games.  That's promising.

The games that I'm the closest to finishing are:
Fable III
Final Fantasy XIII
Gears of War Ultimate Edition
Lost Odyssey
Psychonauts
Rayman Origins
Tomb Raider
Final Fantasy Tactics (PSP)

I think finishing these are doable.  I wonder what other ones I can finish before the end of the year.  Is there any games you'd like me to play and finish?  I'm taking suggestions for my channel and for my New Year Resolutions.  Just name something in the comments and I'll let you know if I've got it.  If not, I might be able to pick it up.  I did get a lot of games through Xbox's sale the last 2 weeks.  Not that I needed more games.  But they were cheap and I video games are so much fun.

Do you have any New Year Resolutions?  If so, let me know in the comments.  Maybe there will be something we can work on together.

Double Fine December

So way back in September when I was filming my videos for October I planned on playing Stacking for the month of December.  You see, Costume Quest was made by Double Fine and Stacking is also a game made by Double Fine.  And there's an achievement in Costume Quest for finding a small nesting doll in a cave and a message pops up about Stacking.  In the Extras section of Stacking there's also reference to Costume Quest.  I knew these two games were done by the same developer, but I didn't know the other game I had planned for December was done by them as well.

I've wanted to go back and play Psychonauts and finish it for a long time.  Since my memory cards were stolen I would have to start over from scratch.  But that was okay because it had been a long time since I played that game. 

Unfortunately, I was playing scary or Halloween games for October (I thought Psychonauts would fit in well, but I didn't have the time for three games that month).  For November I had already planned on playing military themed games in honor of Veteran's Day.  So the earliest I could post videos of Psychonauts would be December.  It didn't really strike me as a "December/Christmas" type of game but I was going to do it anyway.

Unfortunately I got really sick at the end of November (still am) and my ability to shot videos ahead of schedule was pretty much squashed.  When December started I didn't have any videos recorded and I didn't have much of a voice to do so.  But the show must go on, right?

I filmed the  first episode of Stacking and moved on to Psychonauts.  I was filming that episode on Thursday which was the same night the Video Game Awards show was on TV.  While I was playing away apparently there was an announcement that Double Fine is going to crowd fund Psychonauts 2.  Yeah!  Of course I didn't find this out until the next night when I was trying to edit the video and check up on all the news I've missed that week (it's been very busy at work). 

Perfect timing right?  I didn't have this planned out other than to put up videos of Psychonauts in  December because that was the first available month to do so.  And it wasn't until I started filming that I noticed Psychonauts was also made by Double Fine.  So this month is more timely that I had planned and is a Double Fine month of videos for my Youtube channel.  I don't think I could have planned that out any better.

If you want to contribute to the making of Psychonauts 2 (and why wouldn't you) you can check out their fundraising here: Double Fine's Psychonauts 2 funding.  If you want to follow Double Fine on twitter they're at @DoubleFine.  Check them out.  And you can check out my Double Fine videos on my channel here: Pengwenn's Youtube channel