1,000 Gamer score challenge completed

I did it!

I took a week off from work and went on vacation July 24th through the 31st and all I did (pretty much) was sit in the hotel room and play video games.  It was great.  I got 3 weeks worth of videos recorded in that week and I made my goal of 1,000 gamer score.

I'm not exactly sure which day I got the achievement that pushed me over the edge.  It was either Wednesday the 27th or Thursday the 28th.  Either way that is a month to get 1,000 gamer score.  If I hadn't have gone on vacation I probably wouldn't have done as well as I did.  I picked up 570 points just in that week alone.  I only needed 140 before I left and I got it.

During that time I played some games just for fun in addition to the ones I've been playing for my YouTube channel.  Below is a list of the games that I played while going for that goal and a list of games that I played while on vacation.

I would love to do that again.  Get away from the house that needs cleaning, the dog that needs to be taken care of and a roommate that is annoying and just play video games.  I've got another week vacation in September but I'm not planning on going anywhere so I'll just have to play games at home.

Even though I played a lot of games (or at least played them for a lot of hours) it really got me excited to play more.  And do other things I love to do.  Like read.  It's been a struggle sometimes to find time to read and I haven't been that in to the books that I was reading.  I don't know if it's a combination of the books I've read lately or this new energy to spend time doing the things I love (the bathroom can wait another day before I clean it right?) but I love reading again.  I've recently read The Magician's Guild by Trudi Canavan and The Scorch Trails by James Dashner.  I'm alternating back and forth between those two series (currently reading The Novice) and once I"m done I think I'll read The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss and start that series.  Now I've just got to find the time to do everything.

Games played to meet goal:
Lego Star Wars: The Force Awakens (Xbox One)
Grand Theft Auto V (Xbox One)
Peggle 2 (Xbox One)
Plants vs. Zombies (Xbox One)
Rayman Legend (Xbox One)
Ancients of Ooga (Xbox Arcade)
Plants vs. Zombies 2 (Xbox One)
Gems of War (Xbox One)
Assault Heroes (Xbox Arcade)
Costume Quest 2 (Xbox Arcade)

Additional Games Played While on Vacation:
Red Dead Redemption (Xbox 360)
Rayman Origins (Xbox 360)


I played Assault Heroes because I was in the mood to play a racing game as I was searching through my games and stumbled upon that one.  I know it's not a racing game, but it is a driving game and it would do (I was too lazy to look through the rest of my games and they are alphabetically).  I was very surprised to get an achievement in that game.

Gems of War is my new Jewel Quest or Puzzle Quest addiction.  They're just games that I play and chill out to.  They don't stress me out and it's easy to get in a match or two before doing other things.  I was playing it on vacation while I was waiting for videos to process and render.  It fit the time perfectly.

I play Rayman Legend when I want to remember how fun playing Rayman Origins used to be.  I haven't been having a lot of fun in that game for awhile.  I'll still make videos in it and finish it, but I can only play a level or two before I start to get really frustrated and want to chuck my controller through the TV.

Ancients of Ooga is a game that I had the trail version for a long time before I bought the full game.  I had tried playing it several times but just wasn't getting what I was suppose to do.  I still liked the game even if I found it frustrating.  I started playing it again for this challenge and for some reason things just clicked this time.  I figured things out and I was able to get through a bunch of level . . . and then I got stuck so I moved on to something else.

I keep trying to play Plants vs Zombies with friends but it never seems to work out.  They're getting offline just when I get online.  I usually end up just messing around in the Backyard stuff before moving on to something else.  I would really like to play some PvZ games with my friends.

Now that I'm pretty far ahead with my videos I have some time to really sink my teeth in to a meaty game.  I think I'm going to play Red Dead Redemption.  I've debated about if I will film the play through or not and I still haven't decided.  If I do it will be very light on the commentary because I just want to play the game and enjoy it.

Have you played any of those games?  How long would it take you to get 1,000 in gamer score?  It took me a month.  I think that's pretty good.  If I do the same time of thing for trophies on my Playstation 3 what do you think my goal should be?  Let me know in the comments.

Completing games makes me Happy!

One of my goals with my YouTube channel was that I wanted to complete more games that I actually was.  Which wasn't a huge goal that was unobtainable since I wasn't completing any games at all.  If I could just complete one game I would have met this goal.  Fortunately for me I haven't completed just one game.  I've completed 6 games . . . so far.

The first game to complete was also a special one because not only was it a "complete to end credits" completion, but also a "earn all achievements" completion.  It was Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga.  (How fitting that is has "complete" in the game title.)  Now, I've played (and completed) that game on Playstation 2 many years ago but I wanted the achievements and the gamer score.  Unfortunately getting robbed put me back to the beginning and I lost all of my progress.  But I did it.  There were levels and tasks that I thought I would never get done right (damn you Blue Barrels on that last mission) but I stuck with it and I'm proud of myself for not giving up.

I've also been able to start AND complete the following games since I started posting videos:

Dead Space
Costume Quest (including DLC)
Valiant Hearts: The Great War
Medal of Honor
Stacking (including DLC)

That's a total of 6 games that I've started AND completed which is about 6 more than I've done in any other year (for the most part).  At least that part of my YouTube channel has been successful.  And to top it off a couple of those games also had DLC that I completed.  They are also smaller games to begin with but it's still a completion to me.  I've got 2 full size "retail" games in there too.

I'm also getting close (I think) to completing  Psychonauts.  I'm not sure how long the game is but based on my psychic level (about 47) I figure I'm about half way through the game.  Unfortunately sickness and allergies have slowed down the time for recording new episodes.  It's kind of hard to play a video game and talk when you're having trouble breathing or you're sniffling all the time because of allergies.  It sucks.

I think if I started filming the 4 games that I'm suppose to complete based on the post that got this blog started, I would get them done this year.  Unfortunately, I've already started those games and they wouldn't be a full play through.  I think some of them would be okay, but I don't think that would be good for Final Fantasy VII.  Everybody loves that game and who would want to watch a partial play through only?  Not me.  But I don't want to start it all over again just to record footage.  I might, but I'm not there yet.

I wish I had more time to play and edit videos.  I think I'd finish more games if I did.  This day job is really getting in the way.  Oh well.  I just have to do the best I can with what I've got.  Which is only a couple of hours each night during the week.  And if I'm editing, I'm not playing.  And if I'm not playing, I'm not finishing games.  It's such a vicious cycle.  I'll take what I can get now and right now I've finished 6 games that I probably wouldn't have done so without keeping a schedule and posting videos on YouTube.  That makes me happy!

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