Games with Gold Challenge

I didn't make any New Year Resolutions this year.  Why?  I just wasn't feeling it.  With a resolution I was feeling the pressure of "I have to do it" . . . when in reality I rarely do.  So I didn't make any and I felt okay about that for a while.  Around the middle of January a thought occurred to me.  Instead of resolutions, why not a challenge? I had a moment of epiphany and I knew exactly what "challenge" I would undertake.

Every month I download the Games with Gold free games on Xbox . . . unless I have them already (that's happening more often than not nowadays).  Why not play ones of those?  Why not make a challenge out of it?  And so I did.

I've decided to pick one of the free games each month and try playing them.  Maybe even finishing them.  If I did that it would be 12 finishes in a year.  That might be a record for me.  I probably won't record them but I'll play them.

So far I've dabbled in Back to the Future: The Game and Zombi.   I got a little frustrated with Back to the Future because I had to go through and select every response option before I could progress the story.  It was at the Professor's house and you're trying to get the book back from Biff.  Having to go up to your dad and talk to him about 4 times before you could progress things was annoying.  But I'll keep playing.

In Zombi I got out of the training missions and was feeling only so-so confident in my ability to move on.  But it was time to go to bed so when I get back to it I might start all over to refresh my skills and be more confident in my ability to survive.  I am a serial starter after all.

It's an interesting concept for a challenge and I'm curious to see how it all plays out at the end of the year.  I'm not setting it as resolution as I don't want to force myself to do it and feel guilty if I fail.  There is no failure this way . . . just more new games to start playing.

Are you up to the challenge?  Could you pick one free game each month and play it to see what it's like?

More Achievements for me

So I pulled Borderlands 2 out of the tub on Monday and picked up an achievement.  I even played it Tuesday as well, just for fun.  But I wasn’t really in the mood so I didn’t keep it up. 

On Wednesday I decided to pull another game out of the tub and this time I picked Scene It? Box Office Smash!  I was okay with that choice as long as I could find where I put the special controllers for the game.  Yes, I know I could use the standard Xbox controller but those special controllers make it more fun.  It took awhile before I found them and then I figured I should probably get some batteries because who knows how long ago I used them and if the batteries were still good.   Turns out they were.

I had to disconnect my Xbox controller and just use the game controller otherwise it was thinking there were 2 players in the game.  I wasn’t sure if I could navigate the menus with the special controllers but it wasn’t that bad.  I wondered if there was a way to play a regular game with those controllers.  I figure it would have to be a platformer or puzzle type game.  There just isn’t any fine tuning to the movement with those buzzers.

After I got the controller issue figure out, I started a game.  Just a short game; nothing too fancy.  And at the end of the game I got an achievement.  Whoo Hoo!!!  I played another short game and picked up 3 more achievements.  So . . . I played a third game, but sadly I didn’t get any more achievements.  I think I was close to getting one but just missed out on it.

I tired finding an online match but nobody seemed to be playing this game besides me.  Oh well.  I didn’t think I would get those online achievements anyway.

Well, so far I’m 2 for 2 in playing games out of the tub and getting achievements for them.  I’ve picked up almost 100 gamer score in 3 days so getting to 30,000 is very doable.  I’m sitting at 27,662 right now so I only have to get 2,338 more.  I’m sure if I keep this up I might cross 30,000 long before the end of the year.

I figure this success rate isn’t going to last.  I’m going to run in to a game that’s going to take a lot more work to unlock an achievement than what these last two games have done.  Like, I’m on disk 2 for Blue Dragon but I haven’t unlocked an achievement in a very long time.  Maybe that means I’m close, but I really don’t think so.  Most of the achievements in that game seem to be for completing things or maxing things out.  I figure those achievements will pop up closer to the end of the game.

Instead of dipping in to the tub again today I might try playing some Gears of War Judgment.  It’s the free Games with Gold for the first part of April and I downloaded to the game last night.  My Gears of War games are some of my most completed games for achievements.  I’ve got 77%, 93%, 81% and 35% in them (in release order).  Judgment is the lone 35% completion in that group.  I should really try to make that more acceptable since I love the Gears of War franchise, even if I didn’t like how Judgment told its story.  So maybe I’ll stick with that game for awhile and see what achievements I can earn there.

I also added Terraria to my list of Xbox Live Arcade titles.  It was also a Games with Gold freebie.  I had the trail version and played it briefly.  It’s one that I considered buying if/when I had the money and/or time to play it.  At least now I didn’t have to buy it and I can spend my money on other things.  I wonder how easy it is to get achievements in that game.

Games with Gold downloads

Just because I know someone will ask I'm going to tell you which Games with Gold downloads I've got.  Until this month I think I've down loaded all the arcade games.  This month has fighting games and I'm not interested in those.  I've downloaded the full game ones even if I already have the disk for the game.  I did that so I would have the game in my download history just in case something happened to the disk.  I think those games were one of the Fable games (can't remember which one), Civilization Revolution, Gears of War and one of the Assassin's Creed games (can't remember that one either).

The games that I didn't previously own that I downloaded are: Crackdown, Dark Souls, Dead Island, and Hitman Absolution.  I also bought the download version of Red Dead Redemption.  I was thinking of getting that game and the download price was the same as a used copy at Gamestop.  I choose the download.  I was also in the process of pricing Dark Souls when I saw that it was the Games with Gold download.  That saved me some money. 

If you have any of these games and are willing to play with me I'd love to play with you.  Just hit me up with an invite when you see me online.  I'm not on much and I'm not far in any of these games.  Just warning you.