Bah Humbug to the Christmas Spirit!

I spent over 10 and 1/2 hours trapped in the the back seat of a pickup truck, feeling sick and listening to nothing but Christmas music on our drive home after Thanksgiving. Needless to say I was done with Christmas long before I finished digesting Thanksgiving dinner. Well, almost. I was a little sick.

Sense then I've tried to get into the Christmas spirit but a single note of a holiday jingle gives me the heaves. People laughing and joyous while I'm struggling to find a parking spot even remotely close to the store I want to go to makes me want to buy a baseball bat and take some practice swings out in the parking lot. I'm already tired of trying to find a specific gift for someone and having to go to six different stores looking for it. Six months ago I could have found that gift anywhere. And don't get me started on wrapping presents. I hate it. I spent a night doing nothing but that and by the end I wanted to step outside my front door and toss those gifts in the general direction of their intended recipients. If they don't make it all the way there? So what. Broken? Who cares. I'm done.

I'm trying hard not to let that Bah Humbug attitude get in the way of anything else, but it's hard. I'm irritable and crabby by the time I come home and no, it's not because it's that time of the month. When I sit down to play video games I don't have the energy or concentration to do anything. If the slightest error/cheap kill/problem comes up I'm out of there. I even pulled a "Pogue" the other night . . . and I was hosting the party. Sorry. I've tried playing several games. Gears 2, Mass Effect, Puzzle Quest 2, Harm's Way, Fable III, the new Doritos game, you name it, I've tried it. I just can't seem to get invested in anything.

It doesn't help my frustration when all I want to do is kill people online and none of my friends are playing. I've tried playing along but it's just not the same . . . and definitely not for someone who's already pissed off. There are too many pricks online who don't care about helping you out or playing like a team. They're only in it for themselves. At least when my friends play that way we all know about it and can compensate as a team for their Rambo style of play. Besides, I miss my friends.

I know it's the holiday seasons and I'm sure there are Christmas parties, family parties and other general meet-and-greets that might be going on that they are participating in. But that doesn't mean I still can't miss them. I also miss my friends who don't have the same games as I do (or vice versa). Some try a game out and don't like, others don't even try. It's hard when the usual group of friends played every night together are now slightly going their own separate ways because of changing tastes in their gaming habits. At least when Star Wars Battlefront was still around we could always go back to a classic. I miss that game.

So I guess if you play with me for the next couple of weeks and I seems a little more pissy than usual, it's just me in the holiday spirit. Don't let that stop you from playing with me (and I'll try not letting that stop me from playing with you). Maybe if some friends played a couple of games with me along with some of our highly entertaining bantar it just might be what I need to get out of my funk and back into the holiday spirit. Or at least a gaming spirit.

I've got a picket fence

I did it! I finally beat the last boss in the expansion pack to Puzzle Quest and got those last 20 pts I needed to get my gamer score to exactly 11,111. I'm so proud of myself. And relieved. It was hard work making sure I didn't play games that might give me some points that I didn't want and then trying to play games to get the points that I did want. I'm exhausted.

Kralon congratulated me on my "picket fence" and I kind of like that idea. They almost look that way don't they? I think metallicorphen asked how long I would leave my score that way. Long enough to blog about it. It's not something I plan on hanging onto for a long time.

I'm also not like some of the people on gaming forums that I frequent that are flipping out because they've picked up an achievement that does not end in a number divisible by 5. They think all achievements should end in either a 5 or a 0. Oh, please. I remember when I started getting achievements in Cloning Clyde and the numbers were all funky. I thought it was brilliant. Sure, anyone can make achievements in nice 5 pts increments. But that's boring and cookie cutter programing. I thought it took real genius for someone to f*#$ with the system and do those funky amounts. And those amounts were what made it possible for me to get my picket fence.

I remember when I first got my Xbox 360 and my gamerscore was in the hundreds. A lot of my friends had scores in the 1,000s. I wanted to break that barrier. I finally did. Then I had to break the 10,000 point barrier. Done that. Now I don't really care. Until this opportunity came along. Could I do it? How much self-control would I have to exercise. I hate exercising. The hardest part was getting that last 20 points. I knew I had achievements I was close to getting, or could get easily, or so I thought. It turned out that last one was a SOB. But I did it so I'm happy.

Now that I have a spot open on my Gamer Goals I've been thinking about what new goal I could add. I thought about a gamer score of 12,345. That might look cool. And it's not far away, only 1,234 points to get. But that would mean I have to "even out" my gamer score to end in a 5. I think picking up the next achievement in Cloning Clyde would do that but right now I'm hopelessly stuck in that game. Not to mention extremely frustrated with it. It's those stupid sheep clones that I can't seem to control that get me every time. Maybe I'll pick a goal unrelated to my gamerscore. I just don't know yet, but I'll take suggestions. Do ya got any?

Gaming Goals

I've decided I'm going to set goals when it comes to my gaming, but I'm not going to call them New Year Resolutions. Why? Partly because I haven't been very good at setting them at the beginning of the year (and finishing them in the year as well). And partly because setting a resolution sounds like you're trying to make yourself do something that's painful or distasteful . . . like a diet. I've decided to call my goals "Gaming Goals" and I can set them any time I like. A "goal" sounds much more pleasant than a "resolution". And it means you're working towards something, not forcing yourself to do something. But maybe that's just me.

For now here are the Gaming Goals I've sent for myself. Their deadline is open-ended unless otherwise stated.

1. Finish Final Fantasy VII (I think this one has made the list for the last three years in a row) by June 15th
2. All achievements in Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga (2), Lego Star Wars II (9), Catan (2), Puzzle Quest (3), and Spyglass Board Games (1)
3. $100,000 bankroll achievement in Texas Hold 'em
4. Get my gamerscore to 11,111 exactly
5. Post on my blog at least 3 times a week (feel free to rag on me about this one if I don't keep it up)
6. Finish Lost Odyssey story
7. Get that pesky achievement in Soltrio Solitaire for winning at all classic games (not including expansion packs) (I forget what the achievement is called)
8. Finish Insane mode with Evil Ric in Gears of War (the first one)
9. Finish that last @#$%! level in Feeding Frenzy
10. Find my Star Wars The Force Unleashed disk (I still have boxes to unpack)

So what do you think? What are your Gaming Goals?

Quest complete . . . or is it?

I finally completed Puzzle Quest. Yeah me! It took me long enough too.

Puzzle Quest was a game I downloaded the demo, played, but didn't really get the point of mixing a puzzle game with an RPG game. When I saw dain playing it, back when we still had a close race with our gamerscores, I just couldn't let him get the jump on me and score 200 points that I couldn't answer to. So I redownloaded the demo and gave it another shot. I liked it enough so I bought it. Then I played it and got hooked.

And that's the problem. Every now and then I get hooked on an Xbox Live Arcade game and I become obsessive about finishing it (i.e. getting all the achievements). It all started with Jewel Quest.

I became obsessed with finishing that game. And once I finished it I liked it so much that I wanted to play it again but without losing any lives on any of the levels. Unfortunately whenever I access my hard drive directly (to move my profile or game saves to a memory card) the game deletes the game save (even if I haven't touched it) so I have to start all over again. I like the game just not that much.

Then I became obsessed with Backgammon. Getting that 10 game winning streak consumed me for days because I was only willing to play one game a night so I would remain sharp. And finding someone to play online with was a chore. After Backgammon it was Carcassonne. Then Catan (I'm still having problems getting dropped from that game). Then Uno (I don't think I'd ever get to 40 wins if it hadn't have been for my friends). And lastly it's been Puzzle Quest.

Now that Puzzle Quest is over (although I'll still play from time to time as I unwind and relax) I need to find another Arcade game to obsess about. I've thought about Boogie Bunnies because I really like it but I think I might want a change of pace. Something a little different.

I've worked somewhat steadily on Luxor 2 and Zuma but only because I can't figure out which one I like best. I've tried to get back into Small Arms and I think I've got some friends that would help me with the online play stuff but I'm just too terrible at that game to ever have the hope of finishing anytime soon. Then there's old favorites like Root Beer Tapper, any of the Pac Man games or Gauntlet. I've played those games many times before so I know what I'm doing.

Or I could start obsessing about card games like Hearts, Spades or Lost Cities. Or stick with Band of Bugs since I miss playing Final Fantasy Tactics Advance and the games are similar. Or there are the racing type games like Mad Tracks or Novadrome. Now Novadrome is one game I'd like to see all my friends play online some time. Or I could finish up Feeding Frenzy, but I think I might want to do that only because my brother kaiakapero has more achievements in that game than I do (and because his four year old probably got those achievements).

And then there are what I like to call the "open maze shooting games" like Crystal Quest, Robotron and Geometry Wars. They're an "open maze" because there are no walls but there are bad guys (or mines) that you have to steer around. And they're shooters because you get to . . . well . . . shoot things in them.

I just don't know what I'm in the mood for. I need something I can turn to when I'm feeling anti-social or just need to unwind after a long day at work or an online match with my friends (Gears can be brutal when team kill in on). Or sometimes I like to have something to play when no one else is online. It gets kind of lonely then and it's nice to have a trusted game to turn to in the loneliness. I could just finish Crystal Quest and then I would have finished the "Quest trifecta" of Jewel Quest, Puzzle Quest and Crystal Quest. Then I suppose I could move on to the "Pac Man trifecta" (Pac Man, Ms. Pac Man and Pac Man CE). I'll take any suggestions you might want to offer. But that doesn't mean I have to follow them, just so you know. My Puzzle Quest-ing days might be over but the "quest" for completing another Xbox Live Arcade game has just begun.

When weird works...

There's weird and then there's weird. And sometimes weird works.

For instance, Puzzle Quest is weird because it's essentially a gem matching game, but it's an RPG game with a story and missions as well. That weird works.

Yet Poker Smash, with is also a "gem matching" game, is also weird, but I'm not entirely sure it works. Yes, it's fun trying to set up a matching straight or flush but other than that it really doesn't have much more to offer the genre than a Jewel Quest or Hexic HD.

Boogie Bunnies is the same way. You match bunnies and they disappear. Try to do that before the bunnies reach the bottom and that's all you need to know to play the game. But those bunnies are just so darn cute that when they get nervous because they're getting too close to the bottom you get nervous for them. And their costumes and signing can be hilarious.

And then there's games like Yaris. Is it an obstacle course, a racing game or a shooter? I don't think anyone knows. That's weird and NOT in a good way.

Some other weird games are Cloning Clyde, Space Giraffe, Lemmings (PSP), and Every Extend Extra Extreme (E4). And then there's Roogoo. It's a recent release on the Xbox Live Marketplace. And trust me when I tell you you've played this game before.

I know what you're thinking. "I've never played this game before. I've never even heard of it before." You might not have heard of it but you've played it. You were probably 1 or 2 years old at the time. The game is really simple to describe. You have to put the differently shaped blocks through the similarly shaped holes. You know, round peg in round hole type of thing. If you go into any toy store you'll probably see several versions of this game available. You also probably out grew the game by the age of two or three. But now that game play is back.

In Roogoo (a weird name you have to admit) you have several platforms suspended under the falling blocks and you can rotate the platforms to line up the holes the way you need them. It's simple gameplay any child could do it, but it's fun and addicting. Maybe because you know a child can do it and you want to prove you're smarter than a child. As you progress in the game it gets more difficult. There are more blocks with more holes to line up, more platforms to manipulate and longer blocks stretched out meaning you have less time to change things before they reach each platform. You should give it a try. It's weird and it works.

One thing I like about the Xbox Live Marketplace is that I can download a trail version of a game and see what it's like before I spend the money (or Microsoft points) to but it. That way if something isn't entertaining or just plain frustrating (Ecco the Dolphin) you're not going to waste your money on something you'll regret later on. It also means you can try some really weird games and discover things you wouldn't normally even consider playing. Because sometimes weird works. Trust me.

My best effort . . . and my worst

I found a site a couple of months ago when I was looking for a way to put my Xbox Live profile graphic on this blog. I still haven't made up my mind about that because I do play other systems besides the Xbox 360. No, really I do.

The site is MyGamerCard.net and it has a really cool feature that I use often. After you sign up you can view a list of all the games you've played. It will show a progress bar for the gamerscore and number of achievements you've earned in that game. It lists your games by "last played" by default (although it might be slow to update some times) but you can switch that to alphabetical A-Z or Z-A. It also has a sorting option to display your games in order of the effort you've put in to them compared to the rest of the registered users of the site. You can sort by Best to Worst or Worst to Best effort.

For instance, if you look at my profile my 'best effort' game is Chromehounds. My gamerscore of 580 out of 1,000 is a 349.06% overachievement above the sites average score of 129.16. Considering how hard this game is to get some of the achievements I can believe that. A score of 720 in Chromehounds is the equivalent of 1,000 in any other game.

Now, let's look at my score in Uno. I've finished the game so I have 200/200 points. But that score is only a 54.97% overachievement above the average (129.06). When they released this option on the site they explained that "finishing" Avatar: Burning Earth and getting those 1,000 gamer points will only give you a 3.75% overachievement score. Why is that? Because everyone is playing that game and getting those easy achievements. Not much effort there.

Hopefully you'll have more games listed with a positive or overachievement rating than games with a negative or underachievement rating. But if you're like me you've dabbled a little bit in a lot of games. I've played a lot of Puzzle Quest recently but my gamerscore of 70 in that game is below the 81.34 average so I have an underachievement rating of 13.94%. And then there's Yaris. A game I've only played 2 or 3 times (hey, it was free) and my gamerscore of 10 points is only just short of the 19.79 average (a 49.47% underachievement).

I do have a lot of games with an underachievement rating of 100% because I haven't scored any achievements in them yet. I've played Bejeweled 2 many times, for long hours, but I still haven't heard that little bleep and seen an achievement pop up. But while my gamerscore of 0 has an underachievement rating of 100% it's not that far below the average score of 25.38.

And then there's Tempest. Based on the fact that no one on the leaderboards has received all the achievements for this game so you can bet this is one game that's hard to get achievements in (whether through gameplay or tough achievements). If you couple the leaderboards with the fact that the average gamerscore for this game from people on the site is only 3.73 points any achievement earned in this game is going to be an overachievement. My score is currently 0 so even if I get just one little 5 point achievement in this game I'll go from 100% underachiever to a 1.34% overachiever. It's not much but my number will go from in the red (underachievement) to green (overachievement).

It's really cool to see what games I'm underachieving in but within an achievement or two or the site's average and then try to play that game in order to get those achievements. I'm only a 1.56% underachiever in Luxor 2 by only .95 gamerpoints. Any achievement there will turn things around. Some of my other marginally underachieving games are Gauntlet, Boom Boom Rocket, Zuma, Joust, Word Puzzle, Tetris Splash, Poker Smash, Ikaruga, and Gears of War. An achievement or two in any of those games would put me on the plus side.

There's a leaderboard where you can look at the leaders overall, by a specific game or by gamerzone (i.e. Pro, recreation, etc.) or other options. You can also check out other people's scores and progress and see what games they've underachieved in and then point that out to them when they start bragging about their game prowess. There's a forum (the only video game forum I can access while at work) and a LiveTracker that lets you see which games registered site users are in at that time. Right now there's 27 in Call of Duty 4, 13 in Gears of War, and 198 in Grand Theft Auto 4 (that's down from the near 400 usually) and a lot of other games.

I picked up 15 points in Solitaire last night and that jumped my overachievement rating from 120.89% to 159.07%. Now you might think I'm crazy and obsessed with achievements or gamerscores . . . okay maybe I am just a little . . . but it's nice to know how my game playing stacks up with everyone else. It use to be the mark of your game playing skills and effort was getting to put three letters in next to your high score at the arcade. Now, it's achievements and gamerscores. And if I'm hoping to break the 10,000 gamerscore point barrier this year knowing where my best efforts are being made is nice. Besides all those negative ratings just make me want to take a day off and turn those negatives into positives. Oh wait, I'm already taking Monday off to play games. Too bad my job can't get me this motivated and productive. Maybe if my job had achievements too.

Beep.

Achievement Unlocked.
Arrived to work on time 5 points

Surprise!

Some times surprises are nice. Other times they miss the mark.

I picked up two achievements yesterday. I'll tell you about the second one first. It was Ogre Slayer in Puzzle Quest. Apparently you get it for defeating on Ogre boss. I wasn't expecting to get the achievement so it was a pleasant surprise when I heard that beep. My immediate reaction was "what did I do" and then the description popped up. It's nice to just play a game because you like it and are having fun when unexpected achievements pop up. I'm not playing the game for the achievements (although I will make sure I get them all) but for the challenges and the game play. Playing that way leaves me free to enjoy what I'm experiencing.

And now to the first achievement I picked up. It was a disappointment in two ways, 1) I knew it was coming, and 2) I earned it a long time ago. I'm talking about the Private First Class achievement in Rainbow 6: Vegas 2. Because this game is a sequel they built in the capability to recognize your save from the previous Vegas game. What that meant for this game was that you probably already achieved the rank of Private First Class so you wouldn't be able to unlock the achievement in the new game. In other words the game was broken. At least this achievement was. They had to make an update for this game so that people could get an achievement they earned a while ago. All I had to do was put the disk in and boot up the game. Achievement unlocked.

I knew the fix was coming after reading about it online. Even if I hadn't planned on playing a few matches with my friends I would have put the game in just to get the achievement I already earned. It was very anticlimactic to hear that beep at the title screen knowing it was for some previous exploits in the game. And frustrating wondering if any other achievements are glitched.

There's nothing more frustrating than knowing you've done something that qualifies for an achievement and you don't get to hear that beep because the achievement is broken. What's the point of having achievements if you can't . . . um, I don't know . . . ACHIEVE them? If you need 100 kills you should get your achievement once you take out that 100th person. Not when you kill 115 people. There are several games with glitched achievements. I try to avoid games like that but I don't avoid the comments people make on forums about them. Their frustration is palatable.

Microsoft did something right but putting achievements in games. Now all the other systems are scrambling to catch up and show off their own rewards system. PS3 is suppose to have trophies and the Nintendo DS is coming out with DGamer stuff starting with the new Chronicles of Naria Prince Caspin game. I don't expect things to be perfect, but developers know what achievements are and how to program thems since they've been around for awhile. So why can't they make them work?

The frustration of a glitchy achievement could be more than the joy of unlocking an unexpected one. It could ruin a gamer's enjoyment of the game. And it could make people decide not to get it in the first place. Now I'm glad the Private First Class achievement was fixed and I got it, don't get me wrong. But my faith in developers who put out unfinished games, broken achievements and glitched games is waning. Playing video games can be expensive (more on that with my poll results in a couple of days) but they should, most importantly, be fun and exciting and full of good surprises not bad ones.

Following in my brother's footsteps

You know when you see something really odd that you just have to stop and check it out. I had that moment a couple of days ago. I saw dain playing Puzzle Quest. And he had achievements in it.

Now I had that game downloaded as a demo and tried to play it once but I just didn't understand it. Was it an RPG or a puzzle game? It was too confusing and I gave up after about 5 minutes. I didn't delete the demo because I thought one day I would take some time to really concentrate on the game and see what it was about before I officially and permanently threw in the towel.

So what's so strange about dain playing Puzzle Quest, and that he had achievements in it? Maybe because I don't think dain is much of a puzzle gamer. I've tried to get him to play Jewel Quest, but he's never seemed interested. He says he's played Hexic, but he seemed reluctant to admit that. Is this a guy thing? I don't think so.

What I do know is that he does like what I'll call "outfitting games". Games where you can change the outfitting of a character or vehicle to fight a certain way in a battle. He loves building hounds in Chromehounds. I can't tell you how many matches we had to sit and wait for him to "tweak" his hound for just a little more speed, or more ammo, or more range. He's got a hound for every occasion but he doesn't keep them for very long because he likes to fiddle with them. Even the ones that work for him. Outfitting a character is the same thing. Every time we start a Rainbow 6 match I have to stop and look at dain to see what he's changed on his character this time. It might only be his weapons, but it usually is his hat, or armor or maybe some new tattoos. It really doesn't surprise me that he likes to do this. As he was growing up he always liked to rearrange his bedroom every couple of months it seemed. He might not have liked to clean it but boy did he like to rearrange it.

Dain's also a thinker. He likes games where he can think and plan. Carcassone and Catan are good Arcade games for that. And the Rainbow 6 games suit him better than Call of Duty type games. He'll sit and wait. Thinking and strategizing about the enemy's moves. Last night I think he was always the last one left alive in our terrorist hunt missions. He's patient. And while he's patient, he's thinking.

So when I saw dain playing Puzzle Quest I thought it was a demo like what I had. When I realized he was earning achievements (I'm not worried about him passing me any time soon - hee hee) I figured there must be something in the game that appealed to him. I figured if he liked it I should give it another try. I played the demo again and it was a little better the second time (partly because I stopped to read the instructions and hints). So I decided to follow in his footstep and download the full game. I was surprised to find it was 1,200 ms points. That's pretty steep. I had points to spare so I unlocked the full game and started playing.

At first I was still hung up on the the 'is it an RPG or puzzle game' that got me the first time. Once I figured out how to battle and plan what I'm going to do instead of just moving same colored shapes around I started to like it. The more I've played it the move I've liked it. The dialogue scenes between missions still annoy me some what because their jarring to the flow of game play. But I can see why dain would like the game.

You have to think about your moves. What's the best one for you? What move would you make that might give your enemy an advantage? What move could hurt him? For me I just want to play. Like I want to run into a room guns a blazin'. Dain, on the other hand, will sit outside the doorway and repeatedly peek into the room picking off anyone he see. He's a sneaky little devil that way. Give him something to think about or outfit for a battle and he's a much better player than I ever could be.

I'm not one of those people who only like a certain type of game and I'm not going to try anything else, thank you very much. I like trying new things, but only if I trust the judgement from the person who recommends it to me. He might not have recommended Puzzle Quest to me personally, but looking through his recently played games and seeing him play it is enough for me. When it comes to trying new games I trust my brother dain. So I'm glad I followed in his footsteps with Puzzle Quest. Now if he'll just trust on on Jewel Quest we can call it even.