Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga = the game from hell

So I've been focusing on finishing up Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga because I'm so close to the end.  I've even put Dark Souls on hold until I can finish Lego SW.  After this last week I was beginning to think that would never happen.

For some reason I had a lot of problem collecting all the blue barrels in Jabba's Palace.  Not all of my failed attempts were due to my stupidity.  Three times my game glitched on me and I got stuck in a room with no way out except a Jawa door that wouldn't let me through.  It was really frustrating to spend four and half minutes just trying to get through a door when I only have 10 minutes to play the level and my game is going "uh oh, not for you".  It's frustrating.  Almost enough to quit the game no matter how close I was to finishing.

But that level has nothing on Into the Deathstar.  That level is a BITCH FROM HELL level!!!!!  I think I tried that level more than 20 times before I even started to get close to finishing it.  The first couple of times I spent 8 out of my 10 minutes just clearing the first area of the 4 Star Destroyers.  It's kind of hard to find and pick up 8 more blue barrels in only 2 minutes.  Impossible is more like it. 

I even got desperate enough to send a message to all my friends that I thought might have the game and be willing to help me out.  I told them I was desperate.  I was hoping that they would come to the aid of a damsel in distress.  While I was waiting for them to respond I opened up my game to strangers.  Big mistake!  I had a someone jump in and he spent the whole time just switching ships.  He never fired his gun.  He never collected a blue barrel.  He did absolutely nothing.  Well . . . not exactly nothing.  He did change his ship every second or two and then tried to fly in whatever opposite direction I was trying to fly in.  Since you share the screen (even over Xbox Live) you can image how well that got along.  I think I had to kick him out of the game 4 or 5 times before I finished the level.  Well, actually I ran out of time to be honest.

After that disastrous experience I changed my settings to set my game to invite only and thought I would give it one more try before giving up on the game entirely.  It turns out I'm glad I gave it another shot.  I was able to finish the level and ended up with just over 2 minutes to spare before time ran out.  I was completely shocked, stunned and utterly bewildered, befuddled and confused.  But also extremely ecstatic and thrilled.  I couldn't believe how close I was to giving up and crying myself to sleep and never playing this game again when the very next play through I beat it with time to spare.  I haven't listened to the audio for that level yet so I hope I don't sound like a complete idiot.  It's just that I've been working on trying to finish that level for almost 2 weeks and I finally did it.  It will be awhile before that video is posted, just don't judge me to badly for my reaction.

Now that my blue barrels were all collected I could focus on the remaining 4 gold bricks I needed in order to get all 160 gold bricks.  I had to do the original Gunship Calvary level, the alternate New Hope level and the Lego City and New Town levels.  I've tried Lego City and New Town before but could never get all 1,000,000 studs before giving up.  It took a couple of attempts for Lego City and I had to pause my own recording of New Town to watch a video online to find out what I was forgetting to do before I could finish New Town.  But all of those are now done.  Unfortunately I'm not done with the game like I thought I would be.

When I got the last gold brick I waited patiently for the achievement to pop up.  It didn't.  I couldn't figure out what I needed to do to get it to pop.  I even went outside the Cantina and built that gold fountain with all the gold bricks.  Nothing.  After the Deathstar blue barrel fiasco I was so furious that my anger went immediately to a cold blue fire.  Bypass the yellow, red and white hot stuff.  I was glowing blue.  If it wasn't so late at night I probably would have gone nuclear too.

I was able to calm down enough to go online and see if anyone else had problems with getting the gold brick achievement to pop.  Turns out lots of people got all gold bricks but didn't have the achievement pop.  Even back to 2011.  I read several posts that said you need to go in to a level and play it with all your 'super Jedi powers' and then the achievement will unlock.  Eh?  The achievement isn't for playing a level (all or which you've already completed in order to get the 160 gold bricks) after you've got all the bricks.  It's for getting all the gold bricks.  Period.  End of achievement.  If you want someone to play with all those 'super Jedi powers' make that a separate achievement, or put it in the description of the achievement that we're required to do.  It's bullshit and it makes no sense.

I haven't gone back in to a level and played it to unlock it because I realized that I'm not actually done with the game like I thought I would be after I got those last 4 gold bricks.  It turns out I forgot about the "Super Story" levels in each movie.  That means I have to play all those levels all over again and finish each move in less than an hour and I think I have to get 100,000 studs as well.  Yeah me!  My completion percentage is somewhere at 97.6% or something and I still have to play through all levels, all movies, all over again.  Someone shot me now.

I don't remember the game being this torturous on the Playstation 2.  My brother and I played and completed both Lego Star Wars games to 100% but I don't remember it being anything like this.  Since we completed this game on PS2 and I had almost completed this game before my stuff got robbed, once I do complete the game it will be for the third time.  And I will never play it again.  If any of my friends want help picking up achievements or collectibles they are going to have to pay up big to get me help them.  Sorry guys.  That's just the way it has to be for me. 

Right now I've got 6 more levels to play and film and then I'm done.  So at least 6 more hours in hell.  Let's hope that it only takes one run through for each of the super stories.  With my luck this hell will keep me sucked in for an additional 6 hours on top of that.  How many levels are there in Dante's Inferno (the book, not the game).  I'm sure Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga has got to be one of them.

I’m really not this organized.

I’ve had several people ask me how I keep track of my games and how I’m doing in them.  It’s not hard and it’s not a secret.  I use an Excel Workbook.

When my brother, dain bramage, and I started playing together we didn’t have very many games.  We would give each other games as gifts if we hadn’t bought that game for ourselves previously.  After a while it got hard to remember who had what game.   We both sat down and created an inventory of every game we owned.  It was just a simple Excel spreadsheet.  One for each system.  We also added a column for “dain owns” on mine and “Pengwenn owns” on his.

Once we did this it was very easy for him to pick the games for our little challenge that started this blog oh so many years ago.  It was also easy to figure out what games to get the other person.  And when I got robbed it was a godsend for filling out those claim forms.  Plus it is an easy way to check off the games I had replaced as I was recovering from the theft.

Here's a snapshot of the first couple games on my Xbox 360 tab.  You can see I haven't play these games very much.  (I did changed my brother's name because I don't call him "dain bramage" in real life but that's what you know him here in my blog world.)

If you have a lot of games (I also have a similar list for my movies) I would highly recommend creating an inventory for said games (or movies).  There’s so many useful things you can do with this information.  You can search for games that are almost complete in their achievements so you can focus on those and finish them off.  If you marked which ones you’ve finished you know what ones you can blog about . . . of help your friends with or recommend something.  It’s also helpful to seeing trends in your game buying.

I went through a “buying only RPG” phase.  Don’t remember what set that off but I have a bunch of games I know I got at around the same time and they’re all RPGs.  Most of them I haven’t even played other than to put it in the machine to make sure the disk will load.  I also went through a “FPS” phase after I got my Xbox 360.  That phase I can point to Gears of War and Call of Duty 4 specifically.

Another way I’ve organized my list is by games with strategy guides.  If I have a guide I’m likely to play the game knowing that if I get stuck I’ve got something handy to help me get unstuck.  But even though I buy the guide for most games I really don’t like to use them unless I’m desperate.  I much prefer to figure things out on my own even if it will give me headache while I’m trying to do so.

I’ve also been able to organize my list by games with no gamer score.   I don’t like seeing games without a gamer score.  There’s just something about that “0” that screams “YOU NEVER PLAY ME” and while that might be true I feel terrible about neglecting one of my games.  There are just so many hours in the day so it’s unavoidable to not getting around to certain games.  But that doesn’t mean I’m not at least thinking about them.  Now that I can isolate which ones they are I can work on playing them and getting some achievements.  It worked for Too Human.  I now have 150 points in that game. 

Until recently I had the games listed alphabetically, but by release dates for collective franchises.  That means that while Assassin’s Creed would list 1-4 first before Brotherhood and Revolution my list was showing them in order of the release date.  That way I could play them in order as they were meant to be played without messing up the timelines.  Unfortunately the last sort I did messed that up and I haven’t gone back and corrected that mash-up.

And speaking of release dates, I have a separate list with the release dates of all the games.  Why?  Because I feel bad for not getting around to playing Batman: Arkahm City, but I feel even worse for not playing Kamino.  Why?  B:AC was released in October 2011 but Kamino was released November 2005.  It was a launch title and I haven’t gotten very far in the game.  That game (among others) have been sitting around longer so I’ve had more time to play them, but haven’t.  But whatever you do don’t get me started on my original Playstation games that I haven’t played.  The number of those un-played games will just spiral me down into depression if I think about that too long.  Again, not enough time in the day.

Despite this fancy, organized spreadsheet I’m not running a well oiled machine here.  I still can’t decide which games to play.  I still play games I’ve finished but can’t get enough of.  I still can’t get to all my older games.  And I still give up to easily when things go south.  

 I’ve been really trying to evaluate any new purchases on a scale of what I’m really dying to play (there’s a spot on my list for those games as well).  Unfortunately I occasionally give in to the hype and buy a game that I had originally planned on passing on.  I won’t mention any name Call of Duty: Ghosts.  I might look organized but I just say “meh” and play whatever I’m in the mood for at that time.

Dusting off the zeros

I've had a really hard time focusing on any particular game.  As much as I psych myself up to play something, as soon as I get stuck or something goes wrong I quit the game and move on to something else.  Which usually isn't gaming related.  I need motivation.  A purpose.  A goal.  Something competitive to get me really juiced up to play something so that I won't bail as soon as things get tough.  So I decided to look through my game list.

After correcting my list to add 4 games that I owned but somehow forgot to add, I realized I had a LOT of games where I haven't earned any achievements.  If I took out the Arcade titles, which were the majority of them, I would still have a bunch with a zero gamer score.  I then narrowed that list down to stand-alone or first in a series games and I still had 17 games on my list.  If I haven't finished the first game in a series I'm not going to play the sequels so those were easy to eliminate. 

After I got this list I went through and wrote them down in order from the one I played the longest time ago to the the more recent.  Oldest to newest based on when/if I've played them.  That list is as follows:

Too Human
Sacred 2: Fallen Angel
Magnacarta 2
The Last Remnant
Jericho
Darksiders
Lost Planet
Rayman Raving Rabbids
Star Ocean
Tales of Vesperia
Enchated Arms
Guitar Hero III
Infinite Undiscovery
Star Wars: Republic Heroes
Dishonored
Dungeon Siege III
Dead Island

Some of those games I've played and tried get achievements in like Rayman, Lost Planet, SW, Dungeon Siege and Dead Island (although I just started playing with one since it's a free DLC game).  I know I've played Guitar Hero several times but I can't believe I haven't gotten any achievements in that game yet.  Oh well.

So last night I decided to play them in that order until I've gotten at least 1 achievement in each game.  And if I like the game enough I'll keep playing it until I've finished . . . . or get stuck and quit. 

I put in Too Human last night and played it for over an hour.  I picked up 6 achievements for 45 points before calling it a night.  I wasn't fairing well against a mini-boss and I couldn't figure out how to beat him.  After dying twice rather quickly I decided to call it a night. 

Now I know what you're thinking.  Here she goes, giving up on another game because it got too hard.  wah wah wah.  That's not the case.  I spent the rest of my evening looking for the strategy guide (which I swear I have) but couldn't find it.  I then spent time trying to find the little insert that came in the game case to see if that would have the command info help that I needed.  And I found it.  Read through it.  And now I'm better prepared to get back in the game.  And yes, I will get back in that game just as soon as I'm done here.

The game was released in 2008 and thankfully they were still packing a manual with the game disc in the case.  Now a days you'll be lucky just to get a slip of paper with the game's title on it.  If that was the case with this game, I probably would have set it aside and moved on.  After all I did get some achievements.  But I actually like this game.  I can go melee or I can go long range.  I just wish there were more chests or things to open.  And things to steal.  Oh well.

So while I could move on to my next older zero game I think I'll stick with Too Human for awhile.  At least until I get super stuck.  But hey, my planned worked.  I'm playing games.  I'm focused.  And I got some achievements.  Of those zero achievements games on the list above, which ones would you like to see me play?  Let me know in the comments.