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.

Playing catch up

Okay, after some disc cleaning and testing it looks like my Assassin's Creed disc is not readable . . . for the first mission anyway.  I borrowed by brothers disc and downloaded the game to my hard drive.  Since then it's been smooth sailing . . . at least for the disc.

My playing style in these free-roaming games is to rob and steal everything I can and make as much mayhem as possible.  Either intentionally or unintentionally.  Well, Assassin's Creed is a game to played completely differently.  You have to walk, not run. Put your head down and be meek, not shove everyone out of your way.  You have to watch out for guards and Courageous Citizens, not kill everyone who gets in your way.  It's hard.

I'm finding myself doing a lot of other things instead.  Like climbing up to roofs and jump . . . or dance around.  Doing the "eagle eye" thing while up there is nice too but it's not showing me very much.  But then again I'm only on my second mission (the first being the training).

I find these types of games enjoyable but I always have a hard time playing them because I don't conform to how the game should be played.  Just the other night I had a Pickpocket side quest pop up.  I was excited.  Finally something up my alley.  But . . . since I knew Assassin's Creed is about stealth and not bludgeoning someone to death I tried to find a nice quiet way to relieve this guy of his throwing knives.  Except I bumped him to hard and he drew his sword (my character's got nothing at this point) and chased after me.  This caused other characters to join in the fight as well.  There was no amount of wall climbing, roof hopping I could do to get away from this guy or anyone who was helping him.  I eventually jumped off a building when my health was low so I'd die.  I wasn't going to give that the satisfaction of killing me.

I spent the rest of the night looking through the strategy guide trying to find tips and hints of how to be cautious, silent, unnoticed and deadly instead of my usual ogre pounding approach.  And I read up on how to deftly remove some knives from their owner's satchel.  Hopefully I can put that in to practice. 

I really want to plan this game.  Everyone says it's a good series and I really want to play some of my older games.  The only achievement I had was the achievement for finishing the training.  And I got that back in November 2007.  I figure it's time to play these older games and see what they're like. 

I'm also trying to play Halo: Anniversary but I'm having a hard time with the checkpoints and dying all the time for what seems like no apparent reason.  I know people have said I should just start playing Halo 3 or Assassin's Creed II, but I like to start at the beginning.  No matter how long ago that was.  I will eventually finish these games.  There might be another generation of consoles out by then, but it will happen.  Of course I'm sure I'll be playing catch up on those systems as well.