Achievement Unlocked

It has almost been a month since my last Achievement update so it's time for a progress report.

Progress in Mass Effect has slowed quite a lot due to the fact that I'm actually stuck in the game. That is weird for me to say as it implies that I don't know what to do but in this case, I do know what to do I just can't do it. I'm on my third and final (or so I hoped) playthrough of the game and as a result, the difficulty I'm playing on is Insanity. Now Insanity isn't hard as such but due to some mistakes, I think I have gotten myself stuck in a particular section. This section (being vague to avoid spoilers) can't be escaped and must be completed for me to progress and due to having no Medi-Gels left and still being on the lower levels for my characters, I'm finding it extremely hard to get past this point. If I get hurt, I can't heal so I have to be really careful otherwise I will die and due to my low levels my weapons/characters/abilities aren't as strong as they could be and yeah I'm just finding it really difficult. I have two options: keep trying with the hope that I may actually pass it (and have a frustrating experience while I am at it), or, drop the difficulty level down to get past the point and use the playthrough to pick up all remaining achievements except for the Insanity one.

If I take the latter option (which I'm leaning towards) then that will mean I will have to do another playthrough just to get the Insanity achievement. Originally my intentions were to get everything done in three playthroughs, but the idea of a fourth isn't sounding as bad as it could do because really all I would have to do is the main story. So far on this third playthrough though, I have picked up a few of the tech ability achievements so it hasn't been all bad.

I obtained the last two achievements I wanted from the XBLA game Battlestar Galactica and in the end it wasn't as hard as I thought it was going to be. I thought beating Scar without dying was going to be extremely hard but once I learned how he reacted to my moves I worked out a way where I could attack him a fair bit before having to retreat to find health. Once I worked that out it wasn't that hard and I managed to do it within three attempts after that. I also finished playing the 50 matches I needed to for the other achievement so it's nice to finally put this game away and class it as completed. I mean sure I could go for the 5000 kills and really finish it with the 200/200, but honestly I can't be bothered.

On the Guitar Hero side of things I have given up on trying to obtain the achievement you get for completing the career on Hard (or Expert) with the controller which is a shame. Why? Well I came really close to managing it by finishing every song except the very last one, which ironically is called 'One' by Metallica. The majority of the song isn't hard at all and I can hit all of the notes but the end section is another story and is frankly impossible if you ask me. I swear it is physically impossible to press the left trigger button on the controller (the green fret) THAT fast and even with the aid of Star Power, I cannot pass the song. So I have given up and instead begun practising playing on Hard with the guitar which actually ended up being a good thing as I'm definitely a lot better now than what I was. I can't hit all of the notes of a song yet and I'm still confusing my fingers a fair bit, but progress has definitely been made which I am proud of. Continue the progress and hopefully I will reach my goal of being able to finish Expert in both games. I did finish the Guitar Hero II career on Hard actually although that was with the controller...

I have also returned to Rez HD recently and picked up a fair few achievements in that. I have only got two left which are time consuming rather than hard. One is for completing Score Attack 30 times and the other is for finishing a particular version of Direct Assault which doesn't unlock until the other Direct Assaults have been completed (Direct Assault sees you going through the 5 Areas of the game in a row so it's quite a long session each time). The 200/200 is definitely possible for the game though and it is more a case of when rather than if.

Last but not least is of course Grand Theft Auto IV, a game which has given me a fair few achievements. Too many to list here anyway. I think the game's achievements are quite good actually with some easy ones and some more challenging ones. There is the typical collection ones as well for the hidden packages (flying rats) and stunt jumps. I'm sort of annoyed with the idea that there are multiplayer achievements though. I can understand them but the idea of having to rely on other people for achievements seems to misrepresent the idea of the system a little to me but most games have multiplayer achievements so it's something I am used to.

As you can tell I haven't obtained all that many achievements lately (aside from GTA) and that is mostly because I don't really have any new games to play and therefore to obtain achievements in. Still, I am happy with the progress I have made and I should be able to break the 30k barrier in the near future now that I'm playing GTA to death.

Achievement Unlocked

For those that know me (and from a glance of my Gamercard), it is no secret that I am what is now known as an Achievement Whore. The reasons I am one will be explained in the near future but for now, I welcome you to a new series of posts I will be doing here on Raptured Reality.

In 'Achievement Unlocked', I will be talking about the various achievements that I may be trying to obtain, have recently obtained or even what I think on a game's particular achievements as a whole. Basically, it will be a progress report discussing what I have achieved and what I want to achieve and so on. Now that I have explained the series, let's get down to business.

Mass Effect has been taking up the majority of my time lately as I have been working towards all of the achievements for the game. I just recently finished my second playthrough of the game where I picked up the following achievements:

- Asari Ally (finish the majority of the game with Liara)
- Turian Ally (finish majority of the game with Garrus)
- Extreme Power Gamer (level 60)
- Sniper Expert (150 Sniper kills)
- Lift Mastery (Use Lift 75 times)
- Renegade
- Long Service Medal (complete the game twice)
- Distinguished Combat Medal (complete the game on Hardcore)
- Colonial Savior (obtained when finished with the DLC)

I'm now about to start my third and final playthrough of the game where I will be playing through the game on Insanity while working towards the Quarian and Krogan Ally achievements, as well as the many tech achievements that I need. Upon finishing this playthrough the game should be completely finished. I'm pushing 100 hours at the end of my second playthrough so it will be interesting to see how long it does end up taking me.


Another game I have been playing is Battlestar Galactica on the Xbox Live Arcade. I have obtained most of the achievements that I want from the game so now I'm only really working on the one you get for beating Scar. The requirement is to beat him without dying on Medium or Hard difficulty and so far, I have been unsuccessful. It is actually quite hard so I'm not actually sure if I will be able to get it or not just yet but that won't stop me from trying. I have also been slowly playing Team Deathmatch games with a friend to work towards the achievement you get for completing 50 Team Deathmatch games so I should have that soon. One achievement I won't be going for is 5000 kills. That's far too much for an Arcade game I think and I don't think I could play the game for 15 hours or more boosting my kills up until it unlocked.

Last but not least, I'm trying to finish Guitar Hero III's career on the Hard difficulty. I'm actually doing it with the controller (damn chords are a pain in the behind with the controller) so I can also pick up the achievement you get for finishing Hard (or Expert) with it, but as soon as that is done I will start practising Hard using the guitar so that I can finish it with that as well and start 5-starring the songs. Once that is done I will also do the same for Guitar Hero II and then it will be onto Expert...

And that's about it for the moment. Grand Theft Auto IV comes out in a couple of weeks so that game will be added to the list very soon. It will be interesting to see what achievements it has and if it's anything like Crackdown (or indeed the previous GTAs), it will be a game I work on until I get every achievement. I'm fully expecting collectibles to be hidden in Liberty City somewhere and no doubt there will be an achievement for finding them all, so that alone will be quite time consuming. I look forward to it.