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.

Welcome To The Jungle

What is with me and Guns N Roses at the moment? Or perhaps that should be, what's with gaming and the Gunners lately? First we visited Paradise City thanks to the awesome Burnout Paradise and now, personally at least, I'm playing Welcome To The Jungle thanks to my recent purchase of Guitar Hero III.

Yes I have finally jumped on the bandwagon and I'm happy to say that it is good to be here. I have been wanting to play the Guitar Hero games ever since the original released a few years ago and while yes I'm horribly late, I'm thankful that I can finally live out my fantasy of being a rock star. Okay, that last part's not entirely true. The reason I wanted to get my hands on Guitar Hero is because let's face it, it is fun as hell playing some classic and rocking tunes in a video game. I have always been a fan of the music rhythm genre, be it through something like Space Channel 5 (Ulala!) or something small like Boom Boom Rocket. I have always enjoyed the games where you press buttons in time with the music to build up your score among other things. To me, they are simple pick up and play games and I think that is definitely one of the reasons why Guitar Hero is so successful.

Pick up and play accessible gaming, that also poses a challenge to those who like to master their games. Not many games these days have that perfect balance between accessibility and skill mastery, so it is definitely nice to see it in Guitar Hero.

Anyway, I picked up both Guitar Hero II and III for $170 in total, which I thought was quite a decent price. Especially when you consider that JB Hi Fi recently raised their price of GH III alone to $170 after having it on sale for $130.

I have to admit though, I was slightly worried when I first started to play. Why? Well I was finding it hard at first to get used to using the Guitar peripheral that comes with the game. I had played the GH III demo to death using the controller (which also feels weird until you get used to it, I might add) so I thought that using the Guitar would be a breeze. And it is, now at least. The first few songs on the other hand? Not so much. I was missing what were arguably very easy notes to hit and various other stupid little mistakes purely because I was finding it hard to essentially train my fingers into pressing the fret buttons. When using a controller you generally use your thumbs and index fingers, while Guitar Hero requires you to use most of your fingers (if not all in the higher difficulties). It definitely took some getting used to but I am now comfortable enough with it that I can play reasonably consistently.

I have already beaten the easy careers in both games and while that sounds like a very easy thing to do, doing it while getting used to the playing style was certainly harder than I anticipated. I'm now about halfway through the Medium career in GH III and will start GH II's Medium career in the next few days. I keep getting distracted with co-op play though, which I have been playing with Civ every night since I got the two games. He is clearly better than me at the game and he has had a lot more experience than I have (obviously), but even he can't deny that I have improved massively within the 4 or so days that I have been playing. I'm quite proud of it actually, despite it being easy for the experienced GH players who can play on Expert. I aim to also be able to play on Expert eventually as Guitar Hero does seem like a game I can master if I keep at it. Once I get my head around using the Hammer-Ons and Pull-Offs a bit more, I can definitely see me being able to at the very least finish the Hard career.

Random notes after 4am:

- Through The Fire and Flames is nuts! Every one knows this but still, what a crazy song even on easy.

- I still get blown away by Rez every time I fire it up. Such a unique and brilliant game.

- Those blog entries I have in my head that I keep referring to? They are coming. I actually have a notepad file saved now with the random ideas that pop in my head so that I don't forget them so yeah, you will be seeing them in the near future.

- Speaking of entries, I have decided that I will no longer do the 'What Am I Playing?' entries and instead write entries similar to this one. That way if one game is taking up the majority of my time (like GH is at the moment), then I can blog about it while it's fresh on my mind and not when I am trying to balance 2 or more games at once.

- I could have written more about my first week with Guitar Hero, but, I have been watching Firefly lately and another episode is calling me so I'm off to watch it. Brilliant show by the way, sucks that it didn't hang around for long.

What I'm Playing

I originally intended the What I'm Playing entries to be weekly, detailing what I was playing for that week and also offering thoughts on a few things. Obviously, it hasn't been a weekly entry and I apologise for that, but I do still intend on keeping it a regular thing and here's hoping I can find a way to balance my time so that it can be a regular piece.

Anyway, this week I have been playing the following:

Burnout Paradise

Picked this up on Friday night and according to the in-game timer, have already played it for over 25 hours. See what I mean about time getting away from me easily?
Anyway, I have been playing it so much because it's just so damn awesome. Whether it is doing the races, Road Rages, Marked Man challenges or Stunt Runs; Or whether it is mucking around online with friends, Paradise is an absolute blast to play and I look forward to playing it some more in this coming week.

Mass Effect

I have returned to this game after a short break, this time playing through it for the second time. I decided to re-use my character from the first run although this time I'm being a bit more of an arsehole while I go for the Renegade achievement. I'm also going to try some other options in the game but I won't detail them here to save for spoilers. It's still a brilliant game though and it actually feels weird seeing different things happen in the game knowing that it was different the first time.

Undertow

I finished this in Co-Op with my friend a few weeks ago but I am still playing this gradually because I am an achievement whore and only need one achievement to 200/200 the game. The final achievement is 10,000 kills although thankfully it is nowhere near as hard as the 10,000 kills achievement (Seriously...) from Gears of War. I won't be dedicating 8 months of my gaming life to Undertow, put it that way.

Forza 2

I will always be playing this. At least, until either Forza 3 releases or I get a PS3 and Gran Turismo 5. I'm still setting various lap times for various reasons and I am also still playing it online every now and then. I just recently purchased some Microsoft Points too, so next time I fire up the game I will be buying the two DLC tracks - Motegi and Road America - and setting lap times on those as well.

Rez HD

As I mentioned above, I picked up some MS Points recently and there is just no way in hell I was going to pass up on the opportunity to finally play this game. I have been wanting to do so ever since learning about original version and I now finally have the chance to experience it for myself. Awesome times ahead!

In other news, I just recently finished my second play through of BioShock and despite having finished it once, I was still blown away by just how real Rapture feels and how immersive the game is. So expect a post on that (I suppose it was only a matter of time considering this blog is inspired by the game...) in the near future. You can also expect one on Mass Effect, Burnout Paradise and possibly even Rez.

And those are just the posts on particular games...