What a difference.......

A weekend makes.

After going for nearly two months without a completion (pretty much all of September and October) it looked like my goal of 52 completions over the course of the year was going to be nothing but a pipe dream. However, this last weekend may well have just saved it from total extinction.

I managed to polish off CSI on the Wednesday but it was my few days of rest that sealed the deal. On Friday night I set about grinding out the last few matches I needed to play on HAWX 2, in truth I had no idea how long it would take as I had stupidly forgotten to keep track. Thankfully I only had to go through about eight to ten games (I didn't learn my lesson on the counting thing) before it unlocked - even better news was the fact it was a free Live weekend so I didn't even have to use a 48 card for my backup account. Bonus.

After that, Sam suggested I play something new and fun - but I already had a ton of new and unfinished games clogging up my card so I chose a simple arcade game: Comix Zone. It was fun to play for a while but also kind of annoying in places too, it would certainly have been more trouble without the save feature. As it was, I managed to breeze through for the full 200 in a couple of hours for a nice quick completion.

The next day I set about playing through Ben 10, but halfway through I got a message from Omega Deez to say that he had Monopoly Streets if I wanted to play it. Sounded good to me, so I downed tools and popped that into the drive. A couple of hours of grinding later and I had that game done and dusted, plus Omega had gone from zero points to nearly 600 in the same amount of time with just the simple solo stuff to deal with. A nice little earner all around, ha ha!

I then went back to Ben 10 and managed to finish it off at about 3am. It took a little longer than it should as I managed to miss one of the collectables on the Amazon level. I realised at the time and then went back to get it (unlocking the level specific collectable achievement) but then died and forgot to pick it up again. So when I picked up the final collectable on the last level I missed the achievement for getting them all, which was a bit of a WTF? moment. Meaning I had to play through an entire level again to snag the last item, which just so happened to be right at the bloody end - bah! Still another game down.

Probably my most awesome revelation was the fact that you can apparently complete all of the zombies achievements in COD: Black Ops solo (well split screen with a second controller). It may be a little cheap, but there is a way to hide on the war room table on the map FIVE, meaning you can kill zombies with impunity. I had already snagged the Hands Off the Merchandise achievement legit, so this was a way to get those last three in the bag.

It took some time though as my first game saw me stuck between collecting weapons and trying to get the crossbow/knife needed for the other tasks - resulting in me accomplishing neither and dying hideously. After that I focused on getting the Collector achievement out of the way, which was much easier. I had a bit of cash left so though I may as well gamble on the mystery Box and, wouldn't you know it, I got both of the weapons I needed first time. Unfortunately my route onto the table had been destroyed so I had to risk moving my second pad into the open and then reviving him. This worked a treat, but when I went for the crossbow shot I was mauled to death. Cue another restart and a series of frustrating attempts.

I finally got the crossbow and even made it back to the safe spot - but no matter how many times I stuck my partner and how many zombies I killed, there was nothing doing so I called it a night and played some Firefight on Halo Reach. I gave it one last try this morning and finally got it (pro tip: shoot your partner BEFORE he gets downed, I think that might be the kicker). That gave me my fifth completion in just a few days and has me sitting at 46 for the year now (including all of Family Game Night as one title).

However, I have pretty much exhausted all of my 'nearly' complete games, with only Naruto being close to completion at the moment. Once I rent that bad boy then I should have completion 47 so I just need five more in about a month to hit my target. A couple of arcade games could be easily done in a day but I'd like there to be some retail stuff on there too so we shall see what I can plan out.

Talking of Halo Reach - I managed to get 7,000 points from the Slot Machine after one match. Anyone else been so lucky? The most I've had before is a hundred or so, so it came as a bit of a shock to rake in over 8k for one ten minute match. Not that I'm complaining as I'm closing in on my Captain rank which is nice considering I haven't boosted the game at all or even played the campaign. I had a couple of awesome team games last Thursday too, going 15-1 in one match, and 33-8 in another (with 21 Sniper headshot kills). I normally do alright but not amazing, so both of those came as abit of a shock.

Well I still have plenty of games to get back to, so I had better get cracking.