Thursday, May 12, 2011

So what's the target?

I've been chipping away at a few old games recently, with the overall goal of improving my completion percentage as well as clearing the decks of a few games and creating some much needed space.

The thought occured today about what my overall goal would be, as I'd never really stopped to think about it. At the moment I have nearly 92% completion without DLC or nearly 91% with DLC, so fairly close really as I do tend to pick up all available DLC when I can. With that in mind it should be reasonable to expect a figure of at least 95% to be well within reach, as I can think of at least five games off the top of my head that are sat on my tag with less than 150 points unlocked.

In order to get there I will probably have to complete at least another five - ten games on my list and I'm aiming to do just that. Currently I'm still working on WSC 11, C&C 3 Kanes Wrath and Battlefield 2. All of which should see me creep up at least another half a percent. Then I may do some of the easier stuff I have lying around like Fairytale Fights, Lost Planet, Lego Star Wars and the like. These games should give up a bunch of simple points, though will also take plenty of time to complete in their own right as well. Choices, choices.

In positive news I did fianlly manage to hit 500 games played on Battlefield 2, so purely have single player stuff to focus on in future. I've also maxed out the multiplayer in WSC 11 as well, which is annoying really as if my game save hadn't been corrupted I would have the full 1k by now pretty much. Instead I will have to slog through the career a second time to get this done. Same goes for C&C with only the rather tedious Kane's Challenge tasks needing my attention. All of which are major time sinks. Perhaps I need to fall back on something nice and easy to tide me over?

Monday, May 09, 2011

A busy month

It has been another busy month both personally and gaming wise, hence my recent drought of blog posts. Though considering the current dearth of gaming blogs that I regularly follow then it appears that I'm not the only one.

I had actually toyed with the idea of moving my whole blog over to Wordpress as that would give me a more direct web address as well as a more professional layout. The main reasoning behind such a move was my increased interest in the blogs of full time gaming writers and the fact that a well done blog can generate a lot more publicity and interest.

For now though I'm more than happy staying where I am, as the initial phase of moving my work and formatting things just how I want them to be is likely to be a touch time consuming and I really do not have much spare time at the moment.

The main reason is the fact that I'm currently house hunting with my lovely wife, and we have spent the last week tidying our property and boxing up as much stuff as we could do without. You just do not realise how much crap you have around the house until you get around to cleaning and moving it all - honestly the amount of stuff that we have thrown away or donated is ridiculous.

Luckily I managed to keep all of my gaming gear present and correct so I've been able to chip away at a few games in the mean time.

My project of clearing up old games was helped by an event on Phantasy Star Universe that basically meant you can beat the hardest online boss at any level (if you have help). So I managed to get all 250 online points in a few hours, and then spend a few more hours helping a friend do the exact same thing. Nice and easy, and certainly easier than having to grind up to level 90 for the same thing. Yay!

I also went back to Battlefield 2 in a bid to polish off the online aspect of the game. I've managed to snag everything now barring 500 games played. Luckily I can chip away at those in clan matches with two consoles, which take a couple of minutes each as opposed to a full match of 20 minutes a time. At the moment I'm at 345 games played so hopefully I can have it done with by the end of the week. Then I can start with the single player stuff and see how I go.

In other, rage related, news it turns out that WSC 11 has a pretty major glitch. As it turns out that the game will sometimes be unable to find your save - which doesn't seem that bad until you realise that it will render said save unusable in the process. I lost two weeks work in this way and now have to basically start from scratch, backing up my save to a USB stick after every game just in case. To say I was pissed off when this happened is an understatement, as I was only two tournaments away from 100% completion of the single player aspect of the game.

In light of this tragedy the game has gone on the backburner for now, along with Kane's Wrath, as I've had Thor to review. Suffice it to say that the game is pretty poor, and is the perfect example of a bad movie tie in. Still it was a fairly manageable 1k in terms of points so should appeal to people on that basis alone.

I also went ahead and played the first Portal seeing as I'd overlooked it until now. I loved the game though it was far shorter than I'd expected. Still it was worth it for the ending theme alone. Pure genius.