Chapter 24: A Total Lack Of Inspiration

- credit Shaymus022

I keep complaining that things have been slow on this blog in the past few weeks. Those days of daily updates have long since disappeared. Partly, I have had other stuff to do (writing scripts, watching How I Met Your Mother). Partly, i'm inherently lazy all the time.

But I think mainly it's because I have a total lack of inspiration to play my 360 right now. Well, that isn't exactly true, I have nothing to play on my 360 that inspires me.

I had a great February where me and Dan bought Saints Row 2 and played through that and all in all it was an awesome game. Then I had Prince of Persia to finish which I really got into towards the end (until that lame ending).

Now, I have nothing I really want to play. I started GTA4 last Thursday and whilst it is a good game, I found Saints Row 2 more fun. Maybe I need to get into it more. Right now i'm on those missions where you're still setting the scene. Niko is beating up Albanians and we get crappy cutscenes at the taxi rank with Borat accents.

I play FIFA09 regularly but there isn't much to report on a blog about that other than when it decided to punk me and pretend it was broken last week.

Looking forward, June will be a great gaming month with Ghostbusters and Arkham Asylum coming out a week apart. Plus it's my 21st and I think i'm going to get a Nintendo DS and be cool like the other 75 million DS owners in the world.

But for now there is a void. I could play Gears of War 1 & 2, since i've never played either game. But I don't want too. I could play one of the million zombie games Dan owns. But zombies are lame. I could play Halo Wars. But then i'd be like my friend Richard who has left behind his social life for playing Rome: Total War or Empire or whatever it is called, i'm not really sure. Plus i'm not a huge fan of those games.

I could buy the new maps for Call of Duty:WaW but right now I can't afford rent, let alone DLC.

I have been lent Beautiful Katamari, (I have placed a review below for you, if you like, click the link and buy it for only a tenner), but after only one play i'm not feeling it yet. I don't know whether it is my kind of game.

So i'm stuck playing Mario Kart (still awesome, will never tire of it) and Crayon Physics Deluxe (google it if you don't know).

I'm going to see what Dan has in his collection later. I'm going to find a new game, hopefully. For now, i'll rant and rave at you at my small little problem. Because it's my blog....and I can.

Chapter 21: XBox, FIFA09, Prince of Persia, A Big Ol' XBox Update...

- credit tomasland

Hey!

Do you remember when this blog was updated daily, the sun shined in the sky and the world was a much better place?

You do?

I know, it was lovely.

Then do you remember the last couple of weeks where the blog was sporadically updated with totally off-topic Unicorn kidknapping videos?

You do?

You hated it?

Well have no fear friends, it is time to put things back on track with this huge XBox360 blog update post.

Hooray!!!

"Hail the conquering hero, na na na na na na" (- credit Aladdin)

So here is my XBox update. Yeux en avant...

So as you can see from my huge achievement post of Friday, I had rather a good time on the XBox last week.

Firstly, I completed Prince of Persia. It took me around 4 hours of Friday to do it, but it is done. It was a struggle, a real struggle. The Fall Out Boy Prince still hadn't learnt from our previous adventures and occasionally decided to leap to certain doom.

Also, the ending is ridiculous. You parkour your way around Persia (which is quite an unstable and rocky land I feel), free all the lands, take on some dragon boss, only to end the game undoing everything you've fought for in the past few hours...by cutting down some trees.

What a dick.

I hate that Prince so much. If Prince of Persia 2 is repeating the first game, I will be pissed.

The good thing was the huge amount of gamerpoints I received. Also, I beat the game in under 12 hours which is good for me and somehow, quite unbelievebly, I got the 100G achievement for being rescued by Elika less than 100 times in the whole game. I don't know how this happened. But it did.

Even better, Dan didn't get this achievement. He whined like a bitch about it, that was fun. The man has around 25,000 gamerpoints but he can't handle my flow.

Yesterday I had a mighty old scare. I wanted to play a game of FIFA09 but the game kept crashing at the loading screen. I feared my XBox version 2 was on it's way out after 6 months. Eventually it fixed itself but i'm still dubious. XBox disk drives seem unstable, and i'm paranoid.

My next game i'm aiming to tackle is GTA4. I've played through it before when I bought it last year. But as I wasn't a Gold member I lost all achievements when I went to ChocRaisin.

Let's hope Niko Bellic doesn't whine nearly as much this time around.

So there is your update.

Oh yeah, I bought a monocle too...then I lost it.

Gutted.

Chapter 19: Achievements of the Week 13-20 March

- credit s3rioussam

So it's a bit late than never, but Friday's regular achievement round-up is here.

It has been a good week for me XBox-wise. I've used gaming to distract me from writing a 9000 word dissertation. But can I beat 270 points, my best so far? I know for sure i've beaten last week's low of 35.

Tomorrow will come a retrospective gaming review. I received good feedback on my Aladdin piece last week.

So without further ado, my achievements:

15/03/2009- Hi Fidelity (Saints Row 2): Found all CDs in Stilwater (15G)

15/03/2009- All-City (Saints Row 2): Found and sprayed all 50 tags in Stilwater(10G)

15/03/2009- Splatster Chief (Saints Row 2): Completed all levels of Septic Avenger(15G)

17/03/2009- Where's My Car? (Saints Row 2): Delivered all the cars to the chop shops (10G)

18/03/2009- Light Seeds Collector (Prince of Persia): Congratulations, you have collected 200 Light Seeds (10G)

18/03/2009- Light Seeds Provider (Prince of Persia): Congratulations, you have collected 300 Light Seeds (10G)

18/03/2009- Throw Master (Prince of Persia): Congratulations, you have mastered throwing enemies (10G)

20/03/2009- Deflect Master (Prince of Persia): Congratulations, you have mastered the art of Deflecting (20G)

20/03/2009- Death of a Concubine (Prince of Persia): Congratulations, you have killed the Concubine (20G)

20/03/2009- Light Seeds Locator (Prince of Persia): Congratulations, you have collected 400 Light Seeds (10G)

20/03/2009- Death of a Warrior King (Prince of Persia): Congratulations, you have killed the Warrior (20G)

20/03/2009- Light Seeds Harvester (Prince of Persia): Congratulations, you have collected 500 Light Seeds (10G)

20/03/2009- Improviser (Prince of Persia): Congratulations, you used the environment to your advantage (10G)

20/03/2009- Climbing to New Heights! (Prince of Persia): Congratulations, you have found the highest place in the world (10G)

20/03/2009- Traitor's End (Prince of Persia): Congratulations, you have killed the Alchemist (20G)

20/03/2009- Light Seeds Hoarder (Prince of Persia): Congratulations, you have collected 600 Light Seeds (10G)

20/03/2009- Now who's the Hunter? (Prince of Persia): Congratulations, you have killed the Hunter (20G)

20/03/2009- Saviour of the City of Light (Prince of Persia): Congratulations, the world has been healed (50G)

20/03/2009- Explorer (Prince of Persia): Congratulations, you have explored the whole land (20G)

20/03/2009- From Darkness…Light! (Prince of Persia): Congratulations, you have reimprisoned Ahriman (30G)

20/03/2009: Speed Demon (Prince of Persia): Congratulations, you finished the game in under 12 hours (10G)

20/03/2009- To be continued… (Prince of Persia): Congratulations, the game is complete..the story has only just begun... (80G)

20/03/2009- Be gentle with her (Prince of Persia): Congratulations, you have been kind to Elika (100G)

These following achievements credit Amy Templeton..not moi:

20/03/2009- Mini Katamari (Beautiful Katamari): You made a katamari over 30cm! (5G)

20/03/2009- Request x 3 (Beautiful Katamari): Completed 3 Requests (5G)

Total Gamerpoints: 530

As you can see, a hugely successful week and a new gamerpoint record! Although if you knew the strife I went through to complete Prince of Persia, you'd be even more respectful of what's gone down this week.

Chapter 10: Prince of Persia Review

As you can see i've decided to drop Roman numerals in my blog titles. Mainly because I don't know 10 onwards. Also, it was a pain.

Anyway, after a week of Mega Drive shenanigans, it's back to XBox matters at hand.

This week's review is Prince of Persia. Now I never played the previous instalments in the series, even though according to Ben Croshaw, the Sands of Time trilogy were the best games on PS2.

I was given this by Dan to play and decided to give it a bash. Now bear in mind, 5 weeks later, Saints Row 2, SFIV and a Mega Drive have disrupted me playing this game properly so i'm about quarter of the way through. So my review is purely on what i've seen so far.

The game plot is something along the lines of evil prisoner is freed, covers the world in black goo and you (Prince of said Persia) and a magical assistant have to go around to each area defeating baddies and making the grass grow once more. Meh, the plot is weak and thin but is enough to get the gaming moving.

Personally, I feel this game is one of those you play when you want to relax, when you can't be bothered with anything too heavy. I think it's the parkour element. You cannot die because when you are about to plummet to certain doom, magic lady pulls you back. So it's casual and easy.

The parkour is good in the game, although sometimes I press the wrong button and the Prince decides to jump onto well...nothing. That's frustrating. Also, sometimes my brain can't work out the simplest of routes from A to B and so the Prince contiunously has to be bailed out of meeting Beezlebub. I can safely say I won't get that achievement for being saved less than 100 times.

The fighting aspect is easy too. Press X, Y and B during a battle and you'll thrust your sword forward, throw Elika at the baddie or throw him in the air and go Ryu on him temporarily. Nothing too it really. The baddies i've fought so far haven't been too challenging, but as I said i'm in the early stages.

Graphically the game is good for 360 and is colourful and vibrant. A problem I do have with the game is that the main character is a dick. He sounds American and speaks like an arrogant dick most of the time. It's annoying. Why you would ever want to play as someone like that is beyond me. Unless the game was Skins and you could play as Cook.

Another problem I have is that after about 20 mins of play I start to get bored. It's all good and well parkouring your way through the levels every now and then. But doing it every time you want to get somewhere gets monotonous. Maybe it's my lack of adventure but I couldn't play this game for hours straight.

Overall, Prince of Persia is a decent game. I think if you're not a fan of the series already, or a fan of parkour, then a rent is probably best. I've been told the game is around 8 hours complete so you could do it in a weekend. I'll continue to play it off and on but it'll never be a game that encaptures me for days on end.

Rating: 7/10

Gamerpoints achieved so far: 160/1000

Chapter VII: Achievements of the Week 20-27 February

Do you remember last week when I spoke of how I wanted to improve the amount of gamerpoints I get each week?

Well I think that dream has died already.

Yes it's Friday and my weekly round-up of the achievements i've unlocked over the past week. Last time around I scored 160 gamerpoints, all exclusively to Saints Row 2. As I haven't played that game nearly enough this week, i'm concerned.

Anyway here we go:

21/02/09- Special Move Master (Street Fighter IV): Perform 100 Special Moves (10G)

21/02/09- Focus Master (Street Fighter IV): Perform 100 successful Focus Attacks (10G)

22/02/09- Light Seeds Finder (Prince of Persia): Congratulations, you have collected 100 Light Seeds (10G)

22/02/09- Fling yourself at it (FIFA09): Score with a diving header in a match (20G)

26/02/09- Crowd Pleasing Master (Street Fighter IV): Perform 10 Personal Actions (10G)

Total Gamerpoints: 60

Rubbish