NHL 08 Compreet-o!!!

In between having enjoyable sessions of learning about the "world of magic" with LEGO Harry Potter: Years 1-4 and the "world of Dracula" with Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, I've been able to get a few sessions in of NHL 08 with someone I could actually tolerate boosting with.  Even though our first try was unsuccessful, tonight we happened to hit it just right on our first game and get the Penalty Shot Hero achievement.  That was a great burden off my shoulders, considering that the servers were supposed to go down sometime tomorrow and I wouldn't have been able to do it as easily offline (read: post from Shauna about NHL 08).  So I will probably play a little more Lego HP tonight and then go to bed feeling relatively accomplished.  Also, on a sadder note, it seems that the moderator achievement on Need for Speed: Prostreet might have become unobtainable within the past few days.  If that's the case, I will be sad....

viral month!

Well, for anyone who cares, there's a little site called Trueachievements that is currently promoting viral achievements through the month of February.  To clarify, viral achievements are those that are passed from one person to another, just by playing together, when one of the players has "contracted" the achievement.  So, anyway, Monday, I was able to play Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock - Xbox 360 and pick that one up, then Grand Theft Auto IV and lastly Brutal Legend.  Through the last two, I wanted to play the games some more, but as always, I don't have enough time, so I'll have to come back to them later...again.  Additionally, last night, I was able to play Need for Speed: Prostreet, then Transformers Revenge of the Fallen, and lastly, Need for Speed: Undercover.  I ended up playing the last one for about an hour after getting the viral, and then got tired of it, so I went back towards the mandated LEGO Harry Potter: Years 1-4.  I think I got most of the way through Year Two at Hogwarts, but got tired after being chased by a giant spider, so that was about the time I decided that I should go to bed.  Maybe I will have some more adventures in wizardry tonight.

Chiming in...

Since Pat seems to be the only one to post here, I figured I'd put my two cents in on what I've been playing, which is sadly admitted as not a lot. I picked up Assassin's Creed again before Christmas and vowed to finish it over the two-week shut down my work had, but alas, I don't think it even got touched again after that. Figures. The one thing I have been playing is the Zumba Fitness game for the Xbox 360 Kinect. I'm using it mostly to start up a fitness routine, less for achievements (at least until Jason decides to actually start playing and catch up to me in achievements). Anyway, the routines are not too difficult to do. I started with the tutorials but grew bored with them quickly after trying for about 10 minutes to get one move correctly. The tutorials here remind me a lot of the tutorials for Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance for the PS2, if you don't get the move right successively, you don't get to move on to the next move, which is a huge PITA. Finally, I said screw it and moved on to the Fitness routine calendar for the twenty minute fitness work out. Twenty minutes has never gone by so fast. The dance routine is not incredibly hard to follow but challenging enough for someone who doesn't know what the heck they are doing. Once you get the patterns, it's easier to follow along and get your score up. My criticisms are few, but notable. Sometimes it's hard to figure out exactly what you're doing wrong during a move in order to make it count for scoring. I think it's partly game mechanics and partly me moving in and out of the 6 to 8 ft range. Also could be due to me not doing the tutorials or reading the instructions ("Bah, let's just get into it. I don't got time for no dangnabit instructions.") The other criticism, and this one is probably the biggest, would be the controls on the Zumba menu with the Kinect. Now I don't know if this is all Kinect games or just this one, but the scrolling interface for navigating through the menus is very touchy and difficult to use. It may just take some getting used to, but still, it should not be that difficult to move from "Edit Player" to "Play Game". Really, for as few options as there are, they could have used static icons instead of making you scroll through them. Other than that, I'd say it was a decent workout game, so far (you know, just being on the Beginner Levels), but more to come.

Next up (eventually): A review of EA Sports Active 2...

Monday already?

Well, I feel like I didn't get to fully accomplish anything this weekend, being hamstrung by EA's desire to shut down servers, still, but on the plus side I did get the last online-only achievement for NHL 08 with my Swiss friend.  Around that, I got to play through the first and part of the second year of LEGO Harry Potter: Years 1-4 as part of a pseudo-mandate from Shauna.  All in all, it's another enjoyable Lego game and also a tolerable Harry Potter experience, since no one talks and its breadth is riddled with hunts for stud and interactive fixtures to unlock the meta-quests.  To wrap up the evening, I got contacted by one of the guys who took part with me in a horrible abortion of a boost session for NHL 08, where it seemed no one could get on the same page and everyone left frustrated, whether they got the achievement or not.  Unfortunately for me, the guy who I was contacted by was more than likely the one who destroyed that session.  So this new session was also taxed by his inability to focus on the game and add to that the fact that we no longer had control of all the player, unlike the previous session, so I went to bed fully exhausted and ungratified by the whole situation.  Add to that the fact that he invited me to his party while he's trying to boost a few other games and wasting my time, and he sits and complains about other people that he's boosted with while also touting himself as a great booster.  I'll try to remember that I don't ever want to bother with him again.  Where's Shauna?  Maybe I can talk her into trying again, since the first attempt went so well. :-P

Shauna...

...hates NHL 08.

non-resolution

Shauna and I, between Friday night and Saturday during the day went through the remaining side quests and other world replays to complete our collection of cards in Deadly Premonition.  Once we were done with all of that, we wrapped up the remaining plot line and we treated to some cut-scenes that not only don't resolve any of the plot line but also instill a bit of aggravation at one of the characters in the game, and probably also York, himself.  Anyway, after that I started another playthrough on the hard difficulty and tried to determine if I should've just replayed chapters to get the difficulty achievements.  I read one place that said I could, online and after the fact, but about 50 that said I could not.  I'm not sure what I trust, but I do think it's pretty crappy to make me say bye-bye to all of my cards and all of my newly unlocked and never initiated special weapons.  I unlocked the light sword (aka lightsaber) and the best I got to use it on was Olivia's car (which does not take damage).  I unlocked the RPG and the best it got used on were some barrels and a tree.  D'oh!  In addition to that, I fell in love with the grass cutter as it was buzzing through shadows and boxes and mannequins like they were all blades of grass.  What joy it would've been to use that through the game for the additional playthroughs, but alas, this game seems to take special care in making things as frustrating as it possibly can.  Curses you, SWERY!  Anyway, it seems that this game is getting plenty of attention as I read that SWERY is going to give a talk on story writing at this year's GDC.  That might be interesting...

Anyway, later last night, I coaxed Jason through Harm's Way and now he only has to get through the single player experience.  After that, I got to play some Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock with him and we found another glitchy achievement.  Oh joy it will be when I have to erase my save game just to get it to unlock, when I get as far as caring about getting it!  After Jason decided that there wasn't enough instant gratification in that minefield, he suggested we play some Rock Revolution because there was plenty of stuff for us to boost.  So, we did some grinding through that until both of us were too tired to tolerate it anymore.  Surprisingly, after turning it off, I got a second wind, as it were, and I went back to playing some more Hasbro Family Game Night.  Being able to grind through games of Connect 4x4 and Jenga really calms the nerves after a day of frustration...

getting it started...

Well, I think that I'll start this up as there's no time like the present and I'm hoping that the first step is the hardest to getting this rolling.  As a side note, I'm going to try and tag all of these blogs with an Amazon link to the games for ease of investigation by interested parties.  If someone happens to buy a game through one of our links, that's just a little more positive reinforcement for keeping this rolling.

Anyway, today I was talking with Shauna and day-dreaming about Deadly Premonition all day.  It's funny to me that we're basically finished with the game and it still seeps into both of our minds.  It probably doesn't help that I was listening to the soundtrack for it for the better half of the day.  Anyone interested in said soundtrack can find some well-prepared version out on the `net, just by searching.  If you're having a hard time, then let me know and I'll try to find and post a link to the place where I found it.  It's also sad, to me, that we can obsess about it so much and then not have the time, with our other plans and TV schedule for this morning.  It'll just have to wait for another day, I guess.  It's not like any citizens of Greenvale are waiting for us...well, maybe no one except Nick.

After arriving at home, this evening, I decided to play some Hasbro Family Game Night while waiting for Shauna to make it back from work.  I think I made a little progress before being interrupted by a guy that was dangling the "Beating Tough Competition" achievement in NHL 08, over my head.  It was go time!  I guess he wasn't too bad beyond a little verbal abuse, since I've heard whispers of people charging MS Points in order to bestow that achievement on others.  Well, one way or the other, it's done now and, hopefully, I won't have to deal with any more games that have their servers being shut down, at least for another year. :-\

Anyway, ran out to do some errands and get dinner with Shauna.  After that, watched TV until 10 and then plugged away on hockey some more.  I feel like the controls on this one are way more complicated than the last time I played, to the point where my created team of atomic supermen were still bested by the mediocre team of Japan.  Sorry Flint Sorcerers (my team's name) maybe next game...