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.

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...