Well 21 days left in the challenge, and if those 21 days are like the last 8 days – yeah, I’m screwed.  I barely played at all in the last week which is unfortunate.  I did manage to play some though, and I concentrated 100% on Assassins Creed, and late last night I finally beat the game.

In beating the game, I got achievements for the following: Blood of a Liege-Lord(25), Blood of a Ragent(25), Blood of a Scribe(25), Blood of a Teutonic Leader(25), Blood of a Nemesis(25), The Eagle and The Apple – 1191(100) and Vision of the Future(50).

As well as doing that, I picked up Eagles Swiftness for countering over 100 people and killing them, Eagle’s Talon for at least 50 stealth assassinations, Eagles Dance for 50 leaps of faith(which always give my stomach fucking butterflys), Gifted Escapist for diving through merchant stands 20 times, Eagles Will for defeating 100 people in a row without dying, Eagle’s Dive for at least 50 combo kills, Eagles Prey for assassinating 100 guards, March of the Pious for being helped by scholars at least 20 times, and Absolute Symbiosis thanks to a full sync bar.

End result?  675 gamerscore points total to add it to my completed list.  The now updated list:

CURRENT GAMES STILL TO DO:

(Current points in parenthesis)

1. Burnout Revenge (195)
2. Call of Duty 2 (50)
3. Call of Duty 4 (50)
   
4. Gears of War 2 (405)
5. Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter (150)
6. Saints Row 2 (370)
   
7. Tiger Woods 09 (180)

In a perfect world, I can have a huge week this week.  I can beat Saints Row 2, grind Gears of War 2, beat GRAW and also Call of Duty 2 to take the list down to just 3 games.  Of course this isn’t a perfect world, and I’d be lucky to do even 2 of those.

ACHIEVEMENT TARGET HIT:

1. Assassins Creed (675) +490
2. Bioshock (910)
3. Blitz: The League (520)
4. Bully (1000)
5. Burnout Paradise (500)
6. Cars (1000)
7. Civilization: Revolution (525)
8. Crackdown (535)
9. Dark Sector (620)
10. Dead Rising (520)
    
11. Fallout 3 (520)
12. Fight Night Round 3 (1000)
13. Gears of War (520)
14. Kameo (610)
15. Karaoke Revolution: American Idol Encore Edition: (520)
16. King Kong (1000)
17. Lego Batman (575)
18. Lego Indiana Jones (920)
19. Lego Star Wars (900)
20. Madden 2008 (880)
21. Marvel: Ultimate Alliance (830)
22. NBA 2K8 (880)
23. NHL 2008 (575)
24. NHL 2K6 (750)
25. Open Season (1000)
26. Rainbow Six: Vegas (500)
27. Saints Row (500)
28. Scene It (595)
29. Shrek The Third (620)
30. Splinter Cell: Double Agent (550)
31. Stuntman:Ignition (505)
32. Superman Returns (570)
33. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1000)
34. Tetris Evolution: (515)
35. The Darkness (795)
36. The Outfit (655)
37. The Simpsons Game (845)
38. The Spiderwick Chronicles (1000)
39. Tomb Raider: Legend (560)
40. UEFA Euro 2008 (505)
41. WWE: Smackdown vs RAW 2007 (650)

Well after about 3 weeks, I finally got my XBox 360 back.  Technically the challenge would end on December 31st, 2008 however after discussing it with Brando, based on the fact that my XBox 360 has broken twice this year, and been away from me at the repair center for about five weeks in total, we decided to extend the challenge.

Originally, it was going to be extended until the end of January.  However on January 23rd(my birthday!) I’m actually leaving on a trip to Edmonton and various parts of the United Kingdom for 10 days.  As I will be out of the country, and more importantly away from my XBox 360 during that time, I decided the best thing to do was end the challenge on January 22nd, 2009.

That gives me exactly 29 days, including today, to get over 500 gamerscore points in the remaining games on my list.

Since getting my XBox 360 back, I’ve unfortunately not even had much chance to play it.  Being without it for 3 weeks, it’s really hard to get back into the routine of actually playing video games, and often I wonder where I found the time.  However I’m going to have to find the time – because after working on this challenge for a whole year, and being so close to the end, I’d hate to fall at the last fucking hurdle.

I’m a winner, damnit!

Gears of War 2: One of the first things to do when I got my 360 back, was sit down and beat this with Taff.  We beat Gears of War 1 together in co-op, and we agreed it was the most fun we’d ever had together(except for that night of drunken phone sex).  Then the same week Gears of War 2 came out my XBox 360 decided to break, leaving us hanging about halfway through the game.  Taff, a complete dear, decided to wait until I got the XBox 360 back before we played.  We ended up having like a six hour session the 2nd day I got my 360 back which was fucking tiring, and put me off playing the 360 for a bit.

During that time, we beat the game.  This means we got the following achievements:  Tanks for the Memories, Water Sports, There’s a Time for Us, Better Wrapped in Beacon, Have Fun Storming The Castle, And the Horsey You Rode In On, You are the Support, Son, Brumak Rodeo and Does This Look Infected To You?.  We also received Tourist of Duty for beating the game on Casual, and Guerilla Tactican for beating the game on Normal(thank god for stackable difficulty achievements).  We also got Friends with Benefits for completing all acts on co-op.  Along the way, I killed 30 enemies with the Mulcher turret for Organ Grinder and recovered 20 collectibles for Pack Rat.

That leaves me with exactly….405 gamerscore points.  The rest shouldn’t be too hard to do however, and I’ll sit down before the next update to do just that.  It was a fucking blast, and I can’t wait to go through it again on Insane somewhere down the road.

Assassins Creed: I’ve found the trick to loving this game – play it sparingly.  It really is an awesome game, but if you weren’t born yesterday, you know that it gets extremely repetitive.  So sit down, play for 1-2 hours max, and while you’re still aching to play – turn it off!  Don’t play it again for at least a week(or in my case 2 months) and you get a hell of a lot of enjoyment out of it.  So yeah, I picked it up, played through some of the levels, and got the Blade in the Crowd, Blood of a Doctor and Blood of a Slave Trader achievements, to leave me at 185 gamerscore points.  I’ve absolutely no idea where I will be when I beat the game, nor how far I am from the end – but meh whatever I am enjoying it.

Civilization Revolution: When I got my 360 back, I put this on to play it and test it out, as it was one of the games freezing.  While doing that, I won as a German Civilization for Blood and Iron.  Already passed the 500 on this though.

Here’s the updated list:

CURRENT GAMES STILL TO DO:

(Current points in parenthesis)

1. Assassins Creed (185) +80
2. Burnout Revenge (195)
3. Call of Duty 2 (50)
4. Call of Duty 4 (50)
   
5. Gears of War 2 (405) +260
6. Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter (150)
7. Saints Row 2 (370)
   
8. Tiger Woods 09 (180)

Of the games listed:

Burnout Revenge: As discussed with Brando, we’ve both already spent fucking hours on this, and have more than got our moneys worth out of it.  As the achievements are goddamn insane to get, we agreed if it comes to it we both will veto this one from the list.  I’m very anal though, so I’d love to do it if I could and will keep it on my list for now.

Call of Duty 2: I have to beat the whole game on Hardened, then go back and beat about 2 levels on Veteran.  So far I’ve beaten the first two levels I think on Hardened.  Still a long ways to go.

Call of Duty 4: So fucking ashamed this is so low.  I’m going to try and beat COD 2 fast, so I can focus on this as I fucking enjoyed it big time when I played it oh like 11 months ago.

Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter: Fuck non-stackable achievements.  I have to beat the game on normal mode, and then go back and beat about 6 levels on the higher difficulty.  Not a big deal, but I don’t particularly enjoy this game for some reason.  Oh well.

Saints Row 2: I’m on the last gang missions with Brando that we’ve been doing via co-op.  I believe when I finally do all of those, I’ll be over 500.  Might do this week, although with the violence and stuff will probably wait till Masons back in school.

Tiger Woods 09: No fucking idea where I even am at on this one, or if I will beat it.  I haven’t really looked at achievements yet.  Right now I am just playing the game sparingly and enjoying it, although having not played it in awhile I suck at it.  I think I’ll just try and play it more often, and when it comes down to D-Day, will focus more on getting those goddamn achievements.

Well my 360 coffin STILL hasn’t arrived, so I was able to play the 360 over the last week.  Unfortunately this led for frustrating times, especially with games that read the disc often like Fallout 3, as it resulted in the game freezing at LEAST once an hour.  There was one bit in the game that was very action intensive, and it would have been over in about 5-10 minutes, yet it took me over an hour with it constantly freezing.  Sigh.

Regardless, I battled on and on, and managed to have quite a good week.  Let’s see what I did….

Fallout 3: I beat the game.  I can’t even begin to review the game here because all that comes out of my mouth is the word “AWESOME” over and over and over and over again.  Regardless, my first playthrough topped out at just under 40  hours, and I’m already anxious for my next playthrough.

Quest wise, I beat Big Trouble in Big Town, Picking Up The Trail, Finding the Garden of eden, The American Dream and Take It Back!  I got 20 points for each of those, except for the final one which I got 40 gamerscore points for.

In-game, I picked 50 locks for Keys are for Cowards, and killed 300 creatures for Slayer of the Beasts.  Unfortunately, this only left me with 420 gamerscore points.  I decided to wait for my 2nd playthrough until after the challenge is over, to give me even more incentive to beat this fucking challenge.  So I went back to some previous saves and reached Level 8 with bad and neutral karma, for Mercenary and Reaver.  Then I did the same for level 14, for Pinnacle of Survival and Harbinger of war.  I also placed a grenade while pickpocketing(SO SICK YET SO AWESOME) for Psychotic Prankster, and won 50 speech challenges for the Silver Tounged Devil, to put me at 520 for the game, and add that to the completed list;

NHL 2K6: Brando came to Kingston for the weekend to watch UFC 91.  He asked if I wanted him to bring any games.  I told him to bring NHL 2K6, and much lols were had when I scored on a breakaway(50 points), scored with a defender(150 points), scored with 2 men down(200 pts), and scored in under 1 minute(300 points) to bump my gamerscore by 750 achievement points in approximately 2 minutes of real time.  I tried to score on a penalty shot for another 250, but sadly couldn’t do it and couldn’t really be bothered.  Still, this was quite fun after a lot of achievement “grinding” recently.

Shrek the 3rd: I was a bit hungover on Sunday, and didn’t feel like doing work.  I decided as the 360 seemed to handle itself okay still on games that didn’t read the disc constantly, I’d try out Shrek.  I didn’t plan on playing it that long, but me and Mason played it for most of the day while watching football(god bless picture in picture)  and ended up beating it.  Story wise, I defeated the Ice Dragon for the Ice Tamer achievement, and defeated Captain Hook for the Music Critic achievement.  I also beat all 20 missions for Hail to the King, did that in the most difficult setting(Grimm) for Glorious Liege, and beat Prince Charming for the Upstaged Charming achievement.

During gameplay, I launched 50 enemies into the air then caught them for The Juggler, used Super Ogre Power 10 times for Super Ogre and Super Ogre Power Extreme achievements, performed 100 finishing moves for The Finisher, and used Fairy Dust 50 times for Ogre Smash!

The game also has a lot to collect.  I collected 66% of all souvenior mugs for Novice and Amateur collector, as well as 66% of all coloring book pages for For the Fridge and Upstart Artist.  I also beat 33% of all challenge quests in the game for Questing Rookie.  Final score?  620.  Oh hell yes.

As for the game itself?  If you like platformers, this isn’t the worst game out there.  It has a lot of flaws and major annoyance, from invisible walls to a really annoying camera, but I still had fun and it’s a decent way to kill an afternoon.

Alright – so 6 weeks left, plus another 2 additional weeks if necessary due to my 360 death earlier in the year.  Here’s the stats:

CURRENT GAMES STILL TO DO:

(Current points in parenthesis)

1. Assassins Creed (105)
2. Burnout Revenge (195)
3. Call of Duty 2 (50)
4. Call of Duty 4 (50)
   
5. Gears of War 2 (145)
6. Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter (150)
7. Saints Row 2 (370)
   
8. Tiger Woods 09 (180)

I must admit, looking quite good, and I think this challenge is doable.  God I hope it is, otherwise I’ve written for 46 straight weeks on ANOTHER NPP DISASTER.

ACHIEVEMENT TARGET HIT:

1. Bioshock (910)
2. Blitz: The League (520)
3. Bully (1000)
4. Burnout Paradise (500)
5. Cars (1000)
6. Civilization: Revolution (505)
7. Crackdown (535)
8. Dark Sector (620)
9. Dead Rising (520)
   
10. Fallout 3 (520) +250
11. Fight Night Round 3 (1000)
12. Gears of War (520)
13. Kameo (610)
14. Karaoke Revolution: American Idol Encore Edition: (520)
15. King Kong (1000)
16. Lego Batman (575)
17. Lego Indiana Jones (920)
18. Lego Star Wars (900)
19. Madden 2008 (880)
20. Marvel: Ultimate Alliance (830)
21. NBA 2K8 (880)
22. NHL 2008 (575)
23. NHL 2K6 (750) +750
24. Open Season (1000)
25. Rainbow Six: Vegas (500)
26. Saints Row (500)
27. Scene It (595)
28. Shrek The Third (620) +620
29. Splinter Cell: Double Agent (550)
30. Stuntman:Ignition (505)
31. Superman Returns (570)
32. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1000)
33. Tetris Evolution: (515)
34. The Darkness (795)
35. The Outfit (655)
36. The Simpsons Game (845)
37. The Spiderwick Chronicles (1000)
38. Tomb Raider: Legend (560)
39. UEFA Euro 2008 (505)
40. WWE: Smackdown vs RAW 2007 (650)

Well I have some good news and some bad news to start off the latest installment of my achievement challenge.  The good news is that the list below of games I have to beat is the final list – there will be no more games added to it.  I’m not planning on purchasing any more games, so the list is complete at exactly 10 games.  And although we are on week 45, with 2 weeks added to the end of the challenge due to my 360 dying earlier in the year, I can do 1 game a week pretty much and actually beat the challenge.

Now – the bad news.  My 360 is fucking up again.  Big time.  Disc drive is fucked, and do think I just got this one the end of May 08.  Sigh.  So I have to send it in for repairs again, meaning the challenge will be extended 1-2 weeks, depending how long it takes to get it back.  What is happening is games keep freezing repeatedly, or I get disc read errors.  So the DVD drive is unfortunately fucked.  I should be getting the coffin this week, and if my 360 lasts I’ll send it away on Monday November 17th, and should recieve it back within 14 days, touch wood.

Despite the freezing issues, I’ve still managed to get a lot of gaming done this week, specifically in Fallout 3, where my time playing it is now over the 25 hour mark, and I still get the impression I’ve got a long way to go in that.  Alright, so the achievements for this week:

Fallout 3: I’ve did a TON in this game.  Quests I’ve beaten for 20 points each are The Waters of Life, Tranquility lane, Scientific Pursuits, Tenpenny Tower, Stealing Independence, Blood Ties, Those!, The Wasteland Survival Guide, The Replicated Man and the Power of the Atom.  I also reached level 8 with good karma for Protector, and reached level 14 with good karma for Ambassador of Peace.  I’ve only got 15 of 50 achievements so far, but sit happily at the 270 mark.  I aim to beat this game(playthrough wise – not achievement wise) before I send my 360 in for repair but fuck knows if that is going to happen or not as I tried to play it today, and I think I spent 1 hour mostly on the same part due to it freezing.  Haven’t even looked at the achievement list yet for this game, so that’s a nice little surprise to look at upon completion of it.  Awesome, awesome game, definitely on my top 5 XBox 360 games list.

Gears of War 2: Got this one last week, and probably would’ve beaten the story if it wasn’t for my 360 sucking.  As it is, me and Taff are going through it together.  Story achievements I’ve got are Green as Grass, It’s a Trap, Escort Service, Girl About Town, That Sinking Feeling, Freebaird! and Heartbroken for 10 points each.  I also got Open Relationship for completing 10 chapters in co-op, and One-Night Stand for 1 chapter in co-op.  Currently about to start act 3, although I may just wait till I get the 360 back.  I also recovered 5 collectibles for Collector, survived 10 horde waves for Dirty, Dirty Horde and did 30 active reloads for Once More, With Feeling.  This game is fucking phenomenal – Horde mode in particular is just a goddamn blast.

Lego Batman: We unlocked all vehicles for It’s the car, right?  He’s going to be devastated when the 360 goes away for a week.  He’s already obsessed about achievements and spends hours just looking at other peoples achievements for every game, and yelling because my buddy Jay has more achievements for Batman than him.

CURRENT GAMES STILL TO DO:

(Current points in parenthesis)

1. Assassins Creed (105)
2. Burnout Revenge (195)
3. Call of Duty 2 (50)
4. Call of Duty 4 (50)
5. Fallout 3 (270) +230
6. Gears of War 2 (145) +145
7. Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter (150)
8. Saints Row 2 (370)
9. Shrek The Third (0)
10. Tiger Woods 09 (180)

ACHIEVEMENT TARGET HIT:

1. Bioshock (910)
2. Blitz: The League (520)
3. Bully (1000)
4. Burnout Paradise (500)
5. Cars (1000)
6. Civilization: Revolution (505)
7. Crackdown (535)
8. Dark Sector (620)
9. Dead Rising (520)
10. Fight Night Round 3 (1000)
11. Gears of War (520)
12. Kameo (610)
13. Karaoke Revolution: American Idol Encore Edition: (520)
14. King Kong (1000)
15. Lego Batman (575) +30
16. Lego Indiana Jones (920)
17. Lego Star Wars (900)
18. Madden 2008 (880)
19. Marvel: Ultimate Alliance (830)
20. NBA 2K8 (880)
21. NHL 2008 (575)
22. Open Season (1000)
23. Rainbow Six: Vegas (500)
24. Saints Row (500)
25. Scene It (595)
26. Splinter Cell: Double Agent (550)
27. Stuntman:Ignition (505)
28. Superman Returns (570)
29. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1000)
30. Tetris Evolution: (515)
31. The Darkness (795)
32. The Outfit (655)
33. The Simpsons Game (845)
34. The Spiderwick Chronicles (1000)
35. Tomb Raider: Legend (560)
36. UEFA Euro 2008 (505)
37. WWE: Smackdown vs RAW 2007 (650)

Well the first thing is I have some good news – I spoke to Brando, and we agreed if necessary a two week extension on the challenge.  The reason for this is due to both our XBox 360s breaking during the course of the challenge, and seeing them out of commission for two weeks.  I still have a goal of actually beating the challenge by the time the year is up(called it “retarded optimism”) but it’s nice to know I have those extra two weeks if required.  By this stage I’ve clearly won the challenge versus Brando who really has no chance in hell, so now it’s just a personal goal.

Had a good week this week, even though I never really sat down and dedicated much time to the 360.  It was mostly “hey I’ve worked hard today, I’ll play for a quick hour”.  Despite that I managed to do well on the achievement front, so I’m still quietly confident I can get this done.

Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter: Wow.  I really, really hate this game.  It’s just one of the most frustrating FPS games I’ve ever played.  The response times are delayed, using shit like the scope is a hassle, commanding your team is just the worst thing ever, and it’s just plain fucking boring.  I probably shouldn’t even have to go through this as it came with the 360, but I’ll try anyway because that’s the kind of person I am.  I wiped out the Chapulptek defenses for the Eliminate Defenses(normal) achievement which earned me 25G before turning the game off in frustration.

Superman Returns: One of the worst games I’ve played, period.  It’s WCW Thunder levels bad.  It’s so bad I don’t even have the passion to rant about it here – I just want to forget it ever existed.  The ETA for beating this game was about 6 hours, I did it in 4, and it was 4 hours of my life I really wish I hadn’t wasted.  I defeated Mongul for The Mongul Hordes achievement, saved Metropolis from the rampaging tornado for Twisted and by beating the game got every power up, for Souped Up Superman.  After all that?  570 gamerscore points, and I can thankfully add this to the beaten list and never play it again.

Burnout Revenge: Spoke to Brando about this, and we both agreed if required we can take it off our lists.  The reason is that it only cost us $20, and to say we’ve had $20 hours of fun out of it would be an understatement.  Countless hours playing it, especially online with a bunch of people from NPP.  However we’ll keep it on our lists for now, and see how things go.  If one of us gets over 500, then the other has to so that’s a nice little challenge right there.  I picked up my first achievement since November 2007 on this though, which was Celebrity Status by getting a clip in top 20 downloads.

Call of Duty 2: Decided to pick this up and hopefully beat it before COD 5 cames out.  I have to go through the whole game on Hardened, and then do 2 levels on Veteran, and I’ll be over 500.  It’s going to be tough, but I’m nothing if not persistent so I should be able to do it okay.  So far I’ve beaten Basic Training which got me an achievement, and now I don’t get any more achievements till I beat the whole game.  Oh well.

Fallout 3: New game added to my list.  Barely scratched the surface with this one, but I did pick up some achievements in the 2 hours I played it.  I got the pip-boy for Vault 101 Citizenship Award, took the G.O.A.T. for Ghost Whisperer and completed Escape!.  Only at 40G so far, but hopefully I can get most if not all of the 500G in my first playthrough of it.  Looks like an awesome game.

Lego Batman: This was the Mason AND Scotsman show for once.  Mason started the week off with quite a few achievements, defeating 8 goons in 8 seconds for Shot to the Goon achievement.  He also threw 50 policement with superstrength for Throwing Up, froze 50 enemies for Ice To See You, defeated 10 goons and 10 cops with Two-Face in a level for Heads I win, tails you lose, and unlocked all Hero characters for Justice League.

This was when I stepped in, and we worked together to put me over the 500.  Defeated Killer Moth for Kill-a Moth, beat third ep of Hero for Crusader, and third ep of Villain for Crime Lord.  Shocked 30 people with Jokers hand buzzer, smashed all cars in robot level, scared 5 enemies with scarecrow,  shocked joker with joker, performed 20 backflips in a row with faggot little Robin, smashed all street lights in Episode 1 Chapter 1, and destroyed 20 policemen with penguin bombers, to  put me well above the 500.

CURRENT GAMES STILL TO DO:

(Current points in parenthesis)

1. Assassins Creed (105)
2. Burnout Revenge (195) +80
3. Call of Duty 2 (50) +50
4. Call of Duty 4 (50)
5. Fallout 3 (40) +40
6. Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter (150) +25
7. Saints Row 2 (370)
8. Shrek The Third (0)
9. Tiger Woods 09 (180)

ACHIEVEMENT TARGET HIT:

1. Bioshock (910)
2. Blitz: The League (520)
3. Bully (1000)
4. Burnout Paradise (500)
5. Cars (1000)
6. Civilization: Revolution (505)
7. Crackdown (535)
8. Dark Sector (620)
9. Dead Rising (520)
10. Fight Night Round 3 (1000)
11. Gears of War (520)
12. Kameo (610)
13. Karaoke Revolution: American Idol Encore Edition: (520)
14. King Kong (1000)
15. Lego Batman (545) +265
16. Lego Indiana Jones (920)
17. Lego Star Wars (900)
18. Madden 2008 (880)
19. Marvel: Ultimate Alliance (830)
20. NBA 2K8 (880)
21. NHL 2008 (575)
22. Open Season (1000)
23. Rainbow Six: Vegas (500)
24. Saints Row (500)
25. Scene It (595)
26. Splinter Cell: Double Agent (550)
27. Stuntman:Ignition (505)
28. Superman Returns (570) +230
29. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1000)
30. Tetris Evolution: (515)
31. The Darkness (795)
32. The Outfit (655)
33. The Simpsons Game (845)
34. The Spiderwick Chronicles (1000)
35. Tomb Raider: Legend (560)
36. UEFA Euro 2008 (505)
37. WWE: Smackdown vs RAW 2007 (650)