Achievements Unlocked

    For the last 106 days straight, I've been on an impressive gaming streak. Actually, I suppose the term "impressive" may not apply, as I'm pretty sure I'm the only person who was really aware of this streak. So, I will rephrase and say that for the last 106 days, I've managed to do something to impress myself.

    This particular streak wasn't about playing a different game every day (that was last year), or gaming every day (that particular streak is actually longer, and is still in progress). This streak was called a "Score Streak"...and was being tracked by 360voice.com. For 3 months and 14 days straight, I managed to get an Xbox achievement every single day.

    Getting an achievement once a day was pretty difficult, and I'm actually not sure how I managed to last as long as I did. Sure, there are some easy achievements out there, but most of them require playing your game for at least a little while before you complete whatever goal it is you're trying to complete. That meant that whether I was at home, at work, or even traveling...I had to find some time to play a game for long enough to get some gamerscore. For the last three months and fourteen days, that's exactly what I did.

    There were some days where it was easy (weekends at home for example), and some days where it was really hard. I don't really remember how I managed to rack up that many days in a row...but I do remember where I was and what I was doing when I killed the streak. This Monday night, I was in New York City traveling for work. I'd been working all day long, and even though I brought an Xbox with me (and I always have Xbox games on my phone now), I just didn't feel like chasing an achievement. I ended up playing some Call of Duty, and before I knew it, it was midnight...and my opportunity to keep the streak going was over.

    So I lost my gamerscore streak because I was having fun gaming. I'm ok with that. I still have my "consecutive days of gaming" streak, and that's at 161 days....and counting.

      

Turkey Day

This Thanksgiving, Heather, the dogs and I all piled into the car and headed to my dad's house for Thanksgiving. Good times all around, including card games by a fire, a few walks around the neighborhood to work up an appetite, and even making waffles for breakfast the next morning while most folks were still sleeping off their turkey.

The worst thing about this trip? 


It wasn't this:

Although that did kind of suck.

It was the fact that I have NO THANKSGIVING LEFTOVERS.


From now on, there must be leftovers....even if I have to drive them 100 miles home in a cooler or something. I'm going to want pumpkin pie for breakfast tomorrow, and it's not going to be there. THAT...is a crime.

As for Black Friday, I managed to escape it without buying anything for myself. No video games, no new TV, no electronic Gadgets.

Heather on the other hand....well...she bought a little something:

She didn't even have to get in line at 5am for it, which I suppose makes it even better. :-)

I watched Epic Meal Time last night...

 And this was the scene at breakfast this morning.


Coincidence?


I THINK NOT.

Where has my blog been?

It's been ten months since I've posted here. Almost eleven actually.

A lot of stuff has happened in the last year, but I stopped blogging, mostly because I haven't had the desire to post about all the changes going on lately. I've done a little private social networking with friends online, but most of the accounts of all the things that have gone on over the last 10 months have been over conversations in person. So much for over-sharing online, something I once thought I was pretty good at.

Wow...the last time I wrote anything on this site was about video games.

I had high hopes for my big video game review project last year. It started out as the biggest continuous creative undertaking I'd ever started, and despite some heavy personal stuff that happened last year, I still managed to finish it by the deadline. I had always planned to post a big summary of the entire thing last year, and then maybe even submit it to some of the video game sites out there. Although I don't really have proof, I'm pretty sure I was the first person ever to play and review 365 video games in 365 days. Or at least the first person to document it online...because I sure couldn't find another person who had done something similar.

Unfortunately, just over a year ago, a personal tragedy sort of took the wind out of my sails...and I no longer felt like celebrating the completion of my massive gaming marathon. Frankly, I was glad just to be done with it. Although I was proud to finally complete it, it was definitely more of a chore than it was recreation for those last couple of months. I still have all the data from the entire thing in a massive Excel spreadsheet, and maybe one of these days, I'll dig it up and finish it off. Post that summary I had always planned to. For now, it's just a file documenting a whole lot of (potentially wasted) time.

So why start up my blog again? Well, I was just sitting here, playing poker on my Xbox at 2:30 in the morning, and realized I haven't had a late night gaming marathon like this since sometime last year. It made me think of the 365 project, and many other good gaming memories.

I think I need to start posting here again, lest any new memories be forgotten.

Bonus: Video game three hundred and sixty seven: Raskulls

Video game review number three hundred and sixty seven in my 365 Games in 365 Days project is "Raskulls".

I played Raskulls for the first time at PAX earlier this year. It was a fun, four player experience...and although only the "grand prix" mode was available to demo on the show floor, I knew I'd want to try this when it was released later on as a full Xbox Live Arcade game.

Fast forward to this week. I have managed to finish playing all 365 games I needed to play for the challenge, and I'm currently enjoying playing games just for fun (mostly Need For Speed). Lo and behold...this arcade title is released. Do I have time to play one more game and type up a review for the project? Yes I do. Besides, it'll make up for MAG, the only other game besides Sonic that supported achievements or trophies that I wasn't able to earn a trophy in. By playing this 367th game, I have now completed this challenge not just numerically, but technically as well. I played 365 unique games according to the rules I set out to follow, and a couple of extras on top of that. That's pretty awesome, and I'll be doing a follow-up sometime in the coming week or two.

Anyway, let's talk about Raskulls.

Raskulls is a fun little action/puzzle game that seems optimized to play with four players. I think it's something I'd actually enjoy playing locally with friends (perhaps next time people come over to play Rock Band), but so far...the only multiplayer I've managed to do has been online. It was fun, but I think there will be something even better about playing it with friends (as it's very fast paced and competitive).

Your character is a short, stubby little guy (or girl) with a skull for a head, and you compete against other stubby little characters to try and make it through a maze first. Most of the levels are just races (and are a lot of fun), but others are timed challenges, or puzzles that only have a certain number of solutions....and those can be frustratingly challenging.

There is a quest mode, and in that mode...you're supposed to collect "Shiny Jewels". At one point, a character asks: "Why do we need these?" and another one replies with: "Don't question the plot!" or something. The game is full of little one-liners like this.

In one chapter, you are required to play as a ninja, and your character is so stealthy that he steals the pants off of a couple of the other characters without them noticing. One of the characters asks the other one "How come you have that pixelation on you?" and he replies "That always happens when I don't wear pants". Made me laugh.

There are only 3 chapters to the game (as far as I know) but each chapter is very long. There are more than 10 levels per chapter, and some are incredibly difficult. In the last couple of days, I've gone through more than 24 unique levels so far, and I'd say I've only actually completed half of the game. There have been challenges I simply couldn't pass (mostly the timed ones) and I imagine I might go back to them at some point.

Overall Score? 7.5/10. I think this game is pretty darn decent. The humor is there, the gameplay is fun, and the challenges aren't repetitive at all. The single player experience seems like it won't last much longer, and like Bomberman, it seems more focused around multiplayer than single player. To me, that's always a problem, because there are so many games online to choose from...and without a LARGE user base, multiplayer games can tend to become really empty experiences. I tried to find four people online to play with, and the most I ever found was two. That's rather disappointing in launch week, and it'll probably only get worse as time passes.

Achievements? Over the last two days, I managed to unlock these, all offline:

Bonus: Video game three hundred and sixty six: FlingSmash

Video game review number three hundred and sixty six in my 365 Games in 365 Days project is "FlingSmash".

Back in January of this year, I played Sonic the Hedgehog for the 360. Even though I put in more than 15 hours, I was unable to unlock even a single achievement for it. It was near the beginning of the challenge, and that violated the rules I had set out to follow, so I promised myself that I'd play another game at the end of the challenge to make up for that failure. FlingSmash is that game.

I have seen FlingSmash advertisements on TV, and big posters at the game store...which is kind of weird because before the ad campaigns, I had never even heard of this title. Turns out, it's a vehicle for the new "Wiimote Plus" Wiimote controller, which has the improved motion sensing technology built in. I rented this game from Gamefly, so I didn't get the new controller bundled in, but that's ok...because I already have my Wiimote Plus motion sensors. They were the add-ons, and they came packed in with Wii Sports resort. As a result, my Wiimotes look like this:



Instead of like this:



I don't mind the small cosmetic differences between the two controllers, and so I don't plan on upgrading anytime soon. As far as this game itself goes, honestly, I think the only reason people might buy this game would be to get the bundled controller. The controller costs 30 bucks by itself, so for an extra 10...you get this game. Is it worth ten bucks? Coin toss.

FlingSmash is not a bad game, it's just incredibly simple. You are a little hero named Zip (or Pip, if you prefer to be a girl), but that's sort of irrelevant because the plot in this one isn't too complex. Zip needs to smash his way through blocks, trying to beat levels...and earn "pearls" which are what you use to kill the big boss. There are also mini-bosses, and you beat them by bouncing into them. Actually, you beat everything by bouncing into it.

The gameplay works like ping-pong, or any other "racquet" game on the Wii. Your hero is a ball, and you swing the Wiimote to knock him into things. It's not incredibly accurate, and at times, very random....but when you do connect with the ball, it feels good. After 6 levels, I found the game to be easy, but not necessarily fun. It was very repetitive and once you've played it for a few minutes, you've played it enough to know whether or not you'll like or hate it. The guys at IGN hated it.

My Overall Score? 5/10. Indifferent. This game is more of a pack-in bonus than a standalone game. If you don't already have the little Wiimote Plus accessory and you feel like you need one of the controllers, go ahead and buy it. It's not a terrible deal. If you're not dying for the hardware, then rent this first to see if you like it. I think it was worth a rental, and that's about it.
I'd never buy it, unless I was hard up for one of those new controllers.