Another title is completed - bring on COD4

Tonight was the night that Jericho got put to bed… Got the 1000 over 1000 finishing off with my melee kills, God of ghost bullet and God of Boom… 200 GS tonight and job done.

Now I can trade Jericho in and Halo3 (leave that story for another day - basically I tire of it) ready for COD4 now.

And in other news - Cot is now built and in the babies room and I have my end of year Appraisal tomorrow - so fingers crossed eh.

He shoots… He SCORES !!!

I have finally done it - my Xbox 360 Gamerscore mark of 50k was blown away in style yesterday, and to hit the target two whole months early… My original plan was to hit 50k by Dec this year.

Hitting the 50k was very sweet, but to do it and to also finish two games taking the full 1000 GS from each of them… just as sweet.  Now this means my “to do” pile of unfinished titles is not as high as it was yesterday morning.

That said… tomorrow is the launch of TimeShift, next week COD4, with the following week Assassins Creed… So I better keep moving to get the likes of ‘The Orange Box’, ‘Conan’, ‘Jericho’ and what not done before I get snowed under again.  Gota love them games though.

50k EH…. NICE !!!  (As of 31st October 2007 - Gamerscore stood at 50,101)

Clive Barker’s Jericho was amazing!!!

I have just finished Clive Barker’s Jericho tonight taking 700GS out of the possible 1000 and now only needing to clean up on types of kills - examples being; melee, explosive and headshot counts.

While I have to say playing on Hard was not actually hard at all - it was a heart stomping/pumping blast from start to finish with some very freaky moments and very tense ones at that thrown at you throughout the entire game.

The boss battles were superb and the monsters you faced in the hundreds and hundreds, throughout the game, also superb.

You could class this as a rental choice as it only took me around 8hrs total playing time to finish the main story but will probably take me close to another 8hrs chasing after the kill types with various level replays needed.

But I have to say this - in that, this is most certainly a game you need to try and experience for yourself.

So check it out - you will have a blast - pun intended ^_^

All about the games!

From my previous post I was trying to find out what was happening with Clive Barker’s Jericho as sites like GAME and Gameplay had removed the game from their respective websites.

Well Friday came and I had my boys with me and we went out for a shopping mooch in our local Trafford Centre and while I noticed that GAME were not even stocking the game on the shelves - HMV were.  So copy of Jericho secured, with me also grabbing a copy of Tomb Raider - Anniversary as I have always loved TR games.

In a nutshell Jericho is “amazing”.  This game has the ability to set the heart pounding and although I would never class this game as scary… it’s intense, bloody and on occassion does leave you wondering where your next attacker or attackers are coming from - hairs tingling on the back of your neck, so to speak. 

The moments where real tension becomes the highlight are when you reach certain portions of the game where only one member of the Jericho squad can get from A-B to allow the rest of the Jericho team to progress, and knowing you are on your own certainly does start the ole fear factor - but is pure brilliance at the same time.  Last night had me mooching around in the Roman era with Delgado (chain gun brute) and well it was pitch black even with my torch light trying to shine the way and I was being attacked from all sides - which… well, did cause some panic as I was fighting to stay alive… not wanting a ‘do-over’ to occur.

Awesome game - AWESOME !!

Tomb Raider Anniversary, while I will have to say straight away is not as good looking as the previous Xbox360 TR game, You just have to love TR for it’s puzzle madness and the fact that any slight mistake will have you falling back to earth from a bloody great height.  The sound of Lara’s breaking bones is still as good as it was and yeah - of course I swan dived off a height certain to bring death just for the hell of it…

I have not really played the game properly, as… well… I was pretty much just dicking around… but I will be looking forward to some serious TR time soon.

Achievement Junkie - - okay, okay, okay… I admit it - I am one ^_^

Last night saw me jumping back onto Half Life 2 and after a night of gaming walking away with another 13 achievements from ‘The Orange Box’… which now gives me 32 obtained of the 99 available achievements in the game package and those 32 achievements = 255GS out of the 1000 available.  So, and as such “yip yip yip” thus the title for the thread as I have never hidden from the fact that I love my gamerscore and I am aiming for 50k before the end of Dec.  (Currently just over 48k, well 48,101 to be exact).

The Orange Box package of games are superb albeit with Half Life, sometimes quite frustrating as you can very easily get lost… and I left the game last night at a point where I was utterly lost (In the Prison), having flipped a second switch which “I think” has opened a blocked door - yet I cannot find the door and ran around in circles for half n hour before giving up at midnight to go get some sleep.

The other annoyance last night is that I played the part where you need to cross the sands without actually stepping on the sand to avoid the Antlions and therefore you have to pick up things like wooden palets with your grav gun and constantly move them to form a path.  My annoyance after the hour it took me to get it right is that I never got the achievement, and that was with constant saving and reloads of said saves when I did screw it up - and while I can *shrug* and say it’s only 20GS…  It is now one that is missing from the natural order you can unlock them in the game, and if I will replay the game to that point to clear up later is *shrugs once more*.

If I jump back on HL tonight then ?  Or I may simply just use my quiet LIVE Wed to try and finish Spider-Man: Friend or Foe and/or to carry on with CSI: Hard Evidence so I can get those done and as such trade them in ready for the Nov rush of games.  Plus if I can finish SM and CSI I am looking at another 1,250GS and as such will have me really knocking on the door of 50k.

Told ya I was an achievement whore - albeit a very methodical one at that ^_^  It’s not that I usually play games for achievements, but when you get to certain milestones - i.e. knocking on the door of 50k - any normal person would naturally plan where they can obtain the points needed to hit the target!!!

On other news I am still trying to find out what the hell has happened to Clive Barker’s Jericho as it has disappeared off websites like GAME and Gameplay… HMV have it listed and Codemasters have confirmed that the game will still be released on Friday… so I have cancelled my pre-order, from Gameplay and will be mooching around Manchester to see if certain stores have it in stock… and as such another reason to get my games done so I can offset the price as my pre-order would have saved me a few quid… where as now I will end up having to pay the full retail price.

My Half Life 2 experience shaping up nicely

I have been dabbling with Half Life 2 for a couple of days now… but restarted my entire game yesterday, partly because I had missed out on achievements ( a lot of them - and yep I know - I am a gamerscore whore ) and secondly so that I could play to reserve my ammo and what not as my first attempt had been a bit frantic.

So started the whole game again, cleared up on 10 achievements that I had missed out on and managed to get myself to the part where you are first given the buggy.  So not bad for around 3hrs work to play through quite a few levels without stopping for breath.  Of course it helped knowing where I was going this time and the boat level seemed to last no time at all where my previous excursion on the boat had been well over an hours work.

I also checked out Team Fortress for the first time and managed to get an achievement for one of the CTF maps with a shutout win… so thats cool too.

Will be back to it tonight and Wed night as these nights are my usual gaming sessions and… well… will be looking forward to some more HL fun before ‘X360 Clive Barkers Jericho’ arrives later this week !!!

Games, games, games eh !!!

Cracking weekend with my boys + a bit of gaming (just a bit mind)

We had a really good weekend with my two boys this weekend.

Started Sat off with needing to go food shopping but the boys love going to Morrisons with us and spotting all the bargains (God you gota love Morrisons… on average our weekly food bill has been reduced by £20.00 a week - which is madness).  Anyways… food sorted and stored and we jumped back out the house to go swimming with the boys which they love, and even though the boys thought it was funny to constantly grab Dad (that being me) around the neck - strangling me and pulling me under all the time — it was a really good laugh and great to see how much better the boys are constantly getting at swimming.

Sat afternoon was amazing cheese and marmite toasties followed by the boys homework and them playing Spider-Man Friend or Foe on the 360.  They love it when they can get on my 360 and just like their Dad they certainly love games that contain Marvel characters.  I also managed to grab a bit of Half Life 2 time, albeit I missed the oppurtunity on at least 4 achievs so will probably start a new game this week (not that deep into the game so no biggy).  Sat gaming session thanks to the boys topped out another 75GS achievement as they collected enough coins to upgrade Spideys final web power and that was that.

And then the cream of the crop for the day was that the boys had been constantly asking me when I was going to cook a curry for them, so I decided that Sat was that day, and even better that both the boys wanted to watch from start to finish on how you do prepare a curry… and as curries are my speciality I was more than happy to play the part. 

I never expected the boys to eat all the curry and I also had tried to keep the curry power to a minimum - but then even half way through could see the boys sweating slightly so have now made amendments for the next one.  The point in fact here is that I am constantly proud of the food groups that the boys will now try and having told me a while back Ewww Rice… Ewww Curry, they have now decided on a different opinion and really liked it - and as such added another meal choice for when they are with us.

Sunday was a more laid back affair as we only have them for half the day - but I let the boys jump back onto the 360 for some more Spider-Man fun and after that we just pottered around as the boys made some mad things out of Lego and Ali and I tried to get the house tidy.

Boys are now in London with their mum for the week so I passed them some money to spend (big smiley faces from them) and waved goodbye to them for a few days (next see them on Thursday evening and all day Friday).

So all in all a really good weekend with the boys.

Games, games, games…

October has already proven to be the start of what looks like an up and coming landslide of game releases - sliding our way through all the way to December.  The choice of what I am going to get is boggling my mind and thats not from “which one is best” to get?  But more on the point on “HOW many can I afford”?  I just grabbed myself a copy of ‘The Orange Box’ (very excited to play it - especially Portal) this morning with the following sitting on “me wants” radar:

 Jericho / Tomb Raider Anniversary / TimeShift / COD4 / Lego Star Wars Complete Saga / Assassins Creed / BlackSite Area51 / Kane and Lynch / Mass Effect / Army of Two / Too Human / Brothers in Arms / Dark Sector / Mecenaries II & Ace Combat 6, but to name a few - and most of those sitting with November 07 release dates.  Ouchies eh!!! …and all that with me not relying on any bonus money as all that is going straight towards the new baby.

It’s madness as I pretty much want them all but realise there is no way I can afford all of these with a baby on the way and I will have to decide which can become my present list for Christmas… meaning that I can afford the wait to play them, and pick the ones I am dying to play using either trade ins to grab them or have the cash ready to part with.

On top of that I also have quite a few games to finish

• CSI Hard Evidence (has you running backwards and forwards but I like the figuring out “who done it” bits)
• Spider-Man Friend or Foe (superb game, easy to play… a bit TOO easy… but so much Spidey fun to be had)
• Fatal Intertia (Tries to be wipeout not quite hitting that mark - but still a good pick up and play for occassional use)
• Two Worlds (Certainly not Oblivion, but it is still a brilliantly huge RPG)
• Halo 3 - clean up (80GS to go for the full hit of 1000)
• Conan (Hack and Slash at its very best - very God of War - but who cares)

Those above are all games I reckon I can crack on with IF I can pull myself away from the multiplayer magnet that is Halo3 fun fun fun.  And saying all this before I have even started with Half Life 2… which I have no doubt will wow me and leave me even deeper in debt of games to finish.  If I can get them done my gamerscore will leap up - but time is the problem and I can certainly see myself needing a few solid days of chilling out on each title to get the job done.  What I want to try and avoid is just returning the games to trade in when they are unfinished as I am enjoying all the games I have at the mo but at the same time - want to get them complete so I can move on.

Halo3 - fun fun fun

Last night was probably one of the best nights on Halo3 that I have had.  And that was not to say I won every match as I didn’t but we played custom games most of the evening and LIVE fun for me is playing with friends and having a laugh doing it - which is what certainly DID happen last night.

 We also had a mess around at getting a team group shot with all of us (well most of us) standing still firing our weapons knowing we could get screen shots from it later.  There were a few TUS players missing but we had a large group and while one of the players seems to be a bit camera shy - I have attached the picture for you to nose bag at.

There are also a few other pics of me in my Hayabusa get up and getting a few kills including managing to beat down the TUS team Captain and make him flip through the air (he is the one in Gold).

 Oh and my greatest moment of the night managing to get a double kill, triple kill and overkill with ONE SHOT !!!  CLICK HERE FOR STATS

LINE UP YAAAA GRUNTS

FLIP THE NINJA

CARE TO TANGO

NO I JUST WANA SHOOT

Remove the Wires!!

Well the time finally came - and last night I moved to a wireless network due to needing to move all the office stuff out of the room that is about to become the babies room (due date still Jan 12th 2008).

Went out yesterday and reserved a new swanky Netgear Wireless Router/Modem combo and the Xbox 360 Wireless Adaptor.  Then last night my good buddy Connor came over to help set it up as I am clueless at that sort of thing.

The kit was setup and then Connor helped me move my desk into my boys room, and while they now have our laptop and 360 staring at them, with the boys only staying over once or twice a week depending on what week it is… my gaming will never be on a night when they are staying, so I am never going to be in their way.  And Hmmmmm LOL in saying that - there goes my late night occassional Sat night gaming sessions that I could have with the boys there or not…  now its a no no… DOH !

It is not the best of choices as ideally we want to now move to a 4 bedroom house so that the 4th can be used for the new office with the Matthews crew taking the other three rooms, but the boys room was big enough to take the desk without losing too much of the floor space that the boys use to play and well was a much better option than trying to shoe horn all the office stuff downstairs somewhere.  The bonus feature is that Ali can now have her laptop where ever she wants as she is no longer restricted to wires and can be chilling out with the TV and Laptop in front of her now.

And well I spose the only slight downside is that I now have to box up all my model collection and put it in the loft until we do move (prob not until April 08 now) and also take down the shelving unit and put that in the loft - and as such completly free up the room so we can put all the baby stuff in it now.

Speaking of which - Alison is doing “grand” and she is blooming into her pregnancy now with a rather large bump to carry around too.  We still don’t know the sex of the baby - nor will we ask so we still have that surprise to come, be it Corey or Aimee come January 08.