Zulghinlour's Blog - Apr to Jun 12 (16 followers)

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School's out for the summer and both my kids are very excited about our family trip. To be clear, there are vacations (my wife and I), and family trips (all four of us). My wife (the fantastic woman who supports my video gaming) was a French major in college, and we've been to France twice. She's been waiting for a time when the kids will be old enough to remember it to take them, and this is the summer. As I write this I'm sitting in our apartment in the 15th arrondissement in Paris (from our balcony you can see the top of the Eiffel Tower). Needless to say my gaming will be limited to phone games for a little while.



Another top 50 finish for our GSPMarathon, leaving us right at #50 overall in the contest. Thanks again to my teammates, we have been fairly consistent throughout the contest! The Unholy Trinity - 38th place, knight0fkh0nshu - 2163, xX H B0MB Xx - 1987, Zulghinlour - 1565.


Cabela's Adventure Camp is my first Cabela's game ever. This is basically just an expanded version of Kinect Adventures. At the summer camp you can try various different activities (kayaking, mountain biking, skeet shooting, archery, jet skiing, hunting and fishing). The other game you use to start a week at camp is Hunter, Bear, Ninja (their version of rock, paper, scissors). Your choice is based on how well Kinect reads your form, which is where the problems begin. I actually never successfully picked anything and therefore always lost because it couldn't read my skeleton properly (yet when I go into the Kinect tuner it can see me just fine). This is something I found more and more as I played the game and ultimately is why I stopped. 590G in a little over 2 hours was good enough. A full 1000 is easily within reach, but I'm tired of fighting the Kinect.


I picked up Hellboy: the Science of Evil because I'm a big fan of the comics by Mike Mignola. The movies have been decent and I was hoping for a decent outing from the game. I didn't realize that this was basically an incomplete game (only 840 of 1000 for the disc, the other 160 was supposed to be for DLC that won't ever release). The game itself wasn't very exciting. The combat was slow, the gun you have takes forever to reload. The main variety is provided by the different types of ammunition you can get for the gun, and certain types make quick work of enemies. Each of the six levels ended with a boss fight and once you figured out the trick (and fought the camera) you could move onto the next level. Overall I expected more. Constantly fighting with the camera, muddling through the slow combat, and always having to move around to find the sweet spot to grapple something made for more frustration than fun. That being said, it's a fairly short story and easy 600G.


The next release in the annual offering for Magic the Gathering was an easy purchase for me. I've been a big fan of the card game since Arabian Nights released. I've spent more than my fair share on cards and when they finally had a digital version of the game where I didn't have to spend hundreds of dollars I was very happy. Every version of the Xbox game provides some nice updates and new game styles to keep it interesting. The challenge mode is what I always look forward to the most, it's always interesting to see the strange combinations they come up with. The encounters were an interesting addition, though I wasn't a huge fan of them. You basically play against a deck with 1 or 2 cards (beyond land) so once you figure out how to counter those cards you'll find a fairly easy win coming. The simplest way I've found was to play the blue mill deck and drain your opponents cards. The other new game type is Planechase where there is a central card that affects everyone and changes the rules of the game. You can roll a dice to try and jump planes thereby changing the affect. Overall I am very happy with this game and have been devouring the campaign (I just wish it had opted into the 400G XBLA).

Owned Games: 502 (+3)
Unplayed Games: 33 (No change)
Incomplete (20%): 47 (No change)

20% Complete Games (90.58% - +0.22%)
- Cabela's Adventure Camp - +13 achv.
- Hellboy: The Science of Evil - +15 achv.
- Magic: The Gathering 2013 - +17 achv.

100% Games (154: No change)

Overall Progress (76.04% completion : -0.21%)
- Wanted: Weapons of Fate - +4 achv.
- Dragon's Lair - +1 achv.

R.E.M. - You

It was signoff week at work which means everyone is working late and verifying the final bug fixes which also means I get very little done in the way of productive gaming. As has become tradition in my family, every year for Father's Day my sister takes me and our Dad to the Washington Brewers Festival. I drag my wife and kids along and we make a day of it. This year my sister got us a deal where we ended up with more tokens and a larger tasting glass. 12 schooners of great beer later and I was ready for a nap. I can't think of a better way to spend Father's Day.


Knight0fkh0nshu pulled our GSPMarathon team back into the Top 50 this week, thanks buddy! The Unholy Trinity - 46th place, knight0fkh0nshu - 3533, xX H B0MB Xx - 1192, Zulghinlour - 273.

I have spent a lot of my game time this week with multi-player shooters including a 7 hour Xbox LAN party with 10 people playing Modern Warfare 3 where I got to make good use of my GAEMS case. This article caught my eye about what Rockstar is doing to Max Payne 3 cheaters. I think this is a fantastic solution, let the griefers mess with each other and let me play the game the right way. During one of my GR:FS matches I spawned onto a teammate who apparently knew some trick because we were below the map, and he was just killing everyone without anyone being able to touch him...bastard.

I've seen a lot of people talking about the Final Fantasy series with the original released on Windows Phone this week. Now is where I step forward and admit...I've never played any Final Fantasy game...ever. My first console was an Atari 2600, my second was an Xbox, my third was an Xbox 360. In between there was a ton of Arcade & PC gaming, and the occasional overnight at a friends house where we'd play a Nintendo, Dreamcast, etc. I do plan on picking it up and playing, especially since I'll be on a plane for many hours in the near future. On a side note...I was cleaning out my garage I found my first handheld gaming system…


Have I mentioned Skylanders are popular in my house? My kids bought me the Dragon's Peak Adventure Set for my birthday, so now we have every adventure set. We've got 24 of the 32 Skylanders that the kids know about, there are still four more (Sonic Boom, Prism Break, Boomer, Voodood) hidden away waiting for a surprise reward.



As for new gaming this week, I started up Driver: San Francisco. I have finished 2 of the 8 chapters, and it's an okay driving game. The physics of collisions are a little off, though I did enjoy the armored car pushing a semi and a few other cars in front of it without ever slowing down. The story and abilities really have me wondering what the heck is going on, and I'll keep at it to see where it takes me. There is something fun about popping out of one car, into another car and causing a head-on collision with the bad guys.


I remember Dragon's Lair from when I was a kid, and I dumped my fair share of quarters into that machine. I had absolutely no desire to even attempt this with Kinect...so I didn't. It was a fun nostalgic trip to the past and I enjoyed finally beating Singe (something I never did on the arcade machine). What playing this really made me remember was a different laserdisc video game that I spent way more time on called Cliff Hanger which was based on the anime of the Lupin III franchise. It was more trial and error gameplay than Dragon's Lair, but I loved it.

Owned Games: 499 (+1)
Unplayed Games: 33 (-1)
Incomplete (20%): 47 (-1)

20% Complete Games (90.58% - +0.22%)
- Dragon's Lair - +8 achv.
- Driver: San Francisco - +10 achv.

100% Games (154: No change)

Overall Progress (76.04% completion : -0.21%)
- Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Future Soldier - +4 achv.

R.E.M. - You

It was a light week of new gaming for me, what extra time I had I spent on Ghost Recon: Future Soldier multi-player. I've been having a good time getting my ass handed to me in multi-player, but every now and then I stumble on a good group and how fun it really can be. This week I also opted to get out of the house and do some hiking during the sunny weather we had between the rain squalls. I wasn't overly surprised about the lack of big announcements at E3 this year, the current consoles are still going strong. I was a bit surprised at the lack of announcements around portable gaming devices, Sony seemed to completely avoid talking about the Vita. I keep dreaming about all the cool ways that a developer could make use of SmartGlass then sigh a bit since it won't be required which leaves me wondering how much investment developers will actually make in the area. It seems like a similar position to Kinect today where Mass Effect 3 is "better with Kinect".

An average week for my GSPMarathon. The Unholy Trinity - 68th place, knight0fkh0nshu - 1677, xX H B0MB Xx - 1548, Zulghinlour - 1035.


I picked up Wanted: Weapons of Fate for $5 and was looking forward to killing guys by curving bullets. That's about all I had to look forward to in the game. This is yet another game that requires multiple playthroughs because you have to unlock highest difficulty. I beat the regular campaign in around 7 hours and did actually enjoy the curving bullets part. The many kamikaze knife guys annoyed me throughout the game turned a semi-interesting shooter into a quicktime event where failure resulted in death and starting over at your last checkpoint. I've set this on the may come back to in short bursts when bored pile to finish up the hardest playthrough.


Having played through enough Battleship in the Hasbro Family Game Night, I was looking forward to the Windows Phone version which should make the game better because you have a private screen and can actually play multiplayer. Unfortunately this means I am at the mercy of my multi-player partner for how quick or slowly the game will go. I'm still playing games that I started the day it launched. Grinding out 50 wins (much less 200) will probably result in me being insitutionalized.


Boulder Dash was a game that I used to play on my Apple ][e when I was a kid, and when I saw Boulder Dash-XL I kept it on my mental list of games to pick up. Since it was half-price last week I grabbed it. It was much like I remembered it, grabbing diamonds and dropping rocks on enemies. I prefer the puzzle mode over the arcade mode (and haven't tried the zen mode yet). I blew through the first ten levels in puzzle mode and hope they get a bit more difficult since there are only 25 of them. This is a game I want to show my kids because I think they will enjoy it.


I was glad to see EA allow licensing of Porsche for Forza 4 since EA refused previously. The DLC pack adds 30 Porsches for your driving pleasure, and the achievements are nice and easy (completed the entire thing in part of an evening).

Owned Games: 498 (+2)
Unplayed Games: 34 (-1)
Incomplete (20%): 48 (-1)

20% Complete Games (90.36% - +0.24%)
- Wanted: Weapons of Fate - +37 achv.
- Battleship (WP) - +18 achv.
- Boulder Dash-XL - +3 achv.

100% Games (154: No change)

Overall Progress (76.25% completion : -0.03%)
- Forza Motorsport 4 - +10 achv.

Bonus - Picture from Grand Prospect on the Rattlesnake Mountain Trail looking towards Mount Si (east of Seattle, WA).


R.E.M. - Aftermath

This is the fun time of year where everyone is focused on the game industry and the happenings down at E3. I'm glad that a bunch of my friends finally get to talk about the cool things they have been working on like the announcement of Xbox Smart Glass today. I was glad to see more of the Forerunners in the Halo 4 trailer. I was pleasantly surprised by the Splinter Cell Blacklist gameplay and definitely looking forward to it. I'm also looking forward to the next installing in the Gears of War series (though I don't even want to speculate on what Seriously 4.0 is going to look like). I can't wait to see what else is going on in the industry over the next couple days.

My GSPMarathon team dropped from last week, but still ended up near the Top 50. The Unholy Trinity - 56th place, knight0fkh0nshu - 2006, Zulghinlour - 1743, xX H B0MB Xx - 1110.


I finally got to start Ghost Recon: Future Soldier this week (it's been sitting next to Dragon's Dogma since their release and I've been to busy to get into either of them). I've always enjoyed the Tom Clancy shooters (Rainbow Six, Ghost Recon, Splinter Cell), and was excited to see where they took the Ghost Recon series. I remember the previous Ghost Recon being much more open environment, and this one revolves more around cities and indoor environments. I liked the stealthy aspect of the game which inevitably turned into all out gun fights when I screwed up. Throughout the dozen missions I was aching to play co-op with my friends, even though my AI partners were actually pretty good shots. They were however horrible at pathing, and I actually failed two missions because I'd get to a breach point and wait and my AI partner would never show up. The story in Future Soldier is more of a means to an ends to get you to all the various settings. Some people stole a bomb, blew up some folks, we go after them. The cut-scenes seemed cheap, though the graphics during gameplay were good. After finishing up the story I jumped into some multi-player. I am enjoying it, but once again I'm yearning for playing with my friends instead of random public matches. From what I've seen so far most people end up playing for themselves and not coordinating attacks which typically results in losing. I enjoyed the campaign, I've enjoyed the multi-player, but both would be far superior with a co-op partner or three.


I still have Kinect Joy Ride sitting on my shelf unopened because I just can't bring myself to play it because I'm not a fan of the control scheme. Joy Ride Turbo is much easier to pick up and play with since I can actually use a controller. I played through the first four sets of races and I didn't find it to be anything special. I'll probably play through a few more levels to grab some achievements but it's not really pulling me in.


MonstaFish was this weeks Windows Phone release, and once again I get suckered by a $0.99 price tag. As one of my friends said "Sometimes I question these games you start... :)", and I have to say this time I agree with him. MonstaFish is a handful of mini games none of which are really that hard, but they also aren't that fun. The hardest game is Time Attack which requires you to survive for three minutes while tapping fish before the radiation gets too high.


I racked up a completion for Droplitz Delight and I can say I'm glad I'm done with it. There is no variety to this game at all. You've got your five types of pipes, and you just keep making paths from the top two entrances, to the bottom three exits over and over and over and over and over.

Owned Games: 496 (+3)
Unplayed Games: 35 (No change)
Incomplete (20%): 49 (No change)

20% Complete Games (90.12% - +0.06%)
- Ghost Recon: Future Soldier - +23 achv.
- Joy Ride Turbo - +4 achv.
- MontaFish (WP) - +14 achv.

100% Games (154: +3)
- Men in Black: Alien Crisis - +4 achv.
- Droplitz Delight (WP) - +11 achv.
- MonstaFish (WP)

Overall Progress (76.27% completion : +0.03%)
- Fable Heroes - +2 achv.
- Max Payne 3 - +3 achv.

R.E.M. - Harborcoat

I took off Friday and made Memorial Day a four day weekend. I picked up a new computer monitor and spent part of the day getting it mounted on my desk. I had to add an oak backboard to the particle board to ensure the mounting arm will hold. When I was done I was so happy with it I bought a second one. Recently I've begun listening to the Nerdist podcast which has kept me cracking up constantly. One particular episode was from Bumbershoot 2010 (a local festival in Seattle) and they had the musical group Garfunkel and Oates play...it was hilarious and I spent the good part of the afternoon listening to their entire catalog.

Let's not forget what Memorial Day is all about...

“True heroism is remarkably sober, very undramatic. It is not the urge to surpass all others at whatever cost, but the urge to serve others at whatever cost.”
- Arthur Ashe

Back to gaming news my GSPMarathon team had our first Top 10 finish! I had to do something to make up for last weeks poor personal showing. (The Unholy Trinity - 10th place, Zulghinlour - 4161, xX H B0MB Xx - 2817, knight0fkh0nshu - 2002).

Now for my Pet Peeve of the Week ™: Games that unlock additional difficulties after finishing the game on a lesser difficulty. It's even worse as they typically have achievements for beating that tougher difficulty. Seriously, let me pick the highest difficulty I want to play and then stack the achievements. No matter what, your game is not good enough to make me play it multiple times. This week, almost every game I played had this "feature"...Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer - two playthroughs, Men in Black: Alien Crisis - two playthroughs, and the worst of all...Max Payne 3 - five playthroughs!


I finished up the campaign for Max Payne 3. The one time I'm going to play through it (screw the other four). According to Raptr I put in 23 hours on the game, earned 31 achievements for 490G (yeah...stingy with the achievements). I had to go back, lower the difficulty to easy to get a bunch of the "do this during your mission" style achievements and grab the collectibles I missed. The replay options are fantastic allowing you to go back to a specific chapter and checkpoint allowing you to pretty much go exactly where you need to be. I was disappointed in the boss fight at the end which basically punished me for trying different tactics. I tried to sneak around the side to flank him and was welcomed with an insta-death. In another attempt I shootdodged outside the arbitrary box I must stay in and once again was insta-killed. Finally I just stood up and kept shooting everyone and hoping that the 7 bottles of pills would get me to the end of the fight...turned out that was my best strategy, resulting in success. Some of my time has been spent playing the multi-player and I've probably played a dozen matches and I'm impressed with how they do the bullet time in multi-player. I keep hearing that Gang Wars is the mode to play and I just unlocked it so I will have to give it a try.


Droplitz Delight was the new Windows Phone offering this week and at $0.99 it's hard to go wrong (I mean there's 200G to be had here, right?) It's an interesting little rotating pipe game that apparently has an XBLA sibling that I was unaware of. I started off playing the quest mode and as the levels get longer timewise, I find myself losing interest. As far as I can tell you've basically got the same gameplay throughout the entire game; two input pipes at the top, three exit pipes at the bottom. Your job is to make as many complete paths from top to bottom as possible. It's always good to have a phone game to mess around with while waiting, and this will fill the role for a little while.


I got to borrow Men in Black: Alien Crisis from a friend this week and all I can say is that I'm glad I didn't pay for it. It's a rail shooter that likes to punish you. They toss grenades at your feet, but you really can't get away since your only options are to move left and right between two sets of cover...even if you move you're still going to get hit. As you complete a section it automatically moves you forward to the next set of cover. The best is when it automatically moves you forward right into a grenade and you die. I honestly don't know what the story is because after the first conversation (when I realized Agent J and Agent K weren't in the game) I just held the A button down to get through it as quickly as possible (thank you Hori turbo controller!). On the plus side the game itself is easy and you can net yourself a good 800G in an afternoon. It will take you a bit longer if you want to go for all 1000 as you will have to play through the entire game a second time on their Elite difficulty (I think I clocked in around 10 hours total for the completion). The only reason to play this is for the gamerscore.


I picked up Iron Man 2 for $10 recently and since I'd just seen the Avengers it seemed appropriate to toss this game in. I liked playing as Iron Man and I liked playing as War Machine, they got the weapons down well and once I figured out the targetting I did much better in combat. The flight controls were a bit annoying at times and the camera seemed to have a mind of its own at the worst possible time. I'm honestly surprised I beat the final boss with the complete lack of control I felt I had guiding the characters. The game is full of "Kill 100 enemies with XXX" achievements which make for an awful grind after you complete the game. I did a few of them, and ignored the rest. I put around 7 hours into the game and picked up 825G.


Not much more to say about this one. I've done all I'm going to do on this. 10 hours, 840G. Only achievement left is to replay the game in Fantastic Mode and I've got other games I'd rather be playing.

Owned Games: 493 (+2)
Unplayed Games: 35 (-1)
Incomplete (20%): 49 (-2)

20% Complete Games (90.06% - +0.45%)
- Max Payne 3 - +25 achv.
- Droplitz Delight (WP) - +4 achv.
- Iron Man 2 - +46 achv.
- Men in Black: Alien Crisis - +34 achv.

100% Games (151: No change)

Overall Progress (76.25% completion : +0.37%)
- Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer - +13 achv.

R.E.M. - A month of Saturdays


Bonus: Garfunkel & Oates - Handjob, Bland Job, I don't Understand Job