Well its been great to finally sit down and get some real gaming done. This week I have spent catching up on some blogs, reading a few "new" ones, whilst slowly making my way through Project Runthrough.
With regards to Project Runthrough, I have done a full complete of Tomb Raider Underworld, includin DLC. As with all TombRaiders, I bought it and it sat in my "to do" pile for many many months, but when I finally got around to playing it, I rather enjoyed it. The graphics are pretty good, the game play runs quite smoothly albeit a few camera issues. The one issue with this game is the large amount of collectables (185 in all including hidden relics). Although these aren't particularly hard to find with a walkthrough, my game glitched on one, and thus forced me into the habit of saving after each and eevry collectable. I am all for collectables for replayability, but when does it get too many?
The game itself is a "fairly" easy to get the full 1250 just the following two achievements really gave me a headache
and
They are not particularly bad per se, just require a little bit of trial and error, unfortunately the second achievement I made countless mistakes on and as such it took me 1 hour or so to here it 'ping' .
The second game I played this week was "NIER". I
cannot recommend this game enough, It got severlely slated during reviews (personally I think people keep comparing all square enix games to their best ones) but undeserevadly so. The game takes a little to get into, and the often quoted 80+ full 1000 can put people off. However, I did a first runthrough in 14 hours, this was a speed run and missed many achievements, some are not even doable until the third/fourth runthrough of the game. This leads me onto the only issue I have with the game - the lack of achievements possible on the first 'speedrun'. I am all for replayaibility (especially where achievements are concerned) but I often feel the developers fail the balance between achievements and gameplay. Take for instance Star Ocean - an issue I am sure
Pip The Unholy's Blog is finding. The majority of the achievements come towards the final few hours of the game. I feel that achievements shouldn't just be a 'carrot on a stick' to guide you to a full completion but also as a reward given throughout the game. Few games have managed this well,
The Orange Box I feel was one of these games. Back to NIER, the gameplay is fun, and Square Enix have produced a very fun take on an action RPG, almost streamlining it to the point of you only having to worry about what "spell'/"weapon" to use and which enemy to hit the hardest.
Back to stats, after Weeek 5
Retail games
Total-57 Runthrough-9 Full 1000's- 4 Remaining-48
XBLA GamesTotal 34 Runthrough-2 Full 200's/400's-1 Remaining 31
Gamerscore when starting the project:May 8th: Approximately 98k
Week to week gainJune 2nd: 103518
June 10th: 105033
Gain: 1515
Trueachievement Gain
149584 - 147344 --> 2240
Onto none gaming news. Despite being slightly overweight (went from 13 stone to 17 stone in a year after quitting smoking) I took up running last year. I have now got to the point were I run 7 miles, three times a week were possible (looking to increase to 11 miles over the summer). I recently was given an ipod, which, in terms of my runs, really helps me focus. I keep finding tunes which really uplift the momentum so to speak, two such tunes recently include
(give it a while it eventually starts :) )
and
The second video is Lindsey Stelring, who was recently became a sensation after appearing on "Americas Got Talent" (iirc). A VERY talented violinist, but wait, dont let that put you off, she has an exceptional talent with putting a "spin" on it including doing various dubstep style tunes, and has worked with several others at producing some really fantastic music. On a side note, she is extremely cute aswell ;)
Peace out, same time next week folks
PS I NEED FOLLOWERS!!!
double pps
CO~ULD NOT get this tune out of my head last night!