smrnov's Blog (287 followers)

First off, thanks to everyone who sent messages of congrats, I appreciate it. I think it surprised most of you and myself really as it was never my goal to overtake Stallion83. Since being #1 in TA for a while now (maybe 1 year?) I was sitting on a bunch of easy games while inching closer in gamerscore. Couple that with a 5-day long weekend with no distractions it was as good a time as ever to try.

I'm pleased that I could snag #1 even if it may be short-lived by not changing my play style, which is completing games. That has always been my goal and still is what keeps me playing. I didn't want to start a bunch of games for the points, I wanted to maintain the way I have always played. Hats off to Stallion though, after almost 3 days of me playing sub 5 hour games he was still managing to stay ahead.

This is the likely near future for me as today I'm back to juggling work, family and my favorite hobby: Xbox achievements. Plus, I'm horrible at updating my blog, so when someone random is looking at this 2 years from now, just member! And if you don't know what member berries are, please check them out. Hope these make an appearance in the upcoming South Park game.

Because this is TrueAchievements and we all love statistics:

Started Tuesday (27-Jun-2017) afternoon with Grim Legends 2: Song of the Dark Swan and finished up Sunday (02-Jul-2017) afternoon with ACA NEOGEO WORLD HEROES 2.

• Statistics

TA: 29,854
Gamerscore: 24,150
Games Started: 24
Games Played: 28
Games Completed: 23
Achievements: 428

• Q&A

To answer some of the questions I’ve been getting:

No, I won’t be applying for the Guinness World Record.
No, I don’t get a sponsorship or anything free. I buy all my own games and memberships (Xbox Live, EA Pass, TA Sub). I did get an Xbox One when they were launched and Xbox Canada did give me a bunch of swag when I did the 1 million live at their booth at FanExpo in Toronto.
No, Stallion and I have never had a gentleman’s agreement for me to stay #2.
Yes, I do have a job.
Yes, I am married, 21 years in fact.
Yes, I do earn more than my wife, but honestly if she made more I’d be fine with that.

• THANKS!

Big thanks to those of you who take their own personal time to write walkthroughs, you folks are invaluable to the community. I hate to mention names because I know I will forget some, but here goes a few at least. Sorry for the wordiness!

Thanks to LifeExpectancy and his Energy Cycle walkthrough which put me over to #1, he is always available to give me tips in Neverwinter as well. He writes some awesome blogs too. Super helpful nice guy, speaking of super nice and helpful, I’ve used countless Sangriaz guides over the years as well, as I’m sure most of us have.

Many people give their own time to help with achievements as well, like Minecraft sessions (thanks Itzz Sh0wt1m3) and any difficult XBLA co-op sessions (thanks K4rn4ge, lucas1987and MattiasAnderson), and random join now sessions for Gamerscore (thanks Eagle 0ne).

Then there’s the people who drag me through annual installments of Call of Duty because they are really great at these games and know that I am not. (thanks KriSpy CharMZ and NJDuke007)

Thanks to zzUrbanSpaceman, Freamwhole, Crandy and Proulx at the Zed To Zed podcast for having me on a few times now, it’s always a great deal of fun, and I hope to do it again soon.

Gamers Be Like… guys and gal having been putting up great reviews and achievement guides as well, and I’ve had the pleasure of playing with both Bond OO7 and A 2rue LeGacY a few times, most recently with GTA V heists.

Thanks to planting42 for keeping it interesting with the GTASC and other events even though I don’t often compete any more. I still follow along, and one year might join in again.

Thanks NBA Kirkland, The Globalizer and Chunkeh Munkeh for always having something interesting to say on my feeds. Kirkland is a great promoter of the achievement community and always positive. Globalizer pleaded with me to play Skate 2 DE co-op with him which I absolutely sucked at. He dragged me though the whole thing never complaining about my poor skill, and I got to know a really cool guy. Chunkeh has always been supportive of this community we have going and manages to keep his priorities straight with a young family.

Thanks to the guys from the old 360Voice site, especially Fshguy, Kaens and Buckswana. I never got to meet too many from that community but I certainly plan on attending Achievement Fest some year. I think SpeleoFool may be a 360Voice guy but I didn’t meet him until more recently, we’ve had some great discussions around setups, and got to play GTA V Heists together, in Japanese no less!

Thanks YODA12320 for his informative status updates on game sales, I always check these!

Thanks Shadow Kisuragi and frenchdawg for their help in all things Window Phone, you guys are dedicated.

Thanks Matt DB87 for always finding the imports and sending them over and all the usual guys who always buy them from me after: MightyMango, General Tynstar and CoolKidJoe. Mango we still have to finish Rugby GFWL boost someday.

Thanks Ryot Control for being an awesome guy with awesome friends like ImayB3urDad (whom I still call Irish), Botafogo007 and tjayars even though we don’t get to game as much together anymore. That Gears 2 JP weekly horde that took a year and a half will never be forgotten.

Thanks to Rand al Thor 19, Sillva, Pigimus Prime and StophJ for being staples of the Xbox community and fun guys to chat with. I’ve met Silva (Windows 10 launch party) and Stoph (Pax West), hope to meet Rand and Pig at a future event somewhere.

Thanks to the future #1s: CelticForce, RedmptionDenied, rafaelgrn, and SDREW44 are only a few of this group. The amount of score they put up over the last couple years is insane and dedicated.

Thanks to Nicole and Raj whom both were great over at Xbox Canada and have moved on to cool projects, but we still keep in touch and sometimes meet up at Ubisoft or MS events.

Thanks to TrueAchievement and his team which keeps a wonderful site running daily (thanks TA for the DMs to get my scanning sorted), and Chad and Jessie for being one of the nicest people on the Internet.

And lastly but certainly not least, even though he may not play as often but is still my Xbox BFF and was the only person who knew I was going to try this in June, A 0 E Monkey. Thanks for all the support and the insane boost sessions we’ve done together over the years. That’s one of my favorite times when playing Xbox, and I look forward to more crazy ones.

I love the community here on TA. It’s a great place for us to share our love of Xbox Achievements together.

DISCLAIMER: If I didn’t mention you it’s because I’m rushing to get this posted while still #1.