Am I an achievement whore?
There was contest recently on Xbox.ca Canada Community forums that had 3 volunteers live their day-to-day lives and achieve 1400 achievement points. Forum goers were asked to pick one of the 3 users, who they thought would get to the 1400 points first. When one of the three volunteers reached the 1400 points, an individual who selected said winner was randomly picked and awarded a 1400 points card. However, we didn’t live our day-to-day lives. Instead, we all raced to 1400 points. The contest was over before the deadline to submit your vote was due. I was one of the 3 volunteers; I lost the contest and came in last place. I did manage to achieve 1040 gamerscore points. This led me on to find games that were easy and yielded very easy gamerscore in return. I found 5 games that would require minimal effort and give me the points I needed. The games are NBA live 06, NHL 2K6, Madden 06, Avatar and College Hoops 2k6. That’s a total of 5000 gamerscore points. However, I should mention that 40 from NBA 06 were not achievable because EA has taken down the online servers.
Avatar has 5 achievements worth 1000 points. This game isn’t even worth the purchase price of $9.99. Regardless, I would go and rent this game because it will take you less than 10 minutes to acquire all the gamerscore points.
NBA Live 06 has 12 achievements worth 1000 points; however as mentioned above, the online win achievement for 40 points is no longer available because Electronic Arts has taken down the servers. I recommend using Lakers for most of the achievements. You do have to win a game on each difficulty level. Plug in a second controller and control the other team and with about 20 seconds left in the game, go into the select side options and put the second controller in the middle. I had a bit of a hard time getting the MVP achievement, so I ended up releasing all the good players but for anyone from the Lakers and I got the achievement. Getting all 960 points took about 1 hr and 45 minutes.
The third game on my list is College Hoops 2k6, this game features 5 achievements worth 1000 gamerscore. I played 1 game with 20 minute halves and was able to get 3 of the achievements worth 700 points. I recommend using Duke for these achievements. I am having a bit of difficulty getting the Get 20 steals in a game and get 6 blocks with any player achievement. Getting 700 points took roughly 1 hour.
Up next we have NHL 2k6 with 5 achievements worth 1000 points. I went in and adjusted the sliders and then choose to play as Team Canada vs. Tampa Bay Lightning. I achieved 4 of the 5 achievements in 1 game. If anyone has any tips for Scoring on a penalty shot please let me know. Total time to unlock 750 gamerscore points was less than 1 hour.
Finally, we have Madden 06 which has 11 achievements worth 1000 points. I achieved 10 of 11 achievements in 1 madden season including playing 1 game at 10 minute quarters. The last achievement is complete 30 seasons of franchise mode. You can simulate every season but it will take a couple of hours to complete. Total time to unlock all achievements is 3 to 4 hours.
With a total investment of under 30 dollars and 8 hours of your time, you can easily boost your gamerscore above your friends by playing older games. To most people, gamerscores don’t mean anything but to some it may. I had many people call me an “achievement whore” or tell me I was wasting my time and money by doing this. To them I simply say, “well my gamerscore is higher than yours.”
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1 Vs 100 Preview Event
On Tuesday May 5th 2009, I had the chance to preview the upcoming 1 vs. 100 interactive game show, coming to Xbox live sometime this spring. There were plenty of media members and even a few lucky community members were able to be at the event. The day started with the showing of the 1 VS 100 official trailer, followed by a speech by Glenn Purkis, from Xbox Canada and Jo Clowes, Director of Development. They briefly explained what we were going to see in today’s preview. They opened up a link that connected to the Microsoft Studio in Redmond, were comedian Chris Cashman had entered the booth and began talking to us live. Chris was very upbeat and a very funny individual.
You are probably asking yourself, what is 1 vs. 100 live?
Well 1 vs. 100 is hosted by Chris Cashman and is going to be the largest interactive game show. He also has a lovely co-host, the Voice of Cortana from Halo. Yes, this show will be broadcasted live. You will be either the One, the 100 also known as the mob or an audience member. Being the One, Mob and an audience member is randomly selected by the service.
Now you are wondering, how does this game work?
Once the One, Mob and Audience have been decided you will begin to be asked trivia questions. You are asked a broad range of questions and yes, some will be regionalized. Once a question is asked you will have 3 possible answers (x,b,a) and a limited time to answer that question. Once everyone has answered the game will eliminate the mob also known as the 100 who incorrectly answer the question. If the One does not know the answer, he can use 1 of his 3 help lines. Only 2 were displayed during today’s preview and they were use the Audiences answer or use the Mobs answer. If you were part of the mob and you were eliminated, don’t worry you can still answer questions to build up your points. We played several games and one of the games the mob won and spilt up a set number of Microsoft points and the other game the One won and received 5000 Points. These looked like Microsoft points as a pop up came up on screen which said Arcade title as well as a point value, followed by the Microsoft point logo.
You will only be able to be the One, once per week unless everyone has already been the One. This will be available to all gold members however, you can also play with silver members locally as well but they will not be eligible to win any prizes. The Canadian Beta starts Friday May 8th 2009 and runs to Sunday May 24th 2009. During the last weekend of the Canadian beta Xbox will open up the beta to all gold and silver members. A season of 1 vs. 100 live will be 13 weeks and 200 gamerscore available for those 13 weeks. There are also advertisements in the game; yes there is a mini television screen in the mob that will display advertisements from Nike, Sympatico and Zuma. Will these advertising dollars pay for the prizes? Sure seems like it. The programming schedule will be Friday Nights at 10pm EST and Saturday Nights at 7 and 10pm.
There is also another version of 1 vs. 100 call extended play. Extended play will not be live and available 7 days a week. You and thousands of Xbox live members play as the mob and battle it out for top score. 1 vs. 100 extended play features themed trivia every weeknight for the ultimate variety. Some examples mentioned were battle of the sexes and with the possibility of doing an Olympic themed night when the 2010 winter games draw closer.
1 vs. 100 features 12 achievements worth 200 gamerscore per season. The achievements are:
Low Rider – Answer instantly and incorrectly three times in a row 5G
Showboating Specialist – In a single 1 vs. 100 live round max our your avatar action 10 times 10G
Thrifty Skipper Extended play: In a single round, save up the maximum of 3 skips 10G
Speedy Delivery – In a single round, score a total of 1300 points through time bonuses 20G
Game Show Guru – In any single round, achieve a streak of 12 consecutive correct answers 25G
Quick Draw – In a single round, receive six consecutive instant answer bonuses – 25G
Hair Trigger – Get three consecutive questions right while receiving an instant answer bonus for each. 15 G
Golden Century – answer a total of 100 questions correctly 25G
Trivia Fanatic – Answer a total of 500 questions 30G
Go Streaking! – In a single round, achieved a streak of five consecutive answers 15G
Group Hug – Your team of four achieved a simultaneous streak of three consecutive correct answers 10 G
Quarter Century – Answer 25 correct answers correctly 10G
They didn’t discuss very much regarding what the prizes will be but it looked
like each round awards a prize to the top 3 high scoring crowd or mob members. For every 10 mob members eliminated, the prizing ladder moves up a level. The top prize is reached when all mob members are eliminated. If the One answers incorrectly, the prize ladder is divided among the remaining mob members. For the Canadian beta every correct answer earns you an entry into a sweepstakes to win Acer Aspire laptop, a Xbox 360 Elite with extra controller, and Xbox LIVE Arcade games. There are a maximum of 500 entries per person per season. As I stated above there seems to be some sort of use of Microsoft points, but they aren’t available during the Canadian beta. Using those MS points to buy arcade games or DLC would be cool!
The Canadian beta starts this week (on Friday May 8th 2009 at 10pm EST) and hopefully thousands of Canadians hop on to play 1 vs. 100 live with host Chris Cashman. This Canadian beta should allow Microsoft to stress-test the technology, to ensure there are no hiccups come launch date. I would expect some sort of announcement to come out of E3.
Snowblind Map Pack
Snowblind Map Pack
The Gears of War team at Epic, has been really busy lately. They have released title update number 3 as well as the new Snowblind Map Pack for 800 MS points. The 4 maps included are Underhill, Grindyard, Fuel Depot and Courtyard.
First up from Gears of War 1 remade and updated for Gears of War 2 is Fuel Depot. This is basically the same map from GoW with a few changes, right away you’ll notice the map is now covered in snow. Secondly, there are a few added cars throughout the map. I don’t remember there being a Mortar inside the garage, but it can be very useful weapon during certain game modes.
Underhill is a brand new map which features a hill with a mortar on top and either a sniper rifle or torque bow at the bottom. The map also contains various tunnels with a central garage point where a flamethrower is stationed and most importantly the garage door can be opened from the outside or the inside. I really do enjoy playing king of the hill or annex on this map but I find it doesn’t work so well for execution or warzone. I generally refer to this map as the weakest of the 4 maps because not a whole lot of the map is being fully used.
Courtyard is ported over from the Gears of War PC edition. Decisions, Decisions! Do you roddie run to the back of the map for a torque bow or boom shot? Do you run to the top of the courtyard and get the mortar? Or, do you race to under the main stairs and grab the grenades? This map is very well balanced and the epic fight for survival can happen on any part of the map.
Grindyard is a massive industrial area that has seen better days. Teams spawn on opposite sides of the map and roadie run towards the center tower to score the upper hand on their enemies and take control of the boomshot or the mulcher. The team below has a chance to grab the grenades and frag their opponents out of the tower. This is a smaller map but it provides a ton of challenges and hours of excitement.
Overall, out of the 3 map packs out for Gears of War 2, flashback map pack, the Combustible map pack, and Snowblind is by far the best of the bunch and easily worth the 10 dollars. You also need the new maps to earn some more achievements.
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