Achievement Unlocked: Life, the Universe, and Everything

Been some time since I did an "Achievement Unlocked" post. In fact, I think the last I let you know, my gamerscore was at a measly 12,345.

Well, this month, I passed another important milestone:



I have surpassed 42k.

Not that it's a competition, but Matt still hasn't hit 10k.

Achievement Unlocked: VOOT!

Virtual On Oratorio Tangram came out for XBLA a few days ago. Since Virtual On is, of course, the best game series ever, you should go download this and get an easy 200 points added to your gamerscore.

Gogo Giant Robots! (Oh, sorry, the picture I posted with this is the original ad for the first game. Epic!)

I have no idea why Evan hasn't jumped on the opportunity for really easy points on this yet. Maybe he hasn't been eating enough. Or maybe he ate Spider Pig, and somehow got swine flu. Not to mention that this whole swine flu incident is just a big media hype, and I'll give into it when pigs fly... then we'd have to worry about avian swine flu. Crap.

Achievement Unlocked: As Easy As 1-2-3 (4-5?)

Been a while since I posted one of these, but my gamerscore just hit a nice round number again: 12345. A hearty portion of those recent points came from the game Lost: Via Domus, which is a video game based on the TV show, and to answer your question, yes, it is THAT bad. But I want to get all 100 of its easy gamerscore before I trade it in. I'm about to go back to playing it now, so it's likely I'll have passed 12500 by the time you read this. So I'm essentially 1/4 of the way to my second 10k. Will I hit 20k before Matt hits 10k? Only time will tell, but the race is on.
My gamertag on XBox Live is ShovelMage. Be friends with me!

Achievement Unlocked.

Earlier today when I posted that I would be hitting 10k "soon", I was still 160 points away. I knew I could get 160 points in a few days. I had no idea it would only take hours.

10k is a HUGE deal for me, way bigger than it should be, but whatev. Point is, I set a goal, I buckled down, and I saw it to completion, which is rare for me. Sure the goal involved playing a lot of video games, but still.

Anyway, thanks to anyone who helped me get here. I did it.

Achievement Unlocked: That's a lot of 8s

So, I've been spending FAR too much time on my 360 recently, which has been distracting me from my goal of writing a nove. Now I'm way behind. Thanks a lot, game developers.

I'm doing pretty good at Guitar Hero 3. I still haven't beaten Lou on Hard, but I'm most of the way through Expert. The achievements are kinda hard to come by unless you're some sort of amazing prodigy with no life and too much free time. Or Matt.

Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga is uber fun, and I'm already at 500 Gamerscore with more to come. I could fairly easily get 1000 on this game.

Carcassonne, a variable tile game for the XBLA is free, but only for today and tomorrow. I downloaded it, played one game, and got 55 points. Not too shabby.

Assassin's Creed is amazing. Not only is it incredibly fun, it's also graphically the best game I have ever seen. It does for the 360 what God of War did for the PS2, makes you think "Hrm, I didn't know the system could do that." I've killed my first of 9 marks, so plenty of game left.

Right now my gamerscore sits squarely at 8888, which I decided was a nice, even number to blog about. I'm also getting close to 10,000 which with the games I have shouldn't be hard to get. I just have to go back to Orange Box and get the '2 Points' achievement so I hit it on the head. Too bad I suck at basketball.My name on XBox Live is ShovelMage. Be friends with me!

Achievement Unlocked: Überness

Well, I'm not the only one lately that has gotten a great gamerscore. That's right, I got the best than anyone could possibly get: 1337. Take that boobs!

So yeah, I've been busy lately, but I've gotten my gaming time in edgewise. I have lent out Gears of War and teh Haloz to my brother, so right now I have the Orange Box. Quite a lot of achievements on that one, and making it possible to get that sweet 2 points achievement. I also got Guitar Hero 3, but sadly, not for the 360. But if I DID have it, I would totally be gloating about the "Inhuman Achievement", as I have beat Through the Fire and Flames on expert. Yes, it is possible. And if I can borrow GH3 from someone and get a bunch of achievements, I'll be happy. And gloaty. Woot.

I also got some gamer points, so I bought me some Castlevania SOTN, Every Extend Extra Extreme, and Geometry Wars. Look out achievements. Sadly, though, my trial Gold membership will be expiring soon, so I'll have to fork over $50 to get a full one. Yay.


I finally was smart and am using my switch, so I might be able to be on XBL more often. Find me, friend me, challenge me, kill me.... or something to that extent.

EDIT: Remind me not to save as a jpeg next time... fixed with png.

Achievement Unlocked: Boobs.

I haven't really done anything to warrant a new column, I played some Orange Box, got Guitar Hero 3, but still haven't beaten it. I was going to wait until beating it to write, but when I checked my Gamerscore, I knew I had to write now.

Not only had I passed 8000, I had hit a very important number spot on and had to immortalize it. I'm curently sitting right at 8008, which any 4th grader with a calculator could tell you spells "boob".
Guitar Hero 3 is pretty tight, nothing revolutionary. Looks like the achievements may be even harder to get than they were in 2. Time will tell.

Anyway, happy 'boob' day, everyone.My name on XBox Live is ShovelMage. Be friends with me!

Achievement Unlocked: SCORPIONS!

This past week I have been playing my 360 a ton. Here's how it breaks down.

I got sick of Halo3 for a while so I switched back to Gears of War for a while. Aside from playing through most of the game as Dom (the sidekick in co-op mode), I also have been playing a LOT of Annex on the new maps to try and get the 250 points that were added on for DLC. For a while, I had my guitar hero controller plugged in and was playing against it, though apparently that's cheating and doesn't count towards the achievements.

After a while, I got bored of playing Annex against nobody and switched back to Halo3. Finished my Heroic Co-Op run and found the rest of the Gold Skulls and Terminals. Played a little bit on live, but that part of the game just doesn't interest me as much.

In amongst all this switching back and forth between Gears and Halo, I played some Guitar Hero II, and got the achievement for unlocking all the characters, the last plausible achievement for me. Just when I was ready to put my plastic guitar away though, the demo for GH3 hit the interwebs. From what I can tell from the demo, they didn't really change anything from 2 other than the songs and beefier graphics, which is good, because why mess with a working formula? Anyway, I blasted 'Rock You Like a Hurricane' out on Expert, which means I'm as good at Guitar Hero as these guys are at guitar:
Other than that, I played some Fable and a few random arcade games.

I would like to also point out that while Yaris is free, if you play it for more than 5 minutes, you have overpaid. While I'm down with the concept of free advergames, this one just SUCKS.


My XBL name is ShovelMage. Be friends with me!

Achievement Unlocked: Halormal?

I also have been plowing through Halo 3. I however, did not beat it on heroic, only normal, though I've started my SP legendary run. I'm also mostly done with a co-op run on heroic, not sure if that'll give me the achievement or not. I've also found most of the skulls, Including the 'I Would Have Been Your Daddy' skull everyone on the internet is bitching about being so hard.

Nowadays, many people are treating Halo like it's the second (or third in this case) coming of the Messiah. I'm not one of these fanboys. In fact Halo doesn't do anything that another FPS hasn't already done, and done better. But what Bungie did succeed at was making game that is a lot of fun. In the days when most shooters are slow paced tactical thinking shooters, it's nice to go back to the bull-in-the-china-shop days of Doom.


I'm at 470 Gamerscore on Halo, with a lot of the remaining achievements seeming quite accomplishable. Up next: The Orange Box?

Achievement Unlocked: Haloic

Haloic! A clever mix of Halo and Heroic... aha..ha. Yeah okay.

Anyways, I got teh Haloz 3. My neighbor had the first two and let me borrow them (read: he thrust them upon me and said "Play. Now.") So pretty much for the past two weeks I've been on a Halo Heroic binge in-between classes. And what a glorious run its been. I've cleared all the levels on heroic on all three games, and now I am moving on to Legendary on Halo 3.

I must admit, Bungie did a damn good job with this one. I didn't follow the first two real closely and try not to adhere to fanboyism, but as a shooter it is impressive. Equipments are fun, as are detachable turrets. And the extra features are a hella fun to mess around with. And now that I have a month free trial for Xbox Live Gold I might as well play the hell out of it. Already flowing up the ranks. And getting those achievements.

Halo Gamerscore: 560
Total Gamerscore: 1100 (Its ridiculous, its not even funny)

BTW, my gamertag is Jagarandi. Come find me.