Odd Gamerscores are perfect for palindromic numbers

I had a busy day of pinging Achievements, unlocking several from a number of games: A Kingdom of Keflings, LEGO Pirates of the Caribbean, and Fallout: New Vegas. When all was said and done–and by that, I mean when it was time to stop gaming and make dinner–I noticed that my Gamerscore looked kind of special. It read 23132. Here’s the moment frozen in time too:

Oh boy! Zaaaany. There’s even a name for this crazy happenstance, and it’s called a palindrome. Basically, a sequence of units that can be read the same forwards and backwards. It occurs a lot in life, and I can now check off “palindrome the heck out of my Gamerscore” from my bucket list.

I know, I know. It’s all rather silly, but I found it amusing, and it’s probably never gonna happen again, at least not like this because I’ll be getting the 88G Achievement soon from LEGO Pirates which will turn my ‘score back to a nice, even number. In fact, I’ll probably do some more gaming tonight, messing up my ‘score most certainly by morning’s time, which is why I’m pushing this post out sooner than later.

Another fun example of a palindrome? This phrase: rats live on no evil star.

Games Completed in 2011, #16 – A Kingdom of Keflings

I used to be a Command & Conquer: Red Alert junkie back in my high school and early college days, and much of this blame can go to my then best friend W. We would constantly challenge each other in races for single-player missions or go head-to-head in crazy, hours-long skirmishes. I rarely won, and the biggest reason most certainly was because I took too long trying to build my base up perfectly. The key word is perfectly, not perfunctory. W would build his base just enough to start amassing troops and heavy tanks and then swarm me as I was still trying to figure out where to place my Tesla Coils.

Thankfully, in A Kingdom of Keflings, I have all the time in the world to build my base–because nobody’s coming to attack me. There’s still the problem of building my magical kingdom perfectly, which quickly got away from me as I placed houses here and workshops there and my giant castle in front of a chunk of dense forest. But there’s no outside pressure; just soothing music (save for the banjo tune), a lot of back and forth, and a great sense of accomplishment as you lock in that final piece of a building.

I don’t really understand Keflings and where they come from or why they worship my giant Avatar so, but that’s all pretty moot in the grand scheme of things. They’re great help in mining for source materials or carrying them from one end to the other. And they seemed to like me, despite my constant kicking of them or taking off their hats. It’s a quirky mix for sure.

Achievements-wise, I got 11 out of 12 by the game’s end, most of which pop naturally as you progress through the many blueprints. The last remaining one requires me to host a multiplayer game and get ten other Xbox 360ers to join and drop a special banner down. I probably won’t ever pursue that one. You’ve played A Kingdom of Keflings once, you’ve played it enough. That’s not a slam. I enjoyed my chilled time with the game, just relaxing it up and going through the motions. But nothing different would happen in a second playthrough except maybe me trying harder to achieve the most perfect-looking kingdom. Alas, I know in my heart of hearts that no kingdom would ever be perfect enough for me–unless I can physically live there.

A delicious taste of L.A. Noire’s 1940s-esque soundtrack

I did not pay much attention to L.A. Noire simply because I dismissed it early on as a 1940s era Grand Theft Auto, which, as any loyal Grinding Down reader will know, is not my favorite game. I mean, you can see the Rockstar Games touch very clearly in its latest title, from the dynamic and stylized cutscenes to the minimap to their passion about having a stellar soundtrack. That last thing is not a bad thing.

Anyways, reviews are out, and besides having to constantly warn gamers that you can’t run over prostitutes in this one (aw shucks), the verdict seems to be that L.A. Noire is much more of an adventure game than a drive-and-shoot title. No random rampages allowed. Gameplay is more focused on investigating a crime scene, talking to witnesses, and piecing together an answer. Yes, there’s still some of those annoying “tail a car, but don’t get caught” missions, as well as some shootouts, but more or less, it’s all about the story and one man’s drive to bring wrongdoers to justice. I can get behind that. Considering the lack of strong, narrative-driven titles harkening back to the point-and-click genre these days, I might have to actually get this game–but not quite yet. I still have plenty of titles to work through, but once I’ve cleared a total of, say, 25 games for 2011, then I might go out and give post-WWII Los Angeles a try.

Oh, and about that soundtrack. It’s fantastic. You can preview six songs from L.A. Noire thanks to SoundCloud:

My personal favorite is the remix of Ella Fiztgerald and Louis Jordan’s “Stone Cold Dead in the Market.” The others are great, dancy remixes of classic, old-time tunes. Doesn’t necessarily evoke the sense of police work, but does transport one back to a simpler time, to smoke-filled rooms, to dangerous women in dangerous outfits, to falling victim to gorgeous, dreamy sounds, to finding love and chasing it down.

Testing the fields and busting tanks in Red Faction: Guerrilla

I gave the demo for Red Faction: Armageddon a spin the other night, and there’s not too much to talk about. It’s basically Red Faction: Guerrilla, but with a pinch of horror and a really neat new weapon, the Magnet Gun. Instead of taking place above ground on Mars, we’re now beneath the regions of Tharsis, deep below the dusty soil, where horrible abominations breed and lurk. It’s different enough from its predecessor in terms of locale, but the game seems to play very much the same. You run, you shoot, you obliterate things in your path.

I then had the itch to go back to Red Faction: Guerrilla after the demo was over, especially because I do enjoy causing massive amounts of in-game destruction. It’s just that the main story and main story missions have always given me grief; I can’t seem to get past the first few missions in Dust, unfortunately, but at least I have the freedom to drive around, blow structures up, and mine for ore.

I also played some more online matches and many rounds in Wrecking Crew, which is just an excuse and exercise in weapons of mass destruction. Matchmaking for online games is pretty slow and will probably severely slow down once Red Faction: Armageddon comes out, but I did get in several rounds of Team Anarchy. I held my own most of the time.

Anyways, here’s what I was able to unlock Achievement-wise after going back to the game for a bit:

Can’t Get Enough (20G): Played every mode on all maps in Wrecking Crew.

Field Tested (10G): Earned 1,000 XP in Multiplayer.

Tank Buster (10G): Blew up 100 small hydrogen tanks.

It’s still a hit or miss for me in terms of fun, but there’s something about Red Faction: Guerrilla that keeps calling me back. I dunno. Probably a deeply buried love for the original two PlayStation 2 games; heck, I spent countless nights battling AI bots in Red Faction II because I enjoyed it so very much. Maybe I’ll look up an online strategy guide and see if it can kept me (and Alec Mason) combat the EDF.

Welcome to the Caribbean, let me ruin up your Gamerscore

Gamerscore is a pretty fickle thing. It mostly adds up to e-peen though it is also nice just to see in another form your triumphs and kills, but ultimately it means very little. Only one guy so far seems to have made a living out of it. Points for most Achievements range from 5 to 100, usually equaling a nice even number or a number that can be easily made even by adding five more points to it. However, there are exceptions, and some developers like to slip in Achievements for 0 points or 3 points or 7 points or maybe even 59.437 points. I mean, it’s really up to them, so long as the retail game’s total hits 1,000 points, it’s all good. A majority of Achievement lovers hate these oddball pointers, as they “ruin” what appears to them to be a nice, neat, orderly number.

Me? Yeah, it’s a little irksome, especially because I like going after such milestones as obtaining a perfect 10,000 score and a perfect 20,000 score, but it can always be remedied. Which brings me to LEGO Pirates, and it’s very first level, Port Royal, taken from Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl‘s storyline. Upon completing it, you unlock this wet bandana:

Welcome to the Caribbean! (12G): Complete Port Royal

Yeaaaaaaah, that’s a 12 there, not a 15. It was my very first Achievement unlocked in the game, but I can see others getting the one where you’re eaten by a shark in deadly water first. So, for me, it was kind of like a slap in the face, the kind Captain Jack Sparrow knows all too well, and after sifting through the whole list I discovered this was done so that Traveller’s Tale could make another Achievement based on some pirate lingo. That one is called Pieces of Eight, and it’s worth 88G, which would totally fix our little number problem. However, to get it, one must acquire a total sum of 888,888,888 studs. That’s gonna take some grinding and cheat codes, meaning my Gamerscore is gonna look wonky to me for a little bit. Oh well.

Let’s all take a moment of silence though for my Gamerscore, now forever changed, forever touched:

Gotta stay strong; time heals all wounds.

Be like Bolton, and get back to the good part!

In honor of today’s big Purchase of the Month–that’d be LEGO Pirates of the Caribbean, not Brink, which is getting horrible review scores–I give you Michael Bolton crooning over Jack Sparrow’s fantastical adventures:

“Big sexy hook” doesn’t even begin to describe this work of art.

Living the LEGO life of a pirate

The demo for LEGO Pirates of the Caribbean: The Video Game begins with a young Elizabeth Swan punching a parrot in its face. It’s pure zaniness, but that’s what these LEGO games have always been about–retellings with a special touch. If you’re not laughing, you’re not having fun.

I started to play this demo by myself, but when Tara saw what I was doing, she quickly grabbed another controller and joined in on the fun. We’ve always enjoyed playing the LEGO games together, especially LEGO Harry Potter, Years 1-4, which was very close to us in terms of interests. Here’s a comic I did many moons ago about our time with LEGO Batman (the weakest of all the LEGO titles actually):

Much of the demo for LEGO Pirates (I’m shortening the title from now on) is actually cutscenes, setting the story up and giving Tara and I many reasons to giggle. The entire game will cover all four movies. We’re playing the first level of the Curse of the Black Pearl, which has Jack Sparrow arriving in town and getting locked up, Elizabeth accidentally summoning those cursed pirates and getting herself kidnapped, and Will Turner slowly becoming allies with a wanted criminal.

The first playable part of the demo is inside Will Turner’s workshop. One player controls Will, and the other controls, um, some guy I can’t remember the name of. His partner? Together, we broke items, collected studs, fed a carrot to a donkey, and repaired a machine, which revealed where Jack Sparrow was hiding. Then it was time for a sword-fight high up in the rafters, and even though I was just mashing the attack button, the swords clinked and clanked and swung wildly, giving the impression of a real duel to the death.

The next area has us controlling Will and Jack, trying to break our way out of jail. This involves using a dog and sniffing out keys. Once we’re done this area, we’re outside in the shiny, bright sunshine, attempting to get to the docks to steal a ship. Tara takes control of Jack and the laughs hit a high when he hops on top of a barrel and begins rolling around with it. We get to do some combat with some soldiers, and then we’re over by a ship, trying to figure out how to commandeer it. Staying in the water too long gets you eaten by a shark. After solving the rather simple puzzles and zip-lining over onto the ship, the demo ends, leaving us wanting more.

However, after playing the main part of the demo, you can go back and do “free play” on the first level, which just gave us an excuse to try out some other fun characters and explore a few locked areas. Tara ran me over several times with a donkey, and then we were officially done for the night.

So, the gameplay is exactly what we’ve all come to expect. For some, that might seem like a downer. However, it’s still the sort of gameplay I like, as it is not too intense for co-op play, and just enough of a collectathon for my OCD. Granted, there are not as many memorable characters to unlock in LEGO Pirates as there were in LEGO Star Wars and LEGO Harry Potter, but I think it’ll still be a blast to control Bootstrap Bill.

The full retail version releases tomorrow, and I’m gonna get that booty faster than you can say, “Oh, barnacles!”

Videogames I’m definitely buying in 2011

I kind of thought this would be a light year for DO WANT games, but with each day that hits anew I’m finding myself becoming intrigued more and more with shiny new titles. Too many to remember by remembering alone at this point, which is why it’s great that I have this Grinding Down blog, which is now being used as a forthcoming grocery list, but hey, it still loves me. That said, let’s get to the meat of this post, the tenderloin, the chicken cutlet, the bacon bits.

Here’s everything I’m planning to purchase this year videogame-wise so long as I don’t get mugged in a back alley:

LEGO Pirates of the Caribbean: The Video Game

Release date: May 10, 2011

I’ll have some demo impressions up soon for this one, but I’m pleased from what I’ve already gotten to experience. Sure, it’s the same formula over and over, but it always works for me, and they absolutely nailed the way LEGO Jack Sparrow runs. And it’s one of the franchises perfect for playing through co-op, especially with a loved one. Also, Tara already suggested the next great franchise to LEGO-ize: Back to the Future! Mmm-hmm.

Bastion

Release date: Q3 2011, but I’m hoping for early summer

Like a painting brought to life, Bastion looks simply beautiful. That would be enough to get me interested, but then I learned it’s a mix of action elements and RPG elements. Sold!

Deus Ex: Human Revolution

Release date: August 23, 2011

Any game that can be played in multiple ways is a good game to me. Variety trumps linearity. Especially if one of those ways is all about being sneaky and non-confrontational. It kind of reminds me of Fallout 3 in that sense, but shinier, slicker, with more vibrant highlighting. I should, at some point, go back and play some Deus Ex: The Conspiracy even if it hasn’t aged too well.

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

Release date: November 11, 2011 (11.11.11 for the cool people)

Pretty sure I won’t be the only one picking this up in November. It’s only a huge followup to a huge followup. I’m very interested to see what’s changed from Oblivion to Skyrim, as I was always fond of exploring that game’s world, but found the combat and quest system to be a bit disappointing. Here’s hoping, but it’s gonna be epic no doubt.

Assassin’s Creed: Revelations

Release date: November 2011

Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood was certainly a surprise. It was not, as many feared, just a quick cash-in on a building franchise. In fact, it only made the claim truer that, yes, Ubisoft, knew what it was doing with its stabby-stab games. Multiplayer is back, and that’s great as it’s some of the only multiplayer I’ve played and enjoyed. But when is Assassin’s Creed III really coming out?

Animal Crossing 3DS (no official title yet)

Release date: August 2, 2011

Very few details exist, but you’ll supposedly be the mayor of the town in the next iteration. Maybe that will lead to more control over shops and such. Either way, this’ll give me a reason to buy a 3DS game. Buuuuuurn. I think they could do neat things to with Play Coins and StreetPass functionality, but time will tell. If it’s the same freakin’ game all over again, I’m swearing off the series for good.

Fantasy Life

Release date: Sometime in 2011

Fantasy Life is turning out to not be the Fantasy Life I remember seeing previews for many moons back. It’s instead getting revamped for the Nintendo 3DS, and while the art style and graphics have sadly changed, here’s hoping the gameplay–a life sim in a medieval fantasy setting–hasn’t. I’ve always wanted to know what it’s like to sell fruit in an open market to a range of peasants.

—

That’s all I can think of right now. I’m sure I’m forgetting a few games, and I’m sure I’ll want another five within a few weeks, but such is the life of a gamer, I guess. Naturally, I can’t list impulse buys, Fallout: New Vegas DLC, and games to add to my PlayStation 2 collection as they go on sale, but yeah…games. I love ’em.

Five things make a post, or it’s time to Ragnarök!

5. The next Assassin’s Creed game has been revealed, and it’s titled Assassin’s Creed: Revelations. Please note that it, like Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood, is missing a number in it. What does that mean? ::shrugs:: The newest game is rumored to be the last for Italian superstar Ezio, bringing his journey full circle to line up with Altair and Desmond. And the multiplayer aspect is coming back, too, which I think is fantastic. I never expected myself to become so interested in this series after its lukewarm first game experience, but here I am, waiting and wondering. Comes out this November, probably right around the same time as TES V: Skyrim, just to mess with me.

4. The Arbiter, upgraded to level 3 and rocking a tingling Shock Omega mod, is currently my weapon of choice in Ratchet: Deadlocked. This thing is just a beast, taking out dropships in two shots. Mmm:

3. As much as I adore Norse mythology, I’m not interested in the slightest over this new movie Thor. I mean, if I want to look at cheese, I’ll open my refrigerator. That said, there’s a browser-based game called Thor: Bring the Thunder! and it looks simply gorgeous. Colorful 16-bit sprites in what one could describe as Mega Man with a lightning-fused hammer. However, I think a better title would’ve been Thor: Time to Ragnarök!

2. I downloaded two demos on the Xbox 360 yesterday: LEGO Pirates of the Caribbean and Red Faction: Armageddon. Unfortunately, due to time restraints and the constant distraction that is Netflix, I’ve not been able to try either of these yet, but will most likely give ’em a run over the weekend. Not expecting much from the latest Red Faction title, but I do love me some LEGO action. Hope it’s as fun as the movies were (well, the first movie at least).

1. I finally earned the highest amount of G in the latest bazaar in Harvest Moon: Grand Bazaar. This meant selling everything I had in my bag, including a huge piece of gold I was lucky enough to find attached to my body after jumping into the river seven times. I was so excited for this as I knew that the highest seller won a prize from the mayor. Maybe it was a trophy? Or a huge bag of gold? Or his daughter’s hand in marriage? No. No, it wasn’t any of those. I won a bottle of milk. Ffffffffffffff.

And that, dear Grinding Down readers, has certainly been a post.

Sign me up for Bastion based on its beautiful art alone

Seems like I can’t go a day without coming across a new game that intrigues me and makes me go, “Yeah, Pauly, ya big gaming addict…that’s something you’ll probably like.”

Today’s like du jour is called Bastion, which I guess actually began its life cycle as a PC game, but it’ll be coming to Xbox Live somewhere around Q3 2011. It stars a silent kid known as, well, the Kid, who is trying to create the Bastion, a safe haven of sorts where his post-apocalyptic city pals can go to for protection, especially after the recent event known as the Calamity Split, which splintered the world into floating islands. It’s described as a role-playing action game, and it looks beyond stunning. Vibrant colors and a world in constant motion, as the ground reassembles as the Kid moves forward, which is pretty amazing to see as it happens, help make this game look freakin’ alive. And there’s story choices, too, dynamically changing how your playthrough happens and how Bastion‘s narrator reacts; an Achievement exists for completing New Game+, which is always a good thing, and makes picking different choices all the more easy.

Go on. Fall to your knees:

No more details are available on price and exact release date. Will be keeping my eyes peeled for this as the days creep on by.