All systems engage and–update!

Today’s the day Xbox LIVE gets an update.

Will have to wait until I’m home from the day job to check out how it runs and all that, but so far the Internet is telling me all is good. No Facebook/Twitter integration, rampaging dinosaurs, or XXX porn. That comes in the next updatery. Can’t wait…

I totally am the Keeper of the Creed

Took a small break from my new crack (Magician’s Quest Mysterious Times) last night to run around in Assassin’s Creed. Earned two achievements, one of which was story-based. The other, however, I’m pretty pleased with. See below:

Keeper of the Creed (10G): Find All Flags in Masyaf.

Hidden throughout the main hubs of the game world are flags. Some are easy to spot, glistening on top of roofs, but the majority are hidden in nooks and behind buildings or down alleys that have to be walked. The flags do nothing; it’s just something to collect. But it calls out to my OCD and therefore all must be gathered. And there were 20 flags to be hidden in Masyaf, and I found them all without the use of a map or guide, which makes me feel pretty darn good. Granted, there were only 20, and some of the other cities have a ton more to find, but I’ll keep my eyes peeled.

Update to Xbox LIVE arriving on August 11, 2009

The update will be ushering in a wave of new features, such as Games on Demand, the Avatar marketplace, user ratings, and other stuff. Read up about here.

Alas, this will not be the update that includes integrating Facebook and Twitter into the main dashboard, which is a shame as I was looking forward to that feature the most. I’m nonplussed about the notion of spending real money/Microsoft bucks for digital clothing and toys for the videogame representation of us gamers. Seems kinda moot, really.

But…but. The Avatar marketplace could really do wonders if it allows some games to unlock a few free tee-shirts or magical swords (I’m looking at you, Fable II) either as some part of an achievement or whatever. That’d be nice and possibly some incentive to even glance purchasable pixels.

As per the Games on Demand, it’s not for me. I like browsing a shop and bringing something home, whether it is a new game or a used one with the manual missing.I also suspect that they will be priced a bit unfairly, but I’ll only speculate for now and hope that they don’t go nuts. I got my copy of Mass Effect for $15 human dollars so hopefully it is somewhere around there as well.

So yeah, I’m just kind of waiting on the update bringing in Twitter and the Book of Faces. Some time this fall, eh? Okay…

Being a hero, always

Well, I’m one step closer to getting my second full 1,000 gamerscore, which is most definitely going to be from LEGO Batman. Last night, I punched and kicked my way through three more levels to find the remaining helpless idiots and save them from…well, save them from being eternally held by goons and clown-faced mercenaries. Upon sending a flaming batarang up one of said goon’s butts, I unlocked this:

Vigilante (25G): Rescue 25 civilians.

Which has me currently sitting at 37/46 achievements. Now, let’s just be clear…the LEGO games are by and far not terribly challenging or hard. Glitchy, sure. Badly designed at times, you got it. In fact, the achievements they offer up are anything but challenging–what they are, however, is time-consuming. Most of the ones I have remaining involve achieving 4,000,000,000 in studs (yes, that’s the correct number of zeros), buying everything in the game, finding all the mini-kits, and generally completing LEGO Batman to 100%. I’ll get there, block by block (LEGO, that is), but man will it take me some time…

Giving Mass Effect a second chance

My first playthrough of Mass Effect was a bit…disappointing. Not in terms of gameplay or story, but rather in that it was clear from my list of gained achievements, I had not played enough of Mass Effect. For one thing, here’s four that I did not get by the time credits were rolling:

Scholar (25G): Find all primary Alien: Council Races, Extinct Races and Non-Council Races codex entries

Completionist (25G): Complete the majority of the game

Soldier Ally (20G): Complete the majority of the game with the Alliance soldier squad member

Krogan Ally (20G): Complete the majority of the game with the krogan squad member

Upon initially meeting my multicultural cast of playable characters, I picked Ashley Williams and Urdnot Wrex as my partners in crime saving the world. They stuck out to me as interesting people/dinosaurs, and I faithfully used them in every mission possible. Granted, I really only followed the main storyline. Did some hopping and skipping around the galaxy, but the amount of planets was overwhelming, and the select few I picked to visit seemed to be nothing but barren wastelands. So yeah, I guess I missed a ton of sidequests.

So last night I loaded up my previous save and started a second campaign with my existing Paul Shepard. He’s already at LV 40 so we’ll see how it goes. I’m, however, for the sake of things, contemplating using alternate characters just to experience the story differently (I’m also being a total renegade/poophead to people). I know, I’d like the above achievements, but really, any two ally achievements will be good enough for me because it’ll at least show that I’ve played a “majority of the game,” whatever that turns out to be in Mass Effect.

So, any suggestions on who to go with for the second playthrough? I just arrived at the Citadel, and I dig the Throw and Lift abilities, mostly because my Shepard is an engineer and lacks the Jedi oomph.

Once more, this time with feeling

Wow, my last post here was in the middle of March 2009. Yeah, let’s get down to the meat and potatoes: I suck.

But we’ll try again, as I do love thinking about videogames and such, especially since I’m now the fancy owner of one of these things:

Only took me a billion years to get it, too.