Finished up everything in Saints Row: The Third

Back in May 2012, y’know, two years ago, I polished off the last of the assassination targets in Saints Row: The Third as I pursued completing that game fully to 100%. And by fully, I mean doing everything there is to do in the main vanilla game–I never ended up buying any of the DLC due to less-than-stellar reviews–and that includes a bunch of small things that, more or less, equate to grinding. Thankfully, fun grinding. Here, let me list what I still had on my saintly to-do list:

• Complete all 30 vehicle theft targets
• Complete all 41 challenges
• Start the game over and complete Act 1 in a different way

Well, I’m happy to report that I finally, y’know, two years later, finished off all of these goals. Now, truthfully, it did not take me two straight years to do this, as I ended up playing Saints Row: The Third again sporadically, but when I did get back into it, it was for a good while.

I first focused on the vehicle theft targets, squeezing one or two in during my lunch hour whenever I did get around to turning on the ol’ Xbox 360. These missions were made much easier thanks to being able to use your avatar’s cell phone to wipe either the cop alertness or the gang alertness after you steal the car. This makes driving it back to the chop shop a breeze as nobody is now chasing you and you can cruise to the location in style, blasting anything but talk radio. But it takes some decent amount of in-game time to respawn the two wipes, so I’d usually just goof around for a bit or go after another goal while waiting. Stealing the army vehicles was probably the toughest, as the helicopters would get shot down before I could make the call, thus me wasting the opportunity.

The 41 challenges…by the time Saints Row: The Third was over, I’d say I had almost half of them completed. Many, like grenade kills, cars destroyed, and hoods found get unlocked easily by just playing the game. Other challenges, like streaking and robbing stores, I didn’t even know you could do, but were easy enough to polish off once I got the hang of it. And then there were the ones that just required grinding, doing them over and over and over: hostages taken, gang members taunted, vehicle surfing time, EMUs destroyed, and survival missions. Thankfully, the game is just fun from top to bottom and, due to all upgrades purchased, it is nearly impossible for the main character to die, so you can just go ape-shit with grenades and rocket launchers. The only damper was having to wait five minutes for your cell phone to ring to start a new survival mission, especially knowing you had like fifteen more to do after it; I guess I shouldn’t have ignored it so much during the main campaign, but, like real life me, I’m hesitant to pick up a phone when I don’t recognize the caller.

Starting the game over and burning through the first main missions of Act 1 again takes around an hour or so, and it’s still a blast. I forgot how many big and goofy moments are there early on, like parachuting into the penthouse. I decided to play as a woman this time around, and I noticed a few lines of dialogue had changed to specifically reference this. Anyways, at the end of Act 1, you get a choice to blow up a tower or save it by driving the bomb away. In my original playthrough, I protected the tower, but this time I let it crumble to dust and ruin, and listen to the sweet sound of the last Achievement popping. Well, the last one I can get without dipping into the unnecessary DLC. If I still had that list in the right sidebar, you’d totally see a green star next to its name.

So, Saints Row: The Third is a very good grieving game. It is a game you can lose yourself in without dedicating too much time or emotion, and it makes for a great slice of distraction. Want to just cause chaos with the cops for minutes on end? Go for it. Want to see how many people you can knee in the nuts in a row? Go for it. Ever try taking out a tank with a chainsaw? I have. Last year, after Ryan Davis passed away, I remember Jeff Gerstmann talking on one of the Bombcasts a little bit about replaying Saints Row: The Third with cheats turned on, just goofing around and not having a care about the consequences. It’s such an easy game to get into and play, and I’m thankful to have it in my collection.

Well, I’ve squeezed every last purple-colored drop out of Saints Row: The Third, deleted my save data, and put the game back on the shelf where it will sit untouched for, likely, the rest of my existence. Honestly, it’s more like a pile near my game shelf. But either way, it’s done, and I’m done with it. Had a fantastic time with it over the last few years, but I’m not moving on to Saints Row IV any time soon as I have plenty of other different games asking for my attention. Not sure what will hit that sweet spot next…

Suikoden III is forever “now loading”

I…I think I have some bad news. I say it like that because I don’t want to admit to myself that any of this is true, as I am a man that holds on and hopes, even as everything around me crumbles, but things do look a little dire. My PlayStation 2 disc for Suikoden III, a game I have been searching for high and low over a number of years and only finally just acquired last year, is busted. Has to be. If you’ll recall, I ran into a nasty loading problem during the first hour of the game, wherein the disc spun unremittingly while the words NOW LOADING flashed at me with malice. Well, it happened again, different spot. And once again after that.

Currently, I’m in this weird place. I spent a week or two burning through all four Blackwell point-and-click games with Tara and then proceeded to kick Mass Effect 2‘s ass to the curb and then systemically achieved 30,000 Gamerscore on the nose. And then…well, I haven’t really known what to do with myself when a moment of spare time opens up. I’ve dabbled a bit more in Rage, played some more Cave Story on my 3DS, and watched maybe too many episodes of Felicity at once. Eh, let me take that back; I could watch Felicity all day long, but only up until the episode when she chops all her delicious hair off.

And so, the other night, I decided to hop back into Suikoden III and see what was happening; I had played beyond the first hour for maybe another forty-five minutes, stopping at an impasse where my party had to wait a little bit before they could meet with the higher-ups of Vinay del Zexay. Turns out, we just needed to stay at the inn two or three more times, which is kind of annoying as the inn–seeing as it has no competition in town–charges a hefty 300 suikobucks each time. After your party has rested enough, Sergeant Joe suggests heading back to the town hall to see if we can deliver our message. And we can. Hugo and friends are invited inside, there’s some small talk, and then the screen goes dark to–I assume–load an important cutscene. Only, the game goes nowhere–it just sits on that loading screen, and I sit staring at it until I realized I’ve sat for probably too long. I don’t immediately think it’s locked up, as Secret Agent Clank taught me that some PS2 games take forever and then some.

Disappointed, I shut off the PS2, examined the game’s disc, and then turned the system back on. That kind of worked the last time. I stayed at the inn two more times again, went back to the town hall again, chatted again, and watched as the NOW LOADING screen mocked me again. Well, boo to that. I have to suspect that the discoloration on the disc is problematic for loading cutscenes. That said, I’m not giving up yet. I’ll keep trying to play for as long it lets me play, and whether that means going off on one of the other main characters’ adventures, then so be it. Maybe Hugo and I weren’t meant to be. Maybe I’ll run into the same problems elsewhere. Maybe, maybe.

It might just be worse to have an unusable copy of Suikoden III in my collection.

Back to blogging and videogame snogging

I did not plan to take two weeks off from blogging about videogames and giving Grinding Down love five days a week. Not one bit.

See, first things first, I was in a car accident. I was coming home from a work-hosted Christmas party, thinking about what gifts I still needed to buy for various family members when, without warning, a car slammed into my vehicle from behind at such a force that I screamed a sound I never knew existed within my being and bounced forward down the highway. I was doing around 65 mph; this person, who, with not much else to go on, I believe was drunk, had to be doing around 80 or 85 mph. They then drove off, leaving me on the side of Route 80, scared and uncertain. So I had to spend a few days dealing with that, as I was actually in a rental car at the time of impact and had to go to a police station, get an accident report, pick up my true car Bullet, and so on, so on, so on.

Then came the holidays themselves. This is the year I learned that, well, I’m not going to love the holidays as much after losing my mother to cancer last December. Makes sense, really, and so my depression surfaced to a magically new high. I played a lot of videogames, as I’m wont to do when down in that ditch, but I couldn’t get myself to write about them. I just hid in them and used them for quick hugs and abused them for ways to avoid all things real, all things scary. But I’m back now. I think. Yeah, hopefully. Gotta make the best out of this manic phase before I swing back low, right?

So, the year of 2011 has come and gone, and it’s that time for those Game of the Year roundups. I offered my picks over at The First Hour, naming…L.A. Noire as my Game of the Year! Yeah, woo. Play that game, y’all, if you haven’t yet. I also call out Bastion, Fallout: New Vegas, and Monster Tale as pretty great experiences, which should be obvious to anyone that follows this little blog here. I write about those games lots. Go check it out, even if Greg still doesn’t love exploring the Mojave Wasteland.

Throughout all this quiet time, I’ve played many, many games. Seriously, dear readers. A ton of ’em. Here’s just a few to whet your collective whistles: Ratchet & Clank: Size Matters, Saints Row: The Third, Rage, X-Men Legends II: Rise of Apocalypse, Kirby’s Epic Yarn, Pushmo, and Super Mario World 2: Yoshi’s Island. Again, to name a few. There’s more. And I have a lot of blog posts bouncing around my rabbity head, so stay tuned. Cause I’m back at this. I hope.

Oh, and Happy New Year!

All it takes to ignore a dead deer and ruined car is a ton of videogames

Last week, two days before Thanksgiving and hosting the food-centric holiday at our Grimmauld Place for the very first time, I hit a deer with my car. Now, first things first–the deer was already dead, left in the middle of the road like a lost shoe. Hitting a dead deer is, I’m assuming, better than hitting a live one, but the end result was the same, with my car going a bit down the road before overheating and then failing entirely. Had to have it towed to a repair shop, where it is still sitting until an estimator from my insurance policy can take a look at it. With this happening days before a big holiday break, nothing got worked on until starting yesterday, so I was a depressed, anxious man-boy, with plenty of time to worry. So I filled that time up with videogames, to keep the bad thoughts at bay.

First, without even knowing how much this car stuff is going to cost me in the end, I purchased the latest package from Humble Indie Bundle. It’s called The Humble Introversion Bundle, and contains these British gems: Uplink, Darwinia, Multiwinia, and DEFCON. If you paid more than the average price at the time of purchase, you also got Aquaria and Crayon Physics Deluxe, but I already own those games thank to previous bundles so I went the cheapskate route. I paid $2.00 for it, and I do not feel guilty one bit.

Y’all should already know that I then downloaded Metroid II: Return of Samus for my Nintendo 3DS right after a full day of being full.

After that, an email from OnLive was like a warm, sushi-scented hug. To start, I originally signed up with the “play the hottest games via broadband” company to get a free version of Amnesia: The Dark Descent way back in…well, I don’t remember. It’s not important. I’m always trying to remember specific dates and times, when they are more than definitely not vital to the story, a trait passed on to me from my father. Will work on that. Anyways, they were having a crazy weekend of deals, letting users play Homefront and Red Faction: Armageddon for free for 72 hours, and allowing new customers to buy a single game for $1.00. Yes, one dollar. Any game they had. Like, uh, you want Saints Row: The Third? ONE DOLLAR. You want L.A. Noire? ONE DOLLAR. I wanted Lord of the Rings: War in the North? ONE SHINY DOLLAR. It’s a little befuddling, but whatever; I charged my e-dollar and started playing LOTR: WITN with extreme glee and an Xbox 360 controller instead of keyboard/mouse. The only downfall of OnLive is that they expect you to be hooked directly into your router, whereas I was on a Mac using WiFi, which definitely caused some hiccups here and there. But for a dollar, that’s a moot complaint.

The remainder of Black Friday was spent over at my brother-in-law’s house, where a group of four soldiers made a dent in Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels. I can’t remember the exact worlds, but it was something like 3-1 to 4-3. Crazy hard stuff, but a fun time ultimately. Especially when three of us just plain gave up and sat watching Sean keep on keeping on. He deserves a lot of the credit, truly. We also played some football on the Wii, which is always a ridiculous affair.

Yesterday, on Cyber Monday, I started getting sad again. I started thinking about my car and money and wads of money with wings flying away from me as I chased it all right off a cliff that emptied into a roaring sea. So when I saw that Microsoft was having a sale via Xbox Live, I purchased some points and bought some more games and add-ons. Namely, these suckers: Beyond Good & Evil HD, Dungeons & Dragons: Daggerdale, and the final two DLC cases for L.A. Noire. With 130 MP to spare. Not like I can do much with that amount, but whatever.

Oh, and I just got emailed that those who purchased The Humble Introversion Bundle were now getting Dungeons of Dredmor. Another game to play.

So yeah, that’s a lot of new games over a short span of days. I’ve only really skimmed the surfaces on ’em, as time was also devoted to The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, LEGO Harry Potter 2, and some IRL Magic: The Gathering. I’m still without my car, though a rental has been acquired, but until I can know for certain what is happening and what I’m responsible for, I’m going to continue to fret–internally, mind you–and the best way to push it all back is with videogames. Lots and lots of videogames. If you guessed that I use ’em as a means of pure escapism, then this Grinding Down post is your best piece of proof.

Achievements of the Week – The Voyage of the Mind Edition

For awhile there, it was looking like there would be no Achievements of the Week update this week. I only got to play the ol’ Xbox 360 for the first time last night, giving Portal‘s advanced test chambers another swing and then moving forward in my second playthrough of Bastion. Otherwise, the only reason the Xbox 360 was turned on during these last seven days were to watch LOST, The Wonder Years, Frasier, and my favorite episode of Parks and Recreation (“The Fight” if you were curious). Not a terrible reason to hit the on button, but I do wish I could fit in more gaming time; alas, I’m losing my mind and slipping into an even deeper depression, making the things that were once easy and likable a little harder to enjoy…

Right. Achievements. Time to write about ’em.

From Bastion…

Mind Voyager (20G): Complete each trip to Who Knows Where.

Just my two cents, but don’t bother going for this during your first playthrough. Chances are, The Kid won’t be a high enough level to survive, nor will his weapons be fully powered, his distillery fully stocked, and his number of lootable health potions increased. All those things are vital to making it back to the Bastion each time. You basically make three trips to Who Knows Where, and each trip consists of 20 rounds of fighting swarms of monsters; after each round is finished, Bastion‘s narrator will give away another tidbit about the world and its characters, providing pertinent background on stuff like the Ura and Zulf.

I beat all three with the War Machete and Scrap Musket combo, utilizing the Final Warning secret skill a lot; the first two were rather easy, but the final one against the Ura was a dang struggle, as those dudes zoom in fast for the kill, often draining The Kid’s health bar strikingly fast. And potions don’t grow on trees, only getting dropped every other Reflection. Also, make sure you’re a pro at rolling.

Altruist (20G): Complete 100 percent of the Vigils in the Memorial.

This isn’t too hard actually, and thankfully many of the completed ones from the first playthrough carry over on New Game+. There are only a few Vigils–challenges, basically–that can be a bit tough. Namely, The Dynasty (Earn first prize in seven Proving Grounds) and The Faith (Complete a trip to Who Knows Where with at least one God activated). Other than that, everything else comes naturally as you progress. Just make sure you do all of them before moving on to the last stage, as that’s the point of no return.

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And that’s it for this week’s AotW. Stay tuned for next week’s edition, which will most certainly feature the remaining two Achievements in Bastion, as I plan on completing this beautiful baby over the weekend. If not, may a new Calamity strike me down.

How’d y’all do this week? Get that Achievement in Rage for horrible texture pop-ins? Slaaaaaaaaaam.

Achievements of the Week – The Big Bad Beat Bastion Edition

This week, I ended up beating two games. Well, one game I beat for the third time, which is nothing terribly exciting, and the other is one that somehow fell off my radar for two months. I apologize, Bastion. I apologize immensely. You’re so freakin’ gorgeous. I want to bath in your colors, and I want to hear Logan Cunningham reflect on my bathing choices, my three-in-one shampoo. I want to…hmm, okay, think I will stop this freaktrain before it derails…

Turns out, I was actually very close to completing Bastion before I forgot all about it so there wasn’t much further to go. Other than that, didn’t play too much Xbox 360. Some nights, it’s hard to plop down on the couch and game away; much easier to hide inside my studio bent over my laptop, clicking the minutes away, keeping the sadness at bay. Click, click, click.

From Fallout: New Vegas…

The Whole Gang’s Here (25G): Recruited all companions.

Already babbled about this one here.

Rocket’s Red Glare (25G): Acquired all upgrades for the Divide’s signature weapon.

Eureka! (15G): Completed Eureka!

This is the Achievement that pops when you complete the game by siding with NCR until the very end. I had little trouble beating the game on my third playthrough, as Kapture, at level 43, was fairly overpowered and carrying some crazy Energy weapons thanks to the Old World Blues DLC. Plus, I had ED-E at my side. I also had Lily, but she turned out to be pretty useless save for absorbing some bullets that would’ve first hit me.

Currently working on my fourth playthrough where Mr. House will get all my love and affection. Though there is a challenge to murder him with a golf club. Hmm…I could always save and reload…

From Bastion…

Kid-at-Arms (10G): Use the Forge to apply at least one upgrade to every weapon.

Vigilante (10G): Complete at least 50 percent of the Vigils in the Memorial.

I think Vigilante is a pretty common name for an Achievement. I know I previously unlocked it in Scott Pilgrim VS. The World: The Game and LEGO Batman, and I’m sure it’s out in a bunch of other titles. Know any off the top of your head?

The End (20G): Complete the story.

Won’t go into too much detail here, as I’ll save a lot of thoughts for a final writeup of the completed game, but…wow. Talk about evoking a mood and emotions from the player. The endgame has two major decisions to make, and they are major; I sat for a bit, staring at the screen, truly thinking about which way I should go. Both choices had their pros and cons, their reasons for being, and it was ultimately up to the Kid to finish things. And there’s this song…this heart-piercing piece of music paired perfectly with the weight the Kid has to carry. Like the haunting conclusion to The Saboteur, I can’t get it out of my head.

There’s a New Game+ option in Bastion, and I’m doing it, which is rare these days, because I’m downright curious to see what the other final choices reveal. Not just about the Kid or Caelondia, but also about me.

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That’s it from me. How’d y’all do this week with Achievements? Speak up in the comments section below!

Epic Mickey, epically forgotten

I received Epic Mickey for Christmas, and since then I’ve played it twice. Two times, people. One…two. That kind of says it all, but this is Grinding Down after all, and I always like to say more than is probably necessary.

Epic Mickey is a sad game. It’s sad for many reasons; sad that it can’t be what it wants to be, sad that its controls don’t work like we’re told how they’ll work, sad that its camera is disgruntled and ready to quit at any moment, sad that its best aspect has nothing to do with gameplay. Just sad, sad, sad. And for a Disney product, that’s astounding. Certainly, this would have been much more stellar with all the in-game levels removed, the controller denied access, and released as a straight-to-DVD bargain bin flick. It’s a great story. It would make a great family film.

And here’s a summary of the story: Epic Mickey is set in a world crafted by the wizard Yen Sid (pssssst, that’s DISNEY backwards) which houses all of Walt Disney’s forgotten characters.  Our titular hero Mickey Mouse accidentally spills paint thinner on a page containing the world and is dragged inside. Here, he’ll discover the Phantom Blot has been manipulating the world in very evil ways. Using paint and paint thinner, it’s up to Mickey to set things right (or maybe not at all). Also, Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, Walt Disney’s first ever cartoon hero, who hates the Mouse with unbridled passion, is out for revenge. See, it’s good stuff. It has layers, and it’s a real treat to see many of the forgotten characters actually dealing with their depression and anger. And poor Mickey is just kind of thrown into the mess of it all. Storyboard-style art really helps bring to life the characters and world, and I wish someone else would come over to my apartment, play the game to unlock all the movies, and then go away so I could just watch them one after the other. Yes, that is my wish.

The story is not Epic Mickey‘s problem. In fact, it’s its only sparkle of light. I’ve never been excited over using the Nintendo Wii for anything other than Wii Sports as the WiiMote and Nunchuk are prime examples of masochism. Pure hate against the consumer. They are the worst controllers in the galaxy, and playing anything with them is a minigame on its own. Using the WiiMote to aim the paint/thinner weapon is pointless because even if you do aim it right, the game doesn’t shoot the paint/thinner where you are aiming at. It always falls short. So that’s fun to work with. The controllers also don’t make general platforming easy, especially with that camera that Epic Mickey game designer Warren Spector won’t even admit is more horrid than Goofy doing disco. And good platforming is kind of key for a…platformer. I mean, when I say that I can’t get any further in the game, I mean that in the sense that I physically can’t get Mickey to where he needs to be because the jumping and climbing and clinging controls are broken and he keeps falling to his death. Looks like Mickey is doomed to the same fate as Smee and Oswald, abandoned, stuck in limbo, forever forgotten.

Alas, Epic Mickey is not the second coming of Mickey Mania.

Over at The First Hour, Nate answered with “doubtful” to if he’d continue playing Epic Mickey, and I have to echo his sentiments though I might give it one more try. An epic shame in the end.