Ringing in the new year with 90,000 Gamerscore

When I hit the 80,000 Gamerscore mark in August 2017, I predicated I’d earn the next full 10,000 by March 2018. Mel went with April 2018. Er, whoops. We were a bit off on those guestimations. Here we are almost two weeks into January and, thanks to a number of recently completed games and the Iron Fist martial arts tournament, which I’ll touch upon below, I punched 90,000 Gamerscore perfectly in the nose last night, shortly before hitting the hay:

Go me, go numbers growing higher. Also, at some point, I really do need to look into updating my avatar, seeing as I haven’t rocked a full beard now for many, many months. I can also make my body size a bit slimmer.

Let’s see. Obviously, the games I’ve touched most recently–Wolfenstein: The New Order, Night in the Woods, and Prey–played a bit part in climbing this mountain. As did Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor and all its DLC, which, until typing those very words, I had honestly wiped from my memory despite the number of hours that whole thing took to complete. There’s also Slime Rancher and Murdered: Soul Suspect, of which I got most for the former and all the Achievements for the latter, plus a bunch of smaller games here and there to fill in the gaps, inching my Gamerscore a wee bit closer to the clouds.

However, after finding every single hidden enigma code collectible and unlocking the first puzzle-related one in Wolfenstein: The New Order last night, I saw that I needed 20 more Gamerscore to hit 90,000 perfectly, which wasn’t going to work with the remainder of enigma-related Achievements left in the game. So I began searching through my installed games list, on the hunt for something worth either 20, 15, 10, or 5, though I was hoping to find an easy one for 20 and call it a night. Enter Tekken Tag Tournament 2, and this little gem involving pressing X+Y+RB three times in Practice mode against an opponent standing still and not blocking, all of which took me about 30 seconds to do:

Master of the Direct Tag Assault (20G): You pulled off 3 Direct Tag Assaults.

My skills are undeniable. I don’t even remember which two characters I picked for my team. Either way, the job got done.

Will I achieve 100,000 Gamerscore in 2018? You bet your butt I will.

You’ll never take this 60,000 Gamerscore away from me

It was only a couple of months ago that I was touting my latest small victory, of hitting a Gamerscore of 55,555 perfectly on the dot. Now, over my years of gaming since gaining an Xbox 360 and loving the quest of popping many Achievements, I’ve normally only gone after the, in my zany and hairy mind, seemingly milestone-esque amounts, such as 10,000, 20,000, and so on. The big numbers. You can find posts on these ::ahem:: achievements by clicking here. However, I saw an opportunity then to do something silly, and I rounded out that post speculating that I’d hit 60,000 by the end of the summer or 2016. Looks like I second-guessed my ability to do numerous tasks and receive digital rewards for them. Shame on me.

Well, here, enjoy the photographic proof. You’ll notice that I finally upgraded my user pic–I think this colorful dude looks pretty close to me, or, at the very least, close to how I imagine people in the real world view me–as well as gained a couple more friends/followers:

Speech time. I’d like to personally thank the following games for helping me along the way, in whatever ways possible, since mid-March, because, without them, I wouldn’t be here today talking about 60,000 Gamerscore:

• Tom Clancy’s The Division – Thanks for having so many collectibles to collect, even if all I got in the end was a rosy pink jacket. Just kidding. Got a ton of Achievements from running around an empty map of New York City in search of cell phones and abandoned laptops while friends did actual missions.
• Gears of War 2 – Thanks for a fairly okay solo campaign and multiplayer modes that allow me to play against the AI instead of thirteen-year-old kids that like to curse. At some point, I’ll be back to get all them dog tags.
• Saints Row IV – Thanks for just kickin’ back and saying, “Have at it!” I’m still working towards a few goals in Steelport, but the fact that there’s a menu keeping track of all your stats, such as how many kills you’ve gotten with a specific weapon, is extremely useful.
• Hitman Absolution – Thanks for being the sort of game that lets you be sneaky sneaky and then all-out action hero when things go wrong. I hope to write about you soon, as I’m having a much better time in your world than I did in Blood Money.
• Tekken Tag Tournament 2 – Thanks really goes to Bandai Namco for making Tekken 7, as well as giving this one out for free during E3! Tekken has always been one of my favorite fighting game series, though I strangely never got to play any of the Tag games. Until now. So far, I pretty much only use Jun Kazama.
• Microsoft Treasure Hunt – Thanks for providing that 10G Achievement of revealing a trap on the first level, which helped me nail the 60,000 mark perfectly. You’re a blessing. Also, I promise to come back and play you at some point, as you seem like a mix of Minesweeper and a rogue-like, which…yeah, sure.

::a round of roaring applause while some bouncy exit-stage-left music plays and I’m ushered away behind the curtains::

So, is 70,000 Gamerscore possible in 2016? Hey, anything‘s possible. It’s the doing that takes work. Believe in me, dear readers, and I’ll see you when I get there.