PixlBit

Halochief90 got ahead of me in achievement points today. Only by 20, at first, so it gave me a goal to shoot for. The first easy achievement game on my list was Batman The TellTale Series. I had to download episode 4 first, though. Why this game downloads episodes one at a time instead of all at once, is a mystery to me. The files are small, though, so not too long a wait. In the meantime, I played some of my new retro game collections.

Arcade Classics Anniversay
                I played all the games for about 6 credits each. That would’ve been $1.50 times 6 back in the day. I didn’t manage to get a high enough score on any of them to unlock an achievement, but they were fun. Scramble has always frustrated me with how close you have to fly to the borders at times. TwinBee was Japanese only back in the 80s, so I only played it much later. I love it, but it’s also hard. With practice I might get enough points. Nemesis, the first Gradius game is pretty cool. It’s hard too. I really liked Life Force where you fight antibodies and tear through muscle tissue. When I got all the upgrades at the beginning, I could get all the way to the first boss, a brain with Lost in Space Robot arms. I lost every time. Typhoon is interesting as you fly a jet through clouds to dive bomb a ship. I blew the ship up once and fought helicopters in traditional verticality but didn’t’ get past the next big ship. Haunted Castle is the Castlevania arcade game and it’s so darn hard I could barely get anywhere in it, Vulcan Venture (Gradius II) is really cool. It’s hard but if you can master the upgrades, you can get somewhere. I got to the twin volcanoes and got destroyed there every time. Thunder Cross was the easiest of the games for me, but I still didn’t get enough points this time around.

Capcom Beat ‘Em Up Bundle: I played The King of Dragons, a sword and sorcery fantasy beat ‘em up. You can choose from five characters. I chose the Elf for the bow and arrow. I played online and a random joined me as the Cleric. We ran the whole game, which is more levels than I would’ve guessed for an arcade game. I think it was 14. I didn’t’ get an achievement for beating it though because you only get one for beating it offline, solo. This makes no sense to me. This game is designed for co-op play, the reward should be for playing it that way.

Castlevania Anniversay Collection: I played the first game, Castlevania on NES. I thought it was great, but I couldn’t beat that first mini boss, the big bat thing. I think you can use items in battle, but I couldn’t figure out how just by playing and trying buttons. I’ll look up the controls next time.

Batman: The TellTale Series, Ep. 4: I really don’t like this story, but it’s the easiest way to pad my Gamerscore, and it is, in a way, interesting to play in small amounts. I’m going to look up Wolf Among Us after this and also any others they did that I never played. Hopefully, I can find one on a sale.

Dante’s Inferno: I’m reading Dante’s Divine Comedy right now, so I thought it fun to revisit this 360 game I never finished. The story is very different in many respects than the book, but I was surprised to find some of it working quite closely to the events in the first canto. Each level is another part of the pit and you talk to Virgil before each one. I’m playing the Holy side. There is Unholy as well. They are just a separate set of attacks. One of my Holy attacks is Redemption and I’ve been redeeming everyone I come across from enemies to famous people Dante put in hell. The game is a total God of War 1 and 2 copy in terms of gameplay, but that’s a good thing because I love those games.

Big Buck Hunter Arcade My friend Mark was playing this the whole time and having a blast, literally. It’s the polar opposite to theHunter: Call of the Wild I played the other day. You are presented with a scene full of animals and when the game starts, they all run and you have to shoot the bucks and bulls. You fail if you hit a doe or cow. Mark got real fast on the trigger and was getting gold on a lot of levels. Sometimes a level throws an attacking bear or wolf to mix things up. There are also critters like racoon, rabbits and foxes that cross the screen. You can buy a light gun for the game, but it is $100, which seems crazy to me. There is online play too. I’m tempted to buy it for myself and see if we both can play competitively. It was on sale recently for $5.

After all this, HaloChief90 has not only kept up with me, but pulled ahead almost 300 points. I’m going to have to work harder next time.