PixlBit

     I wasn't going to do it this week, but the alure of accumulating gamerscore and playing Xbox 360 with my friend was just too great. I had to feel the thrill of victory and the agony of bad gameplay as I muddled through any-and-all in the quest for more achievements.

     I went back to Just Cause and finished up the boat stunts and the last three races to net me a complete game and 1000 points. I'm really happy that I finally completed this game. It took some troubleshooting with a friend of mine at work to get past a few tricky spots. The fourth to last mission is somewhat glitched; one of the races seems to be impossible unless you sort of cheat by using the Agency Gyrocopter; and a few of the Government strongholds are full of tanks that can literally juggle you to death with their unfair rapid and super accurate shells. Other than that, the game is not too difficult. It took me about 38 hours to do everything in the game.

    Then I returned to The History Channel: Civil War: A Nation Divided and picked up the rest of the collectibles with the aid of a thread. I think it would've taken me several months to find these things without it. A lot of times you were looking for a letter that a soldier had on him to be sent to his family in case he perished. He'd be lying prone, covered in tall grass, with the paper in his hand, nearly impossible to see unless you were right over him and looking straight down.

    While I was getting collectibles, I was also playing the whole game a second time on Normal difficulty. Normal is challenging, but not impossible. The Southern missions were much harder than the Northern ones, especially Bull Run which made me scream with the way the enemy would shoot through cover. It's one of the technical issues with this game, but it only really poses a problem on the harder difficulties.

     I got the Pistol kills soon after having beaten the game on Normal and had restarted the first mission on Easy to pick up the last photograph, which of course, was in the hand of a dead soldier completely covered by tall grass. Then I got the achievements for 75% accuracy on four levels I didn't have.

     In the end, I left the Hard Difficulty achievement and all but one of the 95% accuracy achievements unlocked. Hard is brutal and incredibly tedious (I only did it on the very first Northern level) and 95% accuracy on any level is neigh impossible unless you revert to a save every time you miss - another "too tedious for me" kind of task (I did manage to get it once though).

     All that being done, I booted up Bionicle Heroes. It's by Traveler's Tales. The menu screens and the way the game's goals work is very similar to the Lego games. What isn't similar is the over-the-shoulder third-person view that plays havok with your targeting and makes it hard to position yourself to bring up prompts to activate levers or open chests. Add to that the overall ugliness of the game and the strangely skeletal characters, and I soon decided I didn't want to play it anymore.

    That was ok though, because I had Dead or Alive Xtreme 2. This game starts out with a incredible cutscene that had me shaking my head in disbelief. Zak and a girl are piloting a submarine and find the sunken Zak Island. Zak launches a missile that signals a flying saucer in orbit to raise the island to the surface. The cut scene really had me wanting the game to be all about submarines and spaceships instead of holiday Sims. Then another cutscene happens that showcases the girls and the activities on the island. It's a really well produced cinematic despite all the T&A stuff. I thought it quite stunning, if gratuitous. Then, the game starts and you pick a girl to play as and start trying Jet Ski races, beach Volleyball, and jumping across pool accessories. The Jet Ski races are ok, but the boats jerk around like crazy and are hard to control. The Volleyball is fine but you don't actually activate jumps, so you don't have the control that makes sports games fun. And the pool platforming is rediculous and tedious. Then, when went to the hotel room to sleep, I got a camera from Zak as a gift. The next morning I went to the pool to do some fashion shots. I was horrified to find the camera controls so mixed up and confusing! I gave up on it after only a few shots. This whole game could've been about fashion photography and been infinitly more interesting! Lastly, I went to the casino and played the Blackjack, Poker, Slots and Roulette. Yawn!

    The achievements for this game are mainly for collecting all the accessories for each of the girls, which comes down to getting a lot of Yen. I found it very difficult to make any money: gambling is losing proposition, Jet Ski races are not easy to win, and Volleyball makes some dough but is pretty boring after only a few matches. In the end, I played a bunch of Poker, watched the strange breast physics that made me think each girl had two Dragon Quest style Slimes under her bikini top, and began wishing this game had a real story and some action (or at least better photography). So, without getting a single achievement, I moved on...

   ...to something completely different,  Cabela's African Safari. This game actually looks very good for 2006 and is a lot less tedious than I expected. Each hunt takes place in a fairly small area, and all you have to do is walk around and take aim. There are, however, a lot of different types of hunts in this game. Sometimes you're on foot and have to follow tracks. Other times you're on the back of a car or boat and have to take down animals stampeding in a herd. You have three helpers that give you advice on what gun to use and how to find the prey. It makes the game move right along and not overwelm you with technical stuff like what calibur rifle do you use for a Dik Dik. I'm only a few hours into the game, but I'm actually enjoying it. It may be that I finish it tomorrow because it is not a long game. 

     What's next you ask? Aw yeah,  Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. I'm going to finally get down with some guides and walkthroughs and get through the whole game. I can't wait for that.