Review Preview

A snippet of this week's Dumpster Dive:

[From one section]
ZOIG - Who is the mysterious man known only as ZOIG? Where did he come from? What is his purpose here? What foul things will happen when he finally ascends to the top of the popular blog list? Will Steely Dan release another album!? Needless to say, this masked marvel has become a permenant fixture and only you can stop ZOIG's neferious plans....by clicking on this link...once a day....yeah...that's the ticket...

[And yet another section]
This particular feature is perfect for your average gamer, after all, it's just another competition where our flabby exteriors and translucent skin is meaningless! Why not take a totally artificial number and see who can make their little number go up the most in a week? And if you win, you get bragging rights! Yeah! You spent the most time away from friends and loved ones! You win!

Of course, the only one of these I could ever win was against a bunch of random strangers in the great feature known as the "Auto Challenge." I won once by 5 points. Second place? He had zero points. No really, I earned the "Submissive" achievement in The Orange Box and won. There's another joke somewhere in there that I'll leave it to you to write, because the main point is, without this awesome feature, a real physical marvel of a man, wouldn't have such a great victory story!

[and another section]
As if gamer score challenges weren't enough, this section lets people set up their own, totally arbitrary challenge! Like a race to 100 retail completions! That's original! Or a race to a certain gamerscore mark! Fun! Know what always happens though? You won't win any of these. Nope. None. There's always some guy with way more gaming time then you ever have. What this site needs more of?

Truly lazy challenges. Like the Not Quite Epic And Really Rather Sad Race to 50% Completion! How many people wouldn't be caught dead advertising their 25% badge? Yes, I mean you Buckswana. Friggin' 93% completion....pyschotic if you ask me...oh, right, anyways, let's say you want to go truly off the wall and have a race to say...100% Eternal Sonata! You can do that!

And then forget about it for months, and when no one's looking, start piling up the achievements and declare yourself the winner! Really, this tiny little portion of the site has limitless potential for amusement!

[And cut]

Yup, that's right, since Wednesday's a special day and all, figured I'd aim the Dumpster Dive at the very last place people would expect: 360Voice.com

Welcome To The Grind

My timing in launching this blog was well, poor. Lost my first 360 to the E-74 error on Friday, traded in stuff to Gamestop and got a new one, with their warranty, for $68. Forgot that the arcade units don't have HD compatibility, so for now I'm gaming in standard-def on a HD TV. Which sucks. The incident also killed my motivation for awhile, so no expanded Deadliest Catch review, don't worry, I'll be posting up a sneak peek of next Wednesday's review this weekend. It's going to truly be a one of a kind review.

Back to my quest for the Three-Star Oddball badge and the introduction of The Grind. All The Grinds. Here's my current rotation of games:

Virtua Fighter 5 - Boils down to "Beat every single opponent in the entire game." Every estimate I've seen of the time needed for this one is 30 hours. I'm currently at an overall mark of 36% done (I love games that keep track of stats like that for you.)

FarCry 2 (Multiplayer) - Actual game? Not a grind. Online? Oh hell yes. I'm just under 2k points from reaching rank 10. A feat with an amazing trueachievement ratio of 5.18. I've been averaging about 300 points every Team Deathmatch game and 350 for every Deathmatch game(which have no chances for revives, making the Team Deathmatch still a better choice.)

WarTECH: Senko No Ronde - 1000 ranked matches online? Does anything else really have to be said? I'm at 47 right now. Mostly just a matter not being online when my boosting buddy is, which should be fixed now that my life is back to normal.

Dead or Alive Extreme 2 - I REALLY don't need to say anything else. Back to playing this semi-regularly tomorrow.

Deadliest Catch: Alaskan Storm - Gamefly game, so it has some priority of course, but man, it's so freakin' slow I have trouble actually getting myself to sit down and play it. Victor Delta, the "Crew has all maxed out morale" achievement. Far harder then it sounds because your crew is a bunch of pansies. Even the All Decked Out achievement, which is buying every upgrade for the boat, will take me about 3 more King Crab seasons, or 5 hours in earth terms. Painful, horrible game.

Spectral Force 3 - The newest addition to the high-priority rotation of games. Doesn't count for Oddball, nor are the achievements worth a lot at Trueachievements.com, it is however, an offbeat game that very few people have actually played, which means that I just have to have it. Should be hitting this up starting on Friday. Oh, and it's basically a next-gen Shining Force with far crappier gameplay than the Genesis classic.

Is it really any wonder that my Gamerscore goes up at the speed of a glacier?

The Alaskan Storm Blows Hard

Holy boring game Batman!

I just got done writing up a review of it over at 360voice.com, and one will be hitting this blog later with expanded material. Needless to say, this is a horrible, horrible game. Guilty Gear 2 is a masterpiece next to this thing.

On the bright side, I am now 1/4th of the way to the 2-Star Oddball Badge! 1500 points to go for that one, and 3500 for the coveted 3-Star! I need to bite the bullet and try to get the 100% Collection in Beautiful Katamari sometime soon, before I get more DLC levels.

Same thing with Overlord (which is a great game, go play it!). I need to finish off one more section before I invest in the DLC. I feel like I'm making some real progress, which is great and all, but Dead or Alive Extreme 2 is still hanging over me like the Damocles Sword.

It's amazing a game can be so very bad when it includes stuff like this. :-)

The Quest For The OddBall

My 360 gamertag is Dog of Thunder, and I have a problem. I know I'll never have the highest gamerscore, because this guy has that particular market cornered. Completion % really isn't much of an option so well, that would mean playing more of Star Trek Legacy and not even I want to suffer like that.

So I settled on having the most bizarrely fascinating gamercard.

All those games that get low to mediocre scores? I play those games. Crappy controls, horrible plot? Yup, I play those too. If it's a B-rated title, I love it. I stopped playing Gears of War 2 because I got sucked into the multiplayer for Far Cry 2. That's the sort of insanity I have going on.

That is also the purpose of this blog. To chronicle one man's journey into the mouth of madness. The crown jewel of my quest, my ultimate goal: To be the first to attain the 3-star Oddball badge at 360voice.com. In order to reach my goal, there is a mighty beast that must be slain.

Dead or Alive Extreme 2.

I have been chronicling my quest to 100% Dead or Alive Extreme 2 (DoAX2), since October 8th, 2008 in the 360voice forums (Here's the carnage if your curious as to what came before), but now you can enjoy the full scope of my quest, including all the crap I play that doesn't count for the Oddball badge, that's right, I'm talking about you X-Blades. So sit back, relax, and follow along as I rant, rave and hurt myself over the sort of games you don't even give to your little cousin.