Jay’s Internet Log

Early this morning, Pacific Princess will arrive at the port of Santarem, and following the completion of our arrival checks, we will make a sharp turn to starboard and out of the main river flow and manoeuvre alongside our designated berth for the day. In the evening, when all passengers and crew have returned to the ship, we will secure the ship for sea and slip our mooring lines. Once the ship is clear of the berth, we will turn to port and retrace our steps back up the Amazon River to Boca da Valeria.

Today we were in Santarem, Para. The city looks bigger than Parintins, but we never made it into town as it was far away from the pier. We took a river boat tour, which took us to a meeting of the waters, where the black water of the inlet meets the brown water of Amazon River. They mix like water and oil and both flow together. The river boat then took us down a narrow passageway where we saw lots of birds, cows, horses, and indigenous people. They live in little huts on stilts and the kids run up and down the banks waving at us. The boat stopped for us to see a sloth, but it was really hard to spot. Once we got to the end of the small river, we stopped and fished for Pirhana. Our boat only caught a few small catfish, but we could see the Pirhana nibbling at our lines. They kept stealing Heather’s bait off her hook. We both got a little too much sun on this tour, and once we got back to the ship, we shopped at a few small stands on the pier. The dinner menu didn’t look all that appetizing, so we decided to eat up in the Sterling Steakhouse. I had a tenderloin steak and rack of lamb, both of which were amazing. After dinner, instead of writing this up and seeing a show, we both fell asleep for about 10 hours.

Late last night, we disembarked our Manaus pilots and continued on our river passage under the guidance of Amazon pilots.  Around lunchtime today, we will slow down and drop anchor near the port of Parintins, and start our tender service.  In the evening, we will heave up the anchor and continueon our river passage to Santarem.

Happy New Year!  Last night, Heather and I stayed up to welcome 2012 in the bar on the top deck.  There was a band playing and streamers flying everywhere.  This morning, the kitchen staff had an impressive buffet laid out in the dining room, and they allowed me to take some photos of it before everyone dug in.  The ship arrived at Parintins around 11:00AM and Heather and I took a tender into “town”.  Mom and Dad stayed on board as Dad is still not feeling 100%, but hopefully he’ll feel better soon.  It only took 4 minutes to get to the pier, and I caught the whole trip on video, which will subsequently be sped up to last only about 15 to 20 seconds eventually.  We were not signed up for any excursion today, but we saw many tricycle drivers waiting to take us for a ride.  These tricycles were basically large wheelbarrows with a small roof and bicycle attached to the back.  A local man rode the bike and we sat up front.  He spoke zero English, so my high school and college training in Spanish proved useful.  Parintins reminded me of Resident Evil 5.  Since it’s both Sunday and New Year’s Day, most everything was closed down, and the locals were just hanging out close to their homes, singing and conversing with one another.  I mention Resident Evil 5 because I felt that at any moment, the empty, run-down streets could slowly fill with zombies.  Another characteristic of Parintins is that almost everyone rides either a bike or motorcycle.  We saw children riding motorcycles, sometimes 3 on one, with their arms stretched out, holding other kids who were on bikes, pulling them along.  Nobody wears helmets.  Our tricycle first took us to a cathedral, which was empty except for a single child, and had one of the nicest nativity scenes I’ve ever seen inside it.  We then were taken to their Boi Bamba festival stadium.  Not being on a real tour, we didn’t learn what this was, but we know that there are two teams; a red one and a blue one.  The spectators take sides and half the seats are blue and the other half red.  We were then taken down some back streets and back to the pier area, where we shopped for a bit before heading back to the ship.  Once on board, we had some cheeseburgers and took a nap.  As one would expect, there are many bugs here on the Amazon River, and somehow a cricket got inside our room.  We found it right before dinner, but decided to let him stay as a pet of sorts.  For dinner I had duckling and turkey pot pie.  We are now waiting for a production show and that will probably be it for the night.  If anything exciting happens, I will write about it tomorrow!

Throughout last night and today, Pacific Princess has remained quietly alongside her berth in Manaus. This evening, when all passengers and crew have been confirmed on board, we will slip our mooring lines, thrust off the berth, and manoeuvre clear of the dock. We will then pass Ilha Marapata on our port side and then turn to port, heading out into the River Amazon, on our way to Parintins.

Today was an interesting day. The four of us were scheduled to take a tour of the famous Opera House, but during breakfast, Dad didn’t feel well and he and Mom stayed on board. I was upset because I knew that Dad really wanted to see the Opera House, as he had visited it previously in 1963. Heather and I took the bus ride to it and were amazed at how beautiful this building was. It is nestled in the middle of the city, and stands out among the other architecture which is mostly drab and plain. The Opera House was built during the height of the rubber boom, and once it was completed, the rubber boom had ended, so it never really got much use. The different pieces of it; flooring, chandelliers, bricks, etc, were all imported from different European countries, and it is obvious when walking around. In one room, they required us to wear little booties over our shoes due to the fragile wood flooring. Downstairs they had a replica of the Opera House made out of Legos. We really enjoyed that! We then boarded our bus and drove to the Military Zoo. This is a training grounds for the Elite Military of Amazonas, and we were told that the military officers do not like their pictures taken. I found this out first-hand while trying to catch them on video! We saw Anacondas, different types of monkeys, the largest rodent in the world, Caymans and Alligators, and some really cool looking large cats. It was here where it started downpouring on us so we took refuge in a roofed-in snack bar for about 15 minutes. Once we could get to the bus, we left and went to a small native indian museum where we saw pottery and jewelry that the natives made. This tour took about 5 hours and was fun and informational. After lunch, Heather, Mom, and I walked into Manaus to see the market. We had been hearing firecrackers going off all day because it is New Year’s Eve, and when we got into the middle of everything, they were going off all around us. Watching us walk around in this crowd must have been entertaining because we stuck out like sore thumbs around the people who live here year-round, 3 degrees south of the Equator! For dinner I had Sirloin Steak and Pheasant, and Heather had four Lobster tails. Tonight there are parties all around the ship to welcome in 2012, and we are looking forward to attending.

We will be remaining alongside out berth tonight and tomorrow, before getting underway tomorrow evening.

It took a total of 30 hours to travel from Hartford to Manaus, half of this time spent in the lovely Miami Dade International Airport. The flight to Manaus was chartered by Princess Cruises and was full of fellow passengers. The plane had about 50% more crew than was required, including 3 pilots. One of the pilots sat in the very back of the plane for the entire trip, playing Skyrim on a really nice laptop. I spent some time back there talking about the phenominal RPG with him. Flying over the region called Amazonas was interesting. Looking down, all that could be seen were clouds, lush greenery, and many winding rivers. The airport is what you would expect for an airport in the middle of the jungle. It looks like something that hasn’t changed much in the last 50 years, and the bathroom I visited had a smell that I couldn’t get out of my nose for about 45 minutes, if you can believe that. Seriously, I caught a whiff of it even after our bus arrived at the pier. I am accompanied by Mom, Dad, and Heather. This is my eleventh cruise with Princess, and my first time to Brazil. Manaus is a city of 2 million people and is situated in the middle of the Amazon Rainforest. It sits next to the River Negro and has a checkered history. It became very popular with the export of rubber, but quickly declined to near nothing when Malaysia could produce rubber for much less money. It now holds many favelas and markets. One of its most prized structures is the famous Opera House, which we will be visitng tomorrow. Pacific Princess is a sister ship to the ex-Royal Princess that we loved so much. It holds close to 700 passengers, and this sailing is completely full. When we boarded, our rooms were not ready yet, so we went up to the buffet, where other passengers were waiting. I had a waffle and by now was completely delirious after being awake for close to 40 hours. Heather and I decided to walk around, so we went out on deck and walked the length of the ship. I don’t know if I’ve ever been to a place with more humidity. It is both hot and humid here, but after spending so much time in the freezing cold Miami airport, we were fine with it. We randomly ran into the head room steward who told us that we could head to our room. After a quick shower, Heather and I fell asleep for a few hours. I awoke and then took a walk outside on the pier.  I snapped a few photos and watched as local boats came and went. These boats are full of hammocks, and locals take them up river for either work or vacation. They are packed like cans of sardines. We then came back on board and had dinner. I planned on seeing a local folklore show after dinner, but can barely keep my eyes open, so we decided to come back to the room and sleep. That’s going to happen right…..now.

To begin with, I’ll put it out there that I tried the Forza 3 demo two years ago and absolutely hated it. The setting was boring, the handling felt weird, and there was no nitro boost. You see, to me, the best racing game ever created is Mario Kart, which is vastly disimilar to the ultra-realistic and almost RPG-like game that Turn10 has created. I played the demo for about ten minutes and knew that the game was not for me.

On the day before Forza 4′s release, I downloaded the demo on a whim to see if the game had been improved with two years development. Boy was I surprised! I ended up spending about 45 minutes with it, completing all six races and wanting more. I read about it online and watched some video reviews. I read about the Speed Wheel and how it wasn’t a complete joke like the Wii Wheel. I also read about the super rare Limited Collector’s Edition that was going for over $200 on Amazon, much higher than it’s asking price. All in all, I was excited, and about a game that I abhored the previous time I played it. It was a strange feeling.

I decided to try arriving at Best Buy at opening and see if they had a Limited Collector’s Edition there. I wasn’t expecting them to, but upon getting there, they had about 10 of them. I instantly felt sorry for all the people who spent a lot of money on them. I also was able to demo the Speed Wheel and was impressed at how well it worked. I was told that with Kinect, it is even more precise. I ended up picking one up as well.

Forza 4 jumps you right into the racing, even before I was able to get the Speed Wheel set up. The campaign progression works as seasons, with each season having faster cars and more races. The types of races are varied well, and after every few of them, you level up and get a new car to try. As you race cars from the same manufacturer, you level up your affinity with them, giving you cheaper and eventually free upgrades. I haven’t really gone into the upgrades yet as the game will automatically upgrade for you when needed, and that’s as deep as I’ve gone. It also has a very deep tuning section that I briefly saw. It was like walking into a room you shouldn’t be in and instanly running away scared. That’s how I felt when I saw what types of things you could do in the tuning section.

The game integrates with Kinect and on paper, it sounds pretty awesome. When you turn your head in real life, the camera turns a bit to look at your mirrors. All I’ve been able to make it do is look to the right, even though I’m trying to look forward or even to the left. It hasn’t worked yet but I’ll try it again, but I think you have to be closer or standing to make it work, neither of which I want to do. When you crash in the game, you can press a button to initiate the “Sands of Time” in essence to go back a few seconds. This is great and all, but the way I have my controller set up, whenever I start up again, it quickly looks behind me and is just annoying. Other than these little issues, this game is rock solid. There are many modes, and I was able to lose two online races successfully without lag, but people online are jerks and crash into you a lot.

Now I picked up this wireless Speed Wheel as well, and I like it a lot. It is shaped like a “U” and I think it has a gyroscope in it. The tops of it glow green at times and I think the Kinect sees it. In any event, it works very well and the movements mimic the hands on the steering wheel in the game. The only problem that I’ve come across with this wheel so far is that it doesn’t have the XBOX bumper buttons on it anywhere. There’s plenty of room for them, even on the middle section. This is problematic when navigating the menus in Forza 4, which released alongside this device. In order to change my title in the game, and probably tune my car, I have to switch out to a regular controller, though this causes other problems when trying to sync back up with the Speed Wheel. It’s funny how third party controller manufactures are not allowed to make wireless controllers for the Xbox, but Microsoft can’t even remember to put the required buttons on them. I’d love to hear their reasoning behind this.

All in all, I am having a blast with Forza 4 and the Speed Wheel as well. This is definitely the best automobile simulator that I’ve ever played, and I’ve just scratched the surface!

Dead Island is another game that I was not planning on buying until a few weeks ago. You could say that I succumbed to peer pressure, as a good handful of my friends were planning on picking it up. Also, there was a midnight release for it at my local Gamestop, and I’ve always had fun at midnight releases.

Dead Island is not difficult to explain. You’re stuck on an island in the South Pacific, partying it up one night, then you stumble back to your room and pass out. When you awake, most everybody has obviously been turned into zombies, and you have to escape the island. The game plays as a first person shooter, almost too similarly to Borderlands, but as a Borderlands lover, this doesn’t bother me in the slightest.

I’ve played Dead Island for about 14 hours, and I have had a lot of fun with this game. Sure, there are glitches here and there, for instance, FateOfVengeance and I stumbled across a couple; The man had recently been bitten by a zombie and wanted us to drive his girlfriend up to safety. You’re supposed to get in the truck and she follows you to it, but instead, she just ran in place. Even after exiting and starting up a new game, she didn’t seem to run to the truck, but when we each tried it in our respective single-player games, she ran to the truck without a problem. That was the biggest issue that I’ve come across with the game. For the most part though, the game plays very well. It’s definitely not perfect, and there is a 37 point patch that is going through Microsoft certification now that should, among other things, make the engine noise louder. Oh yes.

I was worried that Dead Island would be a Left 4 Dead clone, but instead it’s a Borderlands/Fallout clone with zombies. I’m having a blast with it, bugs aside, and would definitely recommend it if you like the RPG aspects of Borderlands, but set on an island, with the voice acting technique and questing of Bethesda RPG’s.

[UPDATE] – I seem to consistently update this post, so I will place the newest update in red from now on.  Carry on.

People on the GameFAQS boards constantly tell everyone else when they’ve completed the board’s game 100% with the maximum 1000 gamerpoints per game.  I thought I’d start my own little section here for this since, well, this is my site and I can do whatever I want really.  So here goes!

Call of Duty 4 – 1000/1000 on 1-21-2008
This game, as some of you know, has become one of my favorite alltime games, not for the single player but for the multiplayer.  At this writing, I’ve amassed over 500 hours on online play.  Achievements however were only awarded for the single player campaign, and some of the harder ones were REALLY hard.  I would have to say that beating “One Shot One Kill” and “No Fighting in the War Room” on Veteran dificulty caused me the most mental anguish.  The last level, “Mile High Club”, though fun on Normal difficulty, became a nightmare on Veteran, though it felt SO good to complete it, knowing that all that was left to do in order to 100% the game was find a few tapes and destory a lot of televisions

Fallout 3 – 1000/1000 on 12-15-2008
If you’ve read anything on this site about Fallout 3, you know that I’ve really enjoyed it.  From being a game that I told myself I would never get to being one that I will probably never forget, Fallout 3 is a complete masterpiece, and I’m sad that the story is over.  It took me about 75 hours to 100% it and the entire time was like a wild rollercoaster ride.  I won’t spoil the ending here, but it was pretty sweet.  Bethesda is releasing some DLC for this game which I will most definitely pick up, as it is one of the most engaging games I’ve ever played.
[UPDATE - 1-29-2009 - 1100/1100 now after Operation Anchorage DLC]
[UPDATE - 3-27-2009 - 1200/1200 now after The Pitt DLC]
[UPDATE - 5-20-2009 - 1350/1350 now after Broken Steel DLC]
[UPDATE - 7-6-2009 - 1450/1450 now after Point Lookout DLC]
[UPDATE - 8-11-2009 - 1550/1550 now after Mothership Zeta DLC]
Since Bethesda has not announced any further DLC for this masterpiece, I am taking this as the end for me. If they do decide to release more, I will pick it up, but if they don’t, then the ride was a great one and I will look forward to the next game in this series. Fallout 3 is easily one of the best experiences in gaming that I’ve ever had, took up 1497 save files, and lasted me well over 120 hours.

Tales of Vesperia – 1000/1000 on 12-28-2008
This has been months in the making and I can finally say that I have completed this masterpiece.  The “Tales of” series is huge in Japan and I have played two of the games in the series: Tales of Symphonia on the Gamecube, and now Tales of Vesperia on the 360.  These games are traditional Japanese Role Playing Games, meaning the style is very anime and the characters have a lot of personality.  They also implement a crazy live action battle system, which make them a complete joy to play.  Anyways, I played through Tales of Vesperia from launch day until I beat the game about a month later, totaling about 95 hours.  I then immediately started over again, and played through it again to tie up all loose ends and basically get everything in the game, which took another 50-60 hours.  The last two achievements would require a third playthrough, one for finishing the first chapter at a very low level, and another for finishing the game within 15 hours.  All in all, I finished this playthrough in 9:37:31, ranked 791 on the leaderboards for time, and the entire playtime for me is about 173 hours.  I have done everything there is to do in this game, probably a few times, and all I can say is that it is by far the best JRPG I’ve ever played and I’m really looking forward to Namco’s next installment of this great series.  Tales of Vesperia is an epic, long journey that is worth playing for anyone who either likes the series or the genre in the slightest bit.

Fable II – 1100/1100 on 1-25-2009
I consider this to actually be 1300/1300 as I have fully completed the Fable II Pub Games as well. Fable II was a game that I have owned for many months, but stopped playing almost immediately as it was horribly bugged and people were complaining that their games glitched out and got wrecked. This scared me, so I played Fallout 3 instead. A few weeks back, Fable II was patched so I started playing it again. It is a blast to play and is very relaxing. Albion has a very medieval feel to it and you can basically do whatever you want, whenever you want. As far as achievements go, this game has them brilliantly placed. There are only a handful of story-based achievements, and Fable II focuses more on craziness when it comes to them. There’s one for kicking a chicken. There’s one for killing a rabbit. There’s one for shooting the weapons out of an enemy and then hitting him with a headshot. There are so many weird achievements. Some of them require you meeting people online and trading items with them. This can be tedious, but I met some nice people that way. I bought the Knothole Island expansion pack, which honestly only takes about an hour or two to complete, so $10 might be a bit high for it, but I really enjoyed it and the new weapons that it adds. It also adds another 100 to the score, so that’s why this one is more than 1000. I’m not really “done” with this game as there are other things that need to be done in it, but for some reason, there aren’t any achievements for them. I think it would have been cool to have an achievement for opening all of the demon doors for example. Overall, this is an excellent game if you don’t run into a crazy bug along the way!
[UPDATE - 6-4-2009 - 1350/1350 now after See the Future DLC]

Resident Evil 5 – 1000/1000 on 4-1-2009
I had been looking forward to Resident Evil 5 for a few years now, and told myself that I would be taking the release day off of work when it was announced last summer. More on that can be read here but this update is to discuss the game after full completion. That is to say the story mode of the game. Resident Evil titles seem to consistently change with each incarnation, and fans seem to always have some sort of problem with that. I’ve learned to take it as Capcom gives it and enjoy what they’ve created. Resident Evil 5 is without a doubt my favorite in the series, seconded only to the genre-changing Resident Evil 4. The addition of co-op to 5 worried me as so many game publishers are just trying to slap on the words “co-op” as marketing strategies, but when realized, they don’t add anything or are completely one-sided towards the host. I don’t think that Capcom could have done any better with their implementation of co-op, and in this game playing with someone else over XBL trumps the single player in every single way. Finishing this title to 100% took just over 43 hours, making it one of the shorter games I’ve played to get every achievement in. It is truly a masterpiece and I am now going to tackle The Mercenaries, an arcade-like minigame of sorts that is packaged with Resident Evil titles. In a few weeks, Capcom will be releasing an online versus mode based on The Mercenaries, so it’s time to train!

Lost: Via Domus – 1000/1000 on 6-28-2009
I’ve been trying to think about how to put this back when I was still playing the game and knowing that I’d be writing a little blurb about it eventually for all of probably 3 people to see, but this is easily one of the worst games I’ve ever played. For anyone who knows me well enough, you know that I adore the show Lost. It’s my favorite television show that is on television now, and may be of all time. I’m thinking about The A-Team here, but I kind of put them in two totally different categories, so we’ll just ignore that. When Lost: Via Domus was announced and released, it got pretty bad reviews, and I passed over it thinking that it probably wasn’t worth $60….and it isn’t. I found this game a few months back for $10 at Best Buy and figured that I couldn’t really go wrong. I think I got a so-so deal on it. Anyways, when you boot up the game, you first see a Ubisoft logo. If I had read the box and saw that it was a Ubisoft game, I might have just left it be, as I am terribly upset with them and what they did to the Prince of Persia a few years back. But I didn’t see that logo and bought the game anyways. You play the game as a guy who was on Oceanic 815 and crashed with everyone else, but you don’t have any memory. You look almost exactly like Jacob’s nemesis from the Season 5 finale, which I find very strange, and I look forward to seeing if others feel the same way about this. It’s just uncanny how similar you look to him. As you “play” this game which consists of you walking around the beach talking to horribly created versions of the cast, being chased around the jungle by the smoke monster, doing stupid fuse puzzles that make no sense whatsoever, and recovering your memory via looping scenarios where you need to take pictures of things, I realized that I might have enjoyed it more if I wasn’t a Lost fan. I’m kind of on the fence about this one. If I wasn’t a Lost fan, I wouldn’t be so critical about the modeling or voice acting, though John Locke repeating “I’m over in the Banyan Trees” and “Hey, Look at me in the Banyan Trees” over and over again was actually funny, but the funny part was when he said “Banyan Trees”. I don’t know. I’m weird. Hurley, believe it or not, it even fatter in this game. The controls are very loose, and your actions seem to make you float around. You can trade fruit and stuff that you pick up for lanterns and guns, etc, but you only need to really shoot 1 or 2 people, so you never ever need a clip, though they seem to have lots to trade. What sucks even more is that in the end, all your stuff is taken from you, so it’s all pretty useless. They should have just given you what you need when you need it, but then this game would have been even shorter probably. It only took me about 2-4 hours to complete in its entirety, but it seemed like a chore. Would I rather deal with this mess or play CoD4? I had to force myself to finish this game so that I could delete it from my hard drive. One thing that I can say positively about this game is that I didn’t run into any game breaking bugs. That’s a nice thing, but there are some annoyances. One level starts out with you having to run away from the smoke monster, jumping over trees and running across wooden planks, but if you trip up then the smoke monster gets you. That’s not the bad part though. The bad part is that the game is set up episodically, so when you die, which you will a few times, you have to go through the whole 30 second long “Previously on Lost” crap. Argh! Anyways, Lost: Via Domus can’t be recommended by me. If you like Lost, and can get it for cheap (or borrow it from me), then check it out, but don’t expect much.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 – 1000/1000 on 12-13-2009
Well, it took me much less time than I thought it would to get 1000 gamerscore points in Modern Warfare 2.  I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that this game is easier and less annoying/time consuming as its predecessor, and I had a great partner in Glenn for all of the co-op missions.  Glenn and I had a really fun time playing through the Spec-Ops missions, and we’re looking forward to more of them via DLC.  The story in this game is not as emotional or as good as it was in Call of Duty 4, and it definitely does not wrap up with a satisfying conclusion, but I believe that this is done on purpose, so that in a few years, we’ll see Modern Warfare 3.  It is also very difficult to follow.  Being a self-proclaimed expert in this series’ storyline (I played through the CoD4 story four or five times and know it by heart), I was confused most of the way through this game.  The writers don’t really like setting the story up beforehand, but rather just drop you into the middle of it, and your squad mates seem to tell the story around you.  The problem with this is that while they are talking, you’re being barraged by bullets and explosions, so your mind isn’t really paying attention to what they are trying to say.  It’s a small gripe about an otherwise excellent piece of work.  All in all, Infinity Ward made another masterpiece with this game, and now all that’s left is multiplayer!!

Assassin’s Creed II – 1000/1000 on 1-18-2010
I was very skeptical about Assassin’s Creed II.  I wrote up about that in my Initial Impressions, and now that I’ve completed the game in its entirety (for now) I have to say that I have much more faith in Ubisoft.  I’m still a bit uneasy about the Prince of Persia series, but now that I’ve completed Assassin’s Creed II, I might give that series another try when it releases a new entry this summer.  Assassin’s Creed II did so many things right.  The graphics are amazing, the story is deep though a bit confusing at times, and the sound is simple extraordinary.  This was a game that I played both with and without the A40′s, and when playing without them, I lost out on some subtle details such as birds chirping in the background.  These things make up the feeling that is Assassin’s Creed II.  I absolutely love how you’re given a walled-in city that is in terrible disarray, and asked to upgrade it by donating your money.  Over time, you see new structures going up and more people flocking towards this city, earning you more money to build it up more.  It has a very medieval feel to it and I just loved it.  After completing the story, I went hunting for feathers; a remedial task in most games, but it is something that I really enjoy.  I have so much fun doing this and the world that the designers created is nothing short of fantastic.  There is only a single missable achievement (Flyswatter) in this game, but I’ve read that in upcoming DLC it will again become attainable.  Overall the achievements were on the easy side, and I almost wish that some of them were integrated better.  Finishing ALL of the races would have been more of an achievement than just finishing a single, easy one.  As I said in my previous segment about this game, I was mostly interested in the Venetian portions of the game, and they really did not disappoint.  Venice isn’t just created to look like you’re in Venice.  It’s created in the same layout as the islands, with the main Grand Canal bridges intact, St. Mark’s Square is nearly identical to the real thing, and even the market is in the correct location on the eastern side of the Rialto Bridge.  One of the funniest moments in the game for me was when I overheard a public speaker informing the public not to eat fish that came out of the canals.  The only thing that made me cringe about playing a game set in Venice is when I would accidentally jump in the wrong direction and dive into a canal.  When I lived in Venice, I worked on a project to drastically change the way the Venetian sewerage system works, so that may help you understand why I have reservations on jumping into the canals.  :)

Bulletstorm – 1000/1000 on 3-6-2011
Today, Bulletstorm joins my list of fully completed games.  This is a game that exceeded all of my expectations, many of which were set very high.  The story is fun adn hysterical, the time trial mode (Echoes) is challenging and great to compare scores against friends, and the co-op multiplayer mode (Anarchy) is a blast to play with friends.  As far as achievements go, only a few require other people, and most are easily doable.  Red Barrels was difficult for me to get, and a few chapters on Very Hard difficulty were a pain (I’m looking at you 7-1), but overall it wasn’t terribly hard to fully complete.  This is a spectacular game for adults, and I whole-heartedly recommend it.

Portal 2 – 1000/1000 on 4-28-2011
When I first heard that Valve was creating Portal 2, one of the first thoughts in my head was “What kind of crazy achievements will this game have?”.  I was also worried about the length of the game.  Portal 1 took all of 2 hours to fully complete the story, so could Valve create a game that people would and should pay a full $60 for?  The story portion of Portal 2 took just over 9 hours to complete, without a single moment of boredom.  The co-op portion took about half that to complete, but I’ve since played it through two to three times.  The achievements range from smashing 11 TV’s in a single play session to simply hugging your friends.  This game is perfectly executed in every way, and one not to miss out on.

Brink – 1000/1000 on 5-15-2011
Brink is an interesting game. It was marketed very well, but is missing some key aspects that could make it great. The concept of gaining experience whether you play against robotic AI or humans is a breath of fresh air. The same can be said for being able to fully map the controller layout. Every game should have this feature. One thing this game is lacking, and I can not being to contemplate why, is a multiplayer lobby. Brink promotes playing with friends, but there is no easy way to group friends together and then play against other humans. It’s a mess, and I have no idea how this decision was made. Anyways, overall I’d say that Brink is a good game. It throws gamerscore at you like nothing else, and within five days, I’ve completed every achievement. The only one that I could see giving trouble would be “Tough as nails” which requires you to finish the storyline in Hard mode or online. The latter is extremely annoying because of what I mentioned earlier, and the fact that every time a person joins or leaves a team when online, the server comes to a halt for a few seconds. I played through the campaign with friends, and that made it easier, but it wasn’t a walk in the park. The reason this is difficult is because as you rank up, the enemy AI ranks up as well, and while your team’s AI still waits until the last 2 minutes to help out in any fashion, the enemy team’s AI just gets more brutal. Other than this achievement, which is mildly annoying, the rest are extremely easy. I hope the development team adds more achievements with DLC in the future.

L.A. Noire – 1000/1200 on 5-23-2011
This game shiped with two pieces of DLC that are preorder specific. I didn’t get these, but that’s why there are 1200 points total. Instead, I got a sweet light blue outfit called The Broderick. Yippee. Anyways… I didn’t know what to expect from L.A. Noire before release. I’m glad to say that this is not Grand Theft Auto in the 1940′s Los Angeles. I’m a big fan of GTA, but not really of this time period. L.A. Noire is more of a puzzle game than a shooting one, and the story that Team Bondi has created is spectacular. I figured out some of the story from bits and pieces, but was thrown off by others. It’s also nice to play a game without a multiplayer component. You can tell that a lot of work was focused on this single player element. I look forward to playing future games using this engine. Real actors can now successfully play roles in video games, and L.A. Noire is the first game that I believe can show off their talent well. This year is looking great for gaming, and it’s only May!

Deus Ex – Human Revolution – 1000/1000 on 9-5-2011
I never wrote up my impressions of this game when it first came out. This is because of two separate reasons that melded together and caused me to first write up about this game after fully completing it. First off, after playing this game for a few hours, I didn’t really care for it, and I was having trouble figuring out how to write that down. I was upset that the control layout was so radically different than most other games, and there is no way to change it with exception to inverting axes and sensitivity. That right there angered me, along with the fact that I couldn’t aim well and couldn’t hack into anything successfully. It was just somewhat of a mess, and after a few hours, I decided to give it a rest and come back the next day. This is where the second reason comes in. I picked the game back up after a night’s rest, and somehow the controls made sense to me. I started leveling up my character and weapons, making them easier to aim, and making hacking much easier. Most of my problems were almost instantly solved. The only problem now, is that I was somewhat hooked; hence my second reason. The depth that this game goes in each of its aspects is amazing, be it first person shooter, third person spy, even the hacking minigame is probably the best hacking minigame in any game that I’ve ever played. It’s smart, and took me a while to master. The best thing Deus Ex has to offer though is that you can tackle objectives in just about any way you want. You can get there by sneaking by, or by knocking guards out and hiding their bodies. You can also just run in and kill everyone. It’s up to you and in every single situation in the ~25 hour long campaign, it worked flawlessly. This is easily the best game that’s come out this year so far, and possibly even last year as well. As far as achievements go, all but three were completed rather easily on my first runthrough of the game. A second playthrough was completed in order to 1. finish on the hardest difficulty, 2. without killing anybody, and 3. without setting off any alarms. Playing through a second time like this wasn’t as difficult as it may sound because I knew every nook and cranny of the game already, and it was a blast to play through again.

Here I will show updates on my gamerscore as I cross 10,000 point barriers because, well, I did it once, so I might as well continue to do so!!  New updates will be in red.

1-20-2009 – Well, I crossed the 10,000 gamerpoints mark yesterday.  This was the first year that I have ever had MLK Jr day off from work and a few weeks ago I decided to take it as a gaming day.  I played mostly Fable II and really enjoyed it.  The achievement that broke the barrier was the following:

I had to sub target both weapons of a Hollow Man, and then sub target his head to finish him.  At the end of the day, I had 10,065 points and had maxed the stats of my character in Fable II.  Now on to 20,000!

10-29-2009 – I crossed the 20,000 point barrier last night.  I have been watching this ceiling for a while now and hoping that I would pass it when Modern Warfare 2 comes out, but I got there faster than I had thought.  The achievement that broke the barrier was the following:

In DJ Hero, after you have successfully gotten 40 hits in a row (on Medium, 60 on Hard) you have the option to “Rewind”.  When the game tells you to rewind, you spin the platter back and can repeat what you just played, but with a bonus multiplier.  Do this 20 times and hit all the notes and you get this achievement.  Now on to 30,000!

12-7-2010 - Yesterday afternoon I broke the 30,000 gamerscore ceiling.  I had the day off from work for some pre-op appointments for my shoulder reconstruction surgery that’s taking place tomorrow, and I spent a good amount of time playing Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood.  It’s been a little over 13 months since I broke through 20,000, with not many 1000/1000 games played.  The achievement that broke the 30,000 gamerscore barrier is the following:

Plumber is an achievement in Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood and deals with finding an artifact in the Shrine of Cloaca Maxima.  There are six shrines in this game, and finding them all nets you some sweet armor, which I grabbed a few minutes after completing this, the last shrine.  I like this achievement because the picture of it is a throwback to Super Mario Bros.  The creators of the Assassin’s Creed franchise seem to like putting little nods to SMB in their games, and I approve of this.  Now on to 40,000!

6-21-2011 – 40,000 gamerscore was broken yesterday, almost without notice. I’ve gone back to playing Lego Star Wars and have been enjoying the game. It’s not a terribly difficult game, and I usually end up chuckling a few times each time I play, so I will continue playing it, possibly until 100% completion. We’ll see! Anyways, the achievement that broke the barrier this time is the following:

Shoot First is an awesome achievement. Lego Star Wars is loaded with achievments for killing a certain character with another, and this one requires you to kill Greedo with Han Solo. As we all know, something snapped inside George Lucas’ head when he retouched Episode IV and the order of a certain event got a bit askew. Putting that event back in its original order pops this achievement. Now on to 50,000!

I played Duke Nukem Forever this morning… really, I did.  You can too if you’re in Gearbox’s First Access Club and get emailed a code.  But the game does seem to exist, and it’s shaping up to be a fun experience.

I played through the two-level demo three times, once on each difficulty. The most difficult run was the first one on the easy setting.  This is because enemies spawn in the same location on each difficulty, so once you learn the pattern, the game is cake.  Near the end of the demo on my first run, I got stuck because I found some planks, and when you get close to them, Duke says that a crowbar would be handy, so I looked around the area for a crowbar for 5 minutes before trying to just melee or shoot the wooden planks and move on.  I did die in the vehicle section of the hard run because I got shotgunned and hit by rocks, which takes off a lot of damage on that difficulty.

The game has various weapons spread around the map which are fun to use, but not all are beneficial for that particular section.  I learned quickly that the sniper rifle is very cool.  I found what I think is a hidden item called a Holoduke.  I don’t think there are any other hidden items, but maybe someone else will find one.  Between levels, while the game is loading, you are shown onscreen tips like most games.  Some of these are serious, but others, like the following, are just there to make you smile:  When being shot at, try to avoid bullets

You can feel the Gearbox influence in the way Duke moves around.  It feels a lot like Borderlands.  An issue that I see right away though, and I’m not sure if this is just for the demo, or if it will propagate to the final product or not, is the stutter.  The game seems to struggle on my 360 at times, and it can be distracting.  Overall though, Duke Nukem Forever seems like it will be a really fun playthrough once or twice.

To be honest with you, I didn’t know that DiRT3 existed a week ago. After completing L.A. Noire, I looked around for a new game and saw that DiRT3 was getting review scores in the 90% and above range, so I decided to give it a try. This is hands down the best racing game I’ve played in a long time. I’m the type of person who likes my racing games more on the arcade side rather than the simulation side, and DiRT3 seems to blend the two types together nicely. You can adjust five aspects of your car such as suspension, braking, ride height, etc, which makes it somewhat of a sim, but from what I’ve played so far, it doesn’t critique every move like one. Every race you get 5 chances to back time up and try a section again if you fail. I’ve gone off the road many times but just hit a few buttons in order to make it through a section.

DiRT3 is made up of four different racing seasons, and after going through the first season, you open up a big parking lot full of jumps, poles, and sliding areas. This reminds me of the old(good) Tony Hawk games where you had a certain amount of time to complete multiple objectives, and you can replay it repeatedly. In DiRT3, there is no time limit, but this track has about 20 different objectives to complete. It’s very cool and supposedly you can play this mode with friends. I went online and played some rally races against human oponenents, which was fun and surprisingly void of lag. It plays very smoothly, and even though I didn’t win a single event, I had a blast playing.

This game features a way to record clips from races and upload them directly to youtube. It isn’t the best quality, maxing out at 480p, but it’s better than nothing. I tested it out on my very first race, and you can watch a short clip here. Overall, DiRT3 really does impress, and if you’re looking for a great all-around racing game, I don’t think you can top it right now. Even the sound and music choices are superb. Codemasters did a great job with this title.