Well, that weekly achievement update lasted a long time didn’t it?! It’s been far too long since my last update, and as time dragged on I felt less inclined to do it. However, thanks to some bugging from Nokkon, I’ve finally decided to do one again.
So, what’s been going on since last time? Well, my repaired Xbox that I got back from MS decided to break again, 2 weeks before my birthday (24th November), which also marked a huge gaming release weekend (Guitar Hero 3 and Mass Effect among others). While I sat and pondered the sad thought of being without my beautiful gaming box for that weekend, my wonderful girlfriend saw how sad I was, and said we could buy an Xbox 360 Elite! We’d always planned on having 2 consoles in the end (so she could kick me upstairs to play games when she wanted friends around), so it just kickstarted that a little early. I was a happy bunny! The Elite is a gorgeous looking console, much quieter and cooler than previous versions of the 360, and the 120GB HDD is the icing on the cake. I’ve still not got even close to filling it yet, but with the advent of the downloadable Xbox Originals there’s now more chance that I’ll do that soon enough.
Gaming wise, I think I’ve now played all the major releases from the end of last year, on the 360 at least. Mass Effect was brilliant, with a well thought out storyline and a good ending that closes the door on the current story nicely, while opening another one for the already announced sequels (it’s part of a trilogy).
Call of Duty 4 is the hit of the year for me, multiplayer wise at least. I’ve barely spent any time on the single player mode (so much so that I’m only about 3 levels in), but I’ve put at least 40 hours into the multiplayer side of things. It’s quite easily the best multiplayer game I’ve played, beating Gears of War into a bloody pulp. New multiplayer maps are due soon and I’m really looking forward to them.
Assassin’s Creed is one of the most beautiful looking games I’ve ever seen. The level of detail is incredible, and when I first rode on my horse and arrived at Acre, the camera panned backwards to show the whole city, and my jaw hit the floor. Simply stunning. It’s just a shame the gameplay is as repetitive as it is. The missions themselves are fine, but there should be more variation in the intel gathering missions you are forced to do beforehand. I’m currently playing though it in small doses as I know I’ll get really bored of it if I try and power through it.
Guitar Hero 3 is simultaneously better and worse than the previous game. The song choice is good and there are some very good songs on there (Eric Johnson’s Cliffs of Dover being my personal favourite). The main problem though is the ramp in difficulty right at the end of the career mode. Now I think I’m a pretty decent GH player. I’ve finished GH2 on Hard, and got about 2 tiers from the end on Expert, but I simply can’t finish GH3 on Hard. I flew through the first 7 tiers with no problems at all, but the difficulty then jumps up to Expert level stuff. The songs themselves were hard enough, but with practise I managed to beat them. The main problem is the boss battle against Lou. No matter how many times I try it, I simply can’t beat him. It’s crap I know, I should be good enough to beat him, and it’s pissing me off. The worst thing is that I can’t even practise the song. I ended up just going ahead and starting the Expert career, hoping that by the time I hit a stumbling block (which I haven’t yet and I’m on tier 5 or 6), I’ll have improved enough to go back and beat Lou. I live in hope anyway.
Smackdown 2008 is a nice improvement to the series I feel. The new controls took a bit to get used to but once I did I found myself really enjoying it. The career mode has a number of improvements, as well as a few bad points as well, but overall I feel the series is moving in the right direction.
SceneIt LCA is a big hit for me. I’ve played it a good number of times now, with varying number of people amd it’s always been a great laugh. Good party games are few and far between on the 360 so one that everyone can enjoy is always welcomed.
Outside of gaming, I’ve moved into my new house with my girlfriend since the last update. Our 32″ LCD TV seemed much smaller in the living room in our new place, so we replaced it with a shiny 42″ LG LCD instead \o/ Games look much nicer on the screen now, and streaming HD media to the 360 from the PC is now great as everything looks crystal clear. Definitely worth the money we paid for it.
And that’s the update out of the way. Hopefully it won’t take another 6 months to update this again, and I’ll get the urge to ramble on about things soon 
