More Achievement Talk

So as I mentioned, I am an Xbox 360 achievement hunter. I love playing video games, and I love the extra layer of playability and gamerscore aspect of the achievements. As such, I have recently been going through games in which I have gained at least one achievement to see what I need to look into completing or playing more of. But like most gamers out there who played before they understood the far-reaching consequences, I have a few games in my list that I really wish I could get rid of. I am not going to create a new gamertag and start over though. I will live with my game choices and move onward.

Most of these games came out of renting games to see if I would like them or not (such as with the aforementioned Child of Eden). This is why I have games like this:

I'll admit that it was fun.

And this:

I've mentioned the princesses before, right?

The Kinect is tailor made to do these dance games that read the movement of the entire body and evaluate it to see if it matches what the pros are doing on screen. However, the prospect of dancing 1,000 kid songs in every language available on the disk to get all those achievements is not appealing to me. Yet, it is in my list, so I am stuck with it. If you don't play a game, and therefore, have 0 achievements, you can delete it. If you so much as grab one single achievement, you must continue to live with the shame of a single cheevo on that game in your game list. This versus the other shame of having that game in your list with a 100% completion on it. I'm not sure which is worse. That you can blame the kids for playing it on your profile or confirming that you committed the time to complete it.

Then there are games like this:

Tragically, the stare-off mini-game was cut from the final product.

I know what you're thinking: "But that's Transformers! It's gotta be awesome." That's exactly what I thought. I played this game on the Wii, and hated it. The controls were a nightmare. Then I got an Xbox, and figured that since I'd be using a controller, the issues I had with the Wii controls would be a thing of the past, and they were. However, the general play controls were still hideous, but that could just be me on car games since that's where I noticed most of my woes.

However, that game now has 2 achievements unlocked on my profile, so at some point (after what will likely be a sanity break after surviving Just Dance Kids 2), I will rent (or buy, if it is cheaper than renting) this game and try to get myself to 80%, which is my overall completion goal. Its problems are similar to this one:

Only the cover looks fun. Inside
this box is only tears.

When you say play control, you assume control is part of that equation. 2 achievements later, we decided this game was for the birds. Now it has its place of shame on my game list as well, waiting to be brought back to life (probably after one imbibes enough alcohol to not care how bad the controls are).

But beyond games that can actually be finished, there is this one:

I will credit it for the princesses' love of tribbles
before they saw Star Trek.

I've written before about the woes of this one. The game contains 10 (yes, 10) unobtainable achievements. An unobtainable achievement is a completionist's worst nightmare because that means that no matter what you do in this game, there are 10 achievements that you will never be able to get. I can get my 80% because I can get 40 out of 50 when I get to it, but 100% is impossible because the game's servers were taken down and haven't come back.

To my credit, I will revisit every one of these eventually to try and bring them to at least 80%, but I wish each and every one of these were gone from my list of games. Unfortunately, Microsoft has no intention of allowing people to do this at any time. Bummer.

Easily Offended

Every get offended over something? Did you ever stop to ask yourself why you got offended? Most people don't because they're too busy trying to think of something to do about the offense, but it is actually worth considering because believe it or not, you don't have to be offended at anything.

Really, there are two kinds of things that offend people. The more justifiable variety concerns insults (subtle or otherwise) that are directed specifically at you or someone close to you and done for the sole purpose of pissing you off. No, the person didn't touch you, but they sure wanted to push your buttons for some reason. I can understand that sort of offense. We should be nice to each other.

The other kind of offense is kind of stupid in my opinion, but more common than the first. I also find it unjustifiable in most cases. This is where you are offended by something that someone else did or said, but not only was it not directed at you or said about you, but you were neither part of the conversation nor in this person's sphere of influence at the time it occurred. Similarly, perhaps you were part of the conversation, but whatever was said was simply part of that person's demeanor and not intended to be offensive in the least (yeah, this one is where I run afoul of offense 99% of the time).

Examples of the first type of easy. They're insults. The second variety is just as easy. Her skirt is too short, so I'm offended. He said "poop," so I'm offended. His grass is too tall, so I'm offended (or embarrassed even). The word "embarrass" looks like "bare ass" so I'm offended. You said the word "ass" on your blog, so I'm offended. I saw you work that Rubik's cube while you were walking from point A to point B, and I think you were calling me stupid cause I can't do one, so I'm offended. Be careful what you put in that email because you might offend someone. You were making fun of troglodytes, and my sister is a troglodyte, so I'm offended. I would go on, but I'm afraid I might offend someone.

See what I did there?

At some point in that last paragraph, you might have chuckled at the preposterousness of my examples, but those are some things that might offend someone who is in the area, and that's the only criteria too. You mention someone too stupid to (insert action here), and all of a sudden, someone gets bent out of shape about it. You did say BOB was too stupid to (insert action here), but since Bob actually is too stupid to (insert action here), he raises a fuss.

Here's where it gets really sinister though. Ever heard of sexual harassment? It can be a legitimate problem in some workplaces, but most of the time, the opposite sex enjoys their friendly banter. However, if you look at most company policies surrounding it, all someone has to do is be offended by something you said or did to report you for it. A specific example given in one training video (yeah, they had to go and make training videos to hammer the point home) concerns a male with a calendar that features women. It states that the male in question can be reported for sexual harassment simply for the presence of such an item.

No, I've never owned such an item, nor have I ever been reported for harassment. I give it as an example of extreme offendedness.

Now, why would anyone be offended at something second hand like that? Some just like attention, and raising a fuss gives them that attention. Some are sensitive about certain aspects of their lives, and someone even talking about something similar makes them uncomfortable. A lot of offense I've seen has to do with people who are actually ashamed of something, and if you hit that topic, they get weird about it.

You know what being offended accomplishes? Nothing. Rather than get defensive as a result, you should really examine why it was you felt so offended. After all, if you were not the topic of conversation, the person who just issued the offense did nothing to you. In fact, they probably did not wish to offend anyone. It happened incidentally as a result of your mind interpreting their words to become something offensive. Somehow, this becomes the offender's problem when, in fact, it should be the person who was offended. But in our world, do they ever get the stern taking-to? No. It's the person who innocuously did something to cause the offense.

Everywhere we go, it seems we have to walk on egg shells or risk offending someone we don't even know. Yes, I've managed to offend a lot of people in my day because (honestly) smart people very easily offend stupid people. We manage to do this by being ourselves. Someone asks a question, and we give a very straight, simple answer, and by doing so, now they "feel stupid." Well, they didn't need our help to facilitate that feeling, and while some stupid person out there (don't get offended; just own it) was probably offended by that, don't be. After all, was I talking directly to you, or is this a blog for anyone to read? If you actually were offended by anything here, you should reevaluate your life and determine, psychologically, why you found me so offensive.

In all honesty, I'm just writing. I write to clear my head and share my thoughts. That feeling you get that you turn into offense can be used to your advantage to do a personal introspective. Examine why you feel offended at that moment by that action. After all, someone not talking to you did not issue any kind of insult, so it isn't their fault. It is actually your fault that you are offended. Words are just words. Yes, they can hurt, but at the same time, a sword not aimed at you can't hurt you unless you jump on it. If you jump on a sword, whose fault is it that you were injured? I assure you that the sword bearer will simply be confused, especially if you blame them for simply having the weapon in your presence since you have a tendency to jump on their blades.

Personally, I'm to the point where I can acknowledge what I might find offensive, but I never get "offended" by it. I assure you it isn't as taxing as getting worked up over every little thing that someone says.

Disney Infinity

So a few weeks ago, Disney Infinity hit the shelves. I had a pre-order on the thing, and immediately dropped too much money on it because there were some good sales on its stuff (seriously, the figures and playsets were half off). The expectation of the world was "Disney's Skylanders," but after much playing of the game, I can tell you that it is definitely not Skylanders.

Now, the "buy stuff to play" is totally the Skylanders model that Activision saved its can with a couple years ago, but the game it is attached to is nothing short of genius. I sat down expecting to play a linear, story-driven game that progressed, predictably, through some Disney themed worlds, but instead, I was dropped into an open world where I was free to build and change it however I wished. I dropped on a playset, and while I was initially disappointed that I couldn't bring Sully from Monsters Inc into the Pirates of the Caribbean, I found a very expansive world to play within those playsets.

To clarify the playsets vs. the open world you start with: the base world of Disney Inifinity is whatever you make of it. They have a pre-built world to run around in and collect whatever, but they also have a ton of "toys" to add to it, and you have total control over that initial pre-build as well. Additional toys can be gained by playing the playsets allowing you to add everything that you used or found in the playsets to your overworld (I use the term loosely, since the game actually treats the "toy box" and the "playsets" as mutually exclusive elements that share the "toys").

The playsets that come with the game and that you can purchase are huge. The last two Skylanders games had additional packs with some characters and a special item that gave you an extra level to play. This level usually took about 30 minutes or so to work through, and maybe a little longer if you were really thorough about it. But like most of the Skylanders levels, once you were through it, you were done. The levels are all very linear and story-driven.

Each Disney Infinity playset will take a gamer 4-5 hours to fully complete. They are also open world, meaning that you can freely roam the levels to do side missions for people, play challenges, pick up collectibles that give you more toy box toys to build and play with or work on the storyline. They also had the good sense to package characters with the playset that you can't get individually, so you don't accidentally pick up, say, Lightning McQueen only to find he is also in the playset and end up with two.

The meaning of Infinity, though, comes from that toy box. The princesses got into that and played for hours. Rock girl played on one of the playsets here and there (because it had horses as toys to collect), but primarily played in the toy box just building and creating. I'm pretty much the only one to spend a lot of time in the playsets, though I've had my turn in the toy box as well. In fact, the toy box actually has 4 player support through Xbox Live, and I did play it that way one time.

What did four grown men do one Friday evening on Xbox Live? Why create a row of fans in the toy box and cruise their little cars back and forth to level up after gathering the achievements for playing a 4 player game and stacking four characters on top of each other (it was 4 Jack Sparrows, since you asked). Oh, why did we cruise back and forth over a row of fans? Well, little tip for you, here. Doing car tricks and sticking the landing is worth experience in the game. If you do nothing but tricks over a "bridge" of fans that keep you in the air, you'll gather a ton of experience. Since hitting level 15 with three characters is an achievement, it saves a whole lot of time. The playsets don't give you much in the way of experience for the upper levels. They'll get you to 9 or 10 on a play through, but I played the Monsters University playset for 3 and a half hours with Sully who started and ended on level 13. A few flights back and forth on my fans and ten minutes later, level 15.

My determination on this game? It's incredible. Very fun to play both in the playset and toy box mode, though I would have liked to see a little more freedom to play with any character in the play sets. With a lot of stuff to do in the playsets along with the infinite creative possibilities in the toy box, This game rapidly demonstrated its long-playable value and fun factor in my book. How does it compare to Skylanders? Well, the two only really compare when it comes to the fact that you have to buy the figurines to play the game. Beyond that business model (let's face it; that's what it is), they are very different games to the point of trying to compare Assassin's Creed to Gears of War. They're both third person perspective games, but one is an open world stealth game while the other is a linear, story-driven shooter. That's kind of how Infinity is to Skylanders. One is very open world and encourages free play while the other is very linear and story-driven to get you into the thick of battle ASAP.

What makes a family pick one over the other is where you want to spend all that hard earned cash when it comes to the figures and such since both are very expensive games to play. You can easily spend hundreds to get everything. I suppose it all depends on what you're looking for. I definitely think Infinity will cut into Skylanders' profits this year though, because Infinity isn't just another piece of Disney fluff. It's actually worth playing.

Product Testing

So, occasionally, the Queen participates in testing some new versions of products by companies. I do not recall how she got into this, but these things have cropped up once in a while for a while. I think it has to do with surveys or something, and if you do a certain number, you get points and you get enough points, it's worth some money or something like that. I haven't really paid attention.

Now, with anything related to some big company and their precious stuff comes the obligatory promise that you won't divulge their secret new product to anyone else, including your immediate family. Who are they trying to kid here? I know about trade secrets and confidentiality and such, but the way they approach these products is hilarious. There have been several rather regular, every day things now and again, and since we are in a marriage, she tends to tell me everything. Sorry, guys, the marriage vows take precedence over your corporate secrets. Even women tend to know that their girlfriends will tell the husbands practically everything. The husbands are contractually obligated never to repeat it under penalty of living on the couch.

The most recent product was paper towels. They arrived in an unassuming, plain brown box labeled "top secret." Yes, it actually said top secret on the box. Upon seeing it, I said, "if it were really top secret, then they wouldn't put that on the box." Then, the instructions told her to switch out our paper towels with the ones in the box without telling the family to see if we would notice. We would have to have been really blind or obtuse to miss the switch. There was no way we would mistake these very paper towels with the very cloth-like ones we normally use. I mean, there is nothing wrong with these particular paper towels, but to imply that we're stupid enough to miss that? Seriously.

I dunno. Maybe some people are that thick, and would completely miss the switch. I've seen enough reality TV to know that there are some out there just like that...because everything on reality TV is real. I know it is. I read that on "the internets."

Anyway, that whole scenario is actually pretty much like every other one that has come along though. They want their product substituted for the one we normally use "in secret" so that we can tell her what we think of it objectively. Objectively, most of the time, we would start with, "what happened to the ________?"

It was actually pretty amusing. It was a good-sized box when you consider that you don't get boxes very often in the mail, so everyone was kind of curious about it. It's not exactly subtle. She opened the box, and we all stared at the roll she retrieved and nodded like we were so clever. Hm, paper towels. She read the letter that came with it out loud which detailed what to do and that it was so secret, and then she read to "switch it out without telling your family..." She paused with a chuckle, and said "Oops."

Magic 2013

I believe I've mentioned Games with Gold before, and I've diligently at least purchased every single title (whether I've actually downloaded/played it yet or not). So far, they've been an ok mix of things I've known about and other things I'd not considered, but this month, they've got me.

Stepping into the wayback machine, you may be aware that from 1993-95, I was in the U.S. Army Band as a trombone player (MOS Specialty 02E), and while I was in, I got hooked on a collectible card game called Magic: The Gathering. I played the crap out of this game and spent a ton of money on it. Thing is, Wizards of the Coast wasn't the recipient of most of my money. Instead, it was other players and card shops who got my hard earned cash because I wanted to get the coolest and rarest cards to complete my dream decks. My claim to fame was the ultimate discard deck that took down just about everyone it touched (except that one guy who played protection from black, though he conceded the first round when I made him discard his key card). Ah, those were the days.

Since then, I discarded every Magic card I owned (with the exception of some I placed in a binder as mementos such as a complete set of the Revised (otherwise known as the 3rd) Edition), declaring it far too expensive to play any longer. Time passed, but as time tends to do, old memories fade and sometimes, old friends come back. It worked for Doctor Who when I revisited that old friend a few years back, and now, Magic is back when it came up as a freebie in Games With Gold. I downloaded it and immediately set my completion percentage back 20 achievements (25 with the DLC I'll probably spring for).

The first thing it asked was how much Magic you've played: None, a little, or a lot. Well, I played a lot from 1994-1997, but none since, so I said a little. Overnight, I remembered how to play, learned the new terminology, and picked up 9 achievements. I've been pretty handily stomping the computer, and I'll have to take on those "beat a player on xBox Live" achievements here eventually. I figure I'll beat the campaigns and other "versus the computer" stuff first, and then hit up other players. Should be fun, and I'm kind of excited by the prospect. Since this is a free game to all Gold players, there should also be a ton of people out there playing it.

Where does that leave me on the original card game? Well, back in the day, the game was sold in starter decks of 60 cards and booster packs of 15. "Starter deck" is really a misnomer, since while you can play a game with a starter deck, it would be a royal mess of an attempt since the cards and lands are completely random. I've learned that modern magic is sold in intro decks, which are a complete pre-built decks that are immediately playable and require no real deck-building skill to just start. That was what always got people in the beginning. How do I start? How do I build a deck? Now that I have a zillion cards, what do I do with them?

Deck-building is a skill acquired through trial and error. You throw a bunch of like-minded cards together and hope for the best. When you're playing and find a card you hate staring back at you, you toss it and put in something else. The goal is to get a collection where you always have a card you like in your hand. Wizards of the Coast took care of that first, most difficult, step of the like-minded cards, and from there, it's up to you to change them out to make it your own.

Will I play the card game again? I'm tempted. I figured out while playing this computer version that I went about it the wrong way all those years ago. I obsessed over buying the best cards without playing the game for the fun factor and collecting whatever happened to be in the packs you can buy. Granted, I grabbed my share of random mixes, and oh yes, I bought entire boxes of boosters, but I was going for quantity as well as those precious rares instead of just using what I had on-hand to just play. If I went into playing again, I'd probably grab a couple pre-made decks of new cards, pick up some bulk randoms (Amazon has them in droves - 1000 cards for $20 and that sort of thing), and then set myself a periodic spending limit to not surpass for whatever else I wanted.

Who would I play? Same people I play all my other games with. Got the Princesses, the Queen, and the Engineer at the very least. I have my own CCG that I've been developing, and I know I'll need to take it into the world to show off, so having another game to tote with me to fit in would be useful. This is all musings at present, and I'm just playing the Xbox version for the moment, but the future is out there.

An Xbox Prediction

When I was resurrecting this blog again, I scanned through older posts and I ran across this one from December, 2011 only a week or so before we unwrapped our Xbox 360 for Christmas. In this post, I noted that my father-in-law made the prediction that if we got an Xbox, I would all but stop playing the Wii. Here is the actual outcome of that statement.

As of today, two years later, I actually have all but stopped playing the Wii, but not for the reason that he suggested, which was that once I experienced games on a superior system, I would leave the silly Nintendo behind. In the end, it was less about the games and more about the infrastructure. The Xbox has a massive online infrastructure that allows social gaming along with its massive achievement system. I play multiplayer games with people not in my living room, which was a requirement on the Wii. That is cool. Completed the Gears of War 3 campaign on hardcore recently with a friend of mine (we're presently working on 50 waves of Horde mode), and playing through the Gears franchise with him has allowed us to chat pointlessly more than we ever did face to face.

I've mentioned the introvert bit before, right? On a scale of 1 to 10, I rank an 11.

Beyond that social aspect, it's the achievements that draw me in. When playing on the Wii and every system before that, you play games and as soon as that final boss falls, you're done. There are other games that allow some measure of item collection, and the Lego games actually had a completion percentage, but unless you were just obsessive (which I wasn't really), you normally just called it done when you watched the credits. Just getting through the game was usually enough. There was no incentive to do it again because why? I have a hundred other games right behind you waiting to suck up my valuable time. (That's not an exaggeration.)

But the Xbox is different. Beyond playing just the game, it gives specific achievements that you gather while playing and specific tasks to complete as part of the game. The achievements drew me in to the point that I have even replayed some games I finished on the Wii just to get the Gamerscore (again, Legos). Yes, the graphics are exceptional, but I play games for the games, not for the graphics, and that extra layer of challenge is really something. Once I get that 100%, I find playing the games with others very enjoyable (such as Uno Rush), and achieving that 100% makes you actually quite skilled at the game (I'm a rather formidable opponent on Uno Rush).

So did his prediction come true? Sort of. If there were a FPS on the Wii and Xbox, which would I go with? Hard to say, to be honest, since I'm not a huge fan of that game genre. My stats show an overabundance of Action-Adventure games, actually, which are the type of games best played with a regular old controller anyway. The shooter games I have for the Xbox aren't available on the Wii. At this point in history, however, I would probably get the Xbox version, both for the achievements, and (I do have to admit) the superior graphics, since 3x the resolution really adds a lot to the games. (I tried to play the new Tomb Raider game via RCA cables instead of the HD I'm used to, and the menus were nearly unreadable at the lower resolution.)

I will also note that for the first year after getting the Xbox, I regularly switched between it and the Wii, playing both systems. I had a lot of games to complete. The real switch to just the Xbox happened when I requested the next Lego game (I think it was Lego Batman 2) for the Xbox instead of the Wii. I don't know that I've played a Wii game this year at all.

So a lot changes in two years. That was to be expected. The Wii is actually on its way out completely, having been supplanted with the Wii U, and I don't see myself getting that system unless they really blow me away with a game that I must have. The Kinect on the 360 is serving the interactive purpose at this point, and it does a great job. The next gen of Xbox has an even more improved Kinect right down to detecting your heart rate, so that's a tough act to follow. I suspect Nintendo has its work cut out for them in not only that department, but also in the social aspect. I've not heard of Wii achievements or equivalent yet. The PlayStation Network has a trophy system, which is just like the Xbox achievements, but I believe the Wii is still isolated (correct me if I'm wrong).

But this will change someday as well. After all, I played the 8-bit Nintendo once, and then moved to the SNES. Picked up a Nintendo 64, then a Gamecube, then a Wii, and in each change, the new system supplanted the old after a time. Someday, I'll get a system from the next generation, and the 360 will fade into the shadows (but probably less so due to the achievement system that does carryover over to the next Xbox as your Live Gamertag lives on).

Time is a cruel master, but as the new replaces the old, we must always try to keep up with the changes.

Polyglot

Most people I know go through life speaking one language. English, obviously. Nothing nationalist about it. I'm writing this in English, so it would stand to reason that most of the people I know also speak English. No need to make a fuss about it.

As for me, maybe it's because I'm a writer and language is my thing, but I always wanted to speak more than one language. Someone who speaks two languages is bilingual. Three languages, I guess, would be triligual, but you get up past that, and you have maybe polylingual, if you want to describe them, but the term for a person who speaks multiple languages with fluency is polyglot. It sounds weird, but it would be awesome to speak so many languages. To be able to go about anywhere in the world and be able to communicate with the locals.

I suspect, however, that I've gone about it totally the wrong since to date I can still only really speak English. I've worked on Spanish, mind you. Been studying Spanish for years and years, but if you play a movie in Spanish, I can still only understand a small piece of it. But do I stop there? No sir. I try to learn French, Italian, German, Russian, Japanese, and how do I do?

Well, not very well, to be honest. I get part way through one and get distracted. I work on Spanish and try for another one on the side as well, and yet, I get stuck. My main problem? Well, I think it's because I'm learning in a vacuum with no one to speak with and no reason to actually learn the language. I'm not taking any trips, nor do I have an actual reason to learn any of them.

I think this whole post is completely derailed. I was going down a path that I thought was good, but I've devolved into complaining. Sucks really. Oh well, if I got you to read this far, then I did something right. Ha.

Now if you'll forgive me, I see something shiny that must be chased.