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I have gotten quite a few people stumbling across my blog looking for some achievement tips for PGR4.  Honestly, this is a bit comical because I am relatively horrible at racing games but I figured why not post some of the ones that I have unlocked (and some of them are those you people are searching for)

 ”You Won’t Believe Your Eyes!”

To obtain this achievement you simply have to buy the 3D filter (its in the shop with all the things you can buy with your kudos and if i recall runs about 30,000 kudos.  Simply take a photo, and apply the filter (which I believe you access filters and manipulations by hitting the “X” button after the image has been snapped).  I did this first on a motorcycle, and it didn’t work - which is a bit strange if you ask me, but it seems to require a car to unlock the achievement.

“Bibendum”

Even more simple then the above achievement.  You just have to unlock the test track mode by getting to “professional” rank in the story mode.  From there simply play all 3 test tracks, complete the race, and get the achievement

there are a number of others that I have unlocked, but they are for the most part self explainitory, below are some that people have connected to my blog looking for, but I also have not unlocked them yet.

“Hero” - Become a National Champion in Single Player Career mode.

By the description I would guess this will unlock as you further your career path in PGR4

Rubbin’ is Racin’ - Knock off the wing mirrors on all of your opponents’ vehicles in a Single Player Street Race event.

again the description is self explanitory yet it has to be rather difficult to wack the mirrors off EVERYONE you are racing against - I would assume a fast car, with excellent handling would be a must.

good luck achievement hunters, and feel free to leave tips in comments, I need them as much as you do!

That’s right boys and girls Gears of War PC has been officially announced as gold, and on schedule for the November 6th release date.  It isn’t going the route of shadowrun and having cross platform play, but its got me really interested.  The game is a LIVE game, so a new group of achievements are ready for you to unlock - but more importantly the PC release will contain ”all of the content from its Xbox 360 counterpart and all previously released downloadable content (seven multiplayer maps and the Annex game mode)” but also five new campaign chapters, exclusive multiplayer maps, a king of the hill gametype, and you will be able to create your own maps.  All for MSRP of $49.99 (the xbox360 game still goes for $54.95 used without any of the DLC!)

Guaranteed to make console gamers envious.

Official Release to follow Continue reading »

I happened to have loved the original Viva Pinata game no matter how many stories I read about its somewhat pathetic sales.  My wife actually questioned me a couple times when I asked for the original Viva Pinata for christmas, but I definately got my moneys worth out of it.  Playing a total of over 2 full days, which includes playing it AFTER obtaining all achievements.  So I have pretty high hopes for the upcoming new release of Party animals.  Some official speak to follow for those of you that don’t know what the game is all about, and a sneak peak at the achievements

Continue reading »

Well about 5:30 PM EST today it seems that the Game Title for Shadowrun changed from “Shadowrun” to “Shadowrun EPD Service”.  When viewing your Achievement summary and on your gamercard the game still displays as “Shadowrun” but when viewing the actual achievment list for the game - or your online status it will say you are playing “Shadowrun EPD Service”.  So why the random title change, and why now, or is it just some random thing that went wrong?

Edit 09/13/07: well this morning its back to normal, so it seems like it was just a small blip I guess.

I am not one to hunt this kind of stuff down - but this pretty much fell right in my lap.  To my suprise neither of the 2 major achievement sites seem to have these listed yet either.

Just read this on gamerscoreblog:

Gamers, Ready Your Weapons. Stop. New “Gears of War”

Multiplayer Achievements Added. Stop. End transmission.

http://gamerscoreblog.com/team/archive/2007/06/13/GOWGS.aspx

I just checked the achievement list and they aren’t actually available yet….

Update  12:14 PM:  Just got the official word on this one, posted below.

Thursday, June 14, at 2 a.m. GMT, the stakes get even higher as “Gears of War®”, rated M for Mature, releases eight new Achievements for the “Annex” gametype and the “Hidden Fronts” Multiplayer Map Pack on Xbox LIVE®.

In addition to adding new Achievements, worth a total of 250 points, “Gears of War” developer Epic has improved the Roadie Run controls so players have greater control of their movement and can better annihilate their pestilent enemies. The title update will also help squash multiplayer exploits and provide general housekeeping.

For more details visit http://gearsofwar.com/news/

For those who have yet to man up and join the battle, the “Annex” gametype is now available for free and the “Hidden Fronts” Multiplayer Map Pack is available on Xbox LIVE® Marketplace for 800 Microsoft Points. All four multiplayer maps will be made available at no cost over Xbox LIVE® on Sept. 3, 2007.

So with the recent change in Microsoft’s policy allowing for a retail game to have a total of 1,250 points (1,000 to start, 250 available as an add on via downloadable content), I start to wonder if this is just to get more of you achievement junkies to pay for downloadable content that you might not have purchased previously.

Two games come to mind when I think about this topic. Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, and Marvel: Ultimate Alliance. Let’s start with Oblivion first. For about $30.00, and is supposed to give you about 30 hours worth of new content in the game, and of course an additional 250 points of gamerscore. Not to bad of a value I suppose, considering its comparable to an entire expansion pack (which is how its selling on other systems).

But now we look at Marvel: Ultimate Alliance. In a few days there are 2 downloadable contents coming (or you can buy them both for a special rate). Let’s go with the special rate which calculates out to about $8.00. With this you get 4 new playable characters (4 of which are villians), and the ability to unlock another 250 gamerscore points. There is no new game content (except some dialog changes based on using these new characters). I do like the ability to add to my list of super heroes, but I am somewhat reserved in purchasing it simply because there is nothing new added to the game except a new character model - and I would be willing to bet that the sales of this content would be lower if they didnt include the upgrade in gamerscore, because there are plenty of people out there, which will spend the $8.00 just to get another 250 points.

Thoughts?

Play and Win Shooter / Gears of War

Well I finally got an achievement last night during my Gears of War session last night. It was one of the pretty simple achievements - Mix it Up - where you just need to be on the winning team of the 3 different game types. It was also brought to my attention that even though I thought I was going to get a 100 kills with a [insert weapon here] achievement, that there is not one for shotgun kills - which was what most all my achievements were based on, and the one I assumed was going to rack me another achievement, so that wasn’t very wise of me I would say. Thanks to Antediluvia for bringing this to light. This concludes the dates that you can recieve an entry in the Play & Win Shooter Contest, and I believe I should get an entry for each of the 3 days . . . winning is a long shot - but it doesn’t hurt to try (and those prizes are pretty smooth).

Shadowrun Beta

I recently recieved my beta invitation to Shadowrun, but haven’t dedicated a ton of time to it as of yet. Of course in the invitation the NDA was restated that not much else can be said except “Yes, I am playing the beta”. So until the NDA is lifted dont expect to hear a ton more about that. You can keep track of my play time on the game in my Live Eye Profile as you can see at the moment I have only played about an hour or so. Over at 360friendspot we have about 62 current live eye members in the beta and being tracked by our tool, you can see an overview of those users at the Shadow Run Beta Profile Page

360Friendspot / LiveEye

Speaking of 360friendspot and The Live Eye, last night I spent a good amount of time updating some queries after seeing a bunch of sleeping records in the SQL Activity Monitor. This was a hope that what might be causing the slowness or hanging of the site was related to SQL table locks - since I was definately getting time out errors and transactions were hanging out here sleeping. If that resolves, or at least partially resolves the performance issues - I am going to be extremely pleased, but also upset that I didnt find it sooner. I am sure there are more things to optimize - but maybe I am at least going in the right direction at this point.

Crackdown All Nighter, and Rumors

Finally - Happy St Patricks day, and look for an update from my all nighter activities at a later date. Achievements and random video goodness will most likely come of it. There is A rumor posted in my comments about this all nighter being a time that they release some new content or the final 100 points - no clue what that user based it on - but I am all for it!

I added a new video to my youtube collection. This one was taken directly from the xbox with a capture device i had - the only catch is you have to play in non-HD. But its alot easier than stacking up a pile of books, setting my camera on it and then pointing it towards my televison screen. I just have to figure out why the sound didnt come through….

So I was doing my morning web browse for various information and realized I haven’t posted much lately. With the upcoming Crackdown all nighter, I think I might add collecting all 300 hidden orbs to my list of tasks I want to have completed that night (in addition to all the screwing around making videos that I am sure will happen)

These were not created or provided by me, but I figured it would be worth linking to them

Map of all Hidden orb locations and images of all hidden orbs

source: xboxfanboy