I have written about several different video game achievements in the past, but this one has got to take the cake. First there was the friendly competition where I and my friends tracked our gamer scores to see who was the better gamer. Localflake and I kept pace for a while, but consistently I found myself chasing him. Next there was the Old Spice Challenge where localflake and I tried to get 1500 achievement points in two months. Recently, localflake and I were both in striking distance to breaking the 10K overall gamerscore. There was some gentle ribbing at work to see who was going to get there first. Alas, the crown went to localflake. At three in the afternoon while I was working, I got a text message from him declaring victory.

What was I to do? Clearly I was in for a serious crow eating the next day when he came into the office. How could I ever recover? Well, it was bladnman who came up with the solution. He off handily said, “Wouldn’t it be funny if he came in tomorrow and you not only broke the 10K score too, but beat his score?”. Yes, that would be funny, but was it possible? Checking our ranking I was 961 points below localflake. That meant that in order to accomplish this task I would have to get every achievement in a game in a single night of play. I let this thought bounce around in my brain as I drove home. Having recently struggled to get 1500 points in two months, this idea felt like it might be a bit overzealous. Oh, but the bragging rights I would earn would be impressive.

So, at 8:00 pm that night I found myself in front of my game deck with a newly purchased copy of “TMNT”. A newly released platform game based on the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle movie that was dogged by the reviewers as a game that would appeal to no one but barfed achievements quickly. Two cans of soda and 7 hours later my thumb hurt like hell but I was victorious. I have completed the game from beginning to end and found all of the achievements in the game. Exhausted, I crawled into bed for my three hours of sleep before work. Oh, but it was so worth it. My 39 point lead was meager at best, but it was still ‘the lead’.

As for the game that “would appeal to no one” … it wasn’t half bad. I sure had a fun time with it. Granted it was a short play and it was pretty easy. But it was fun. Sometimes it’s not about the cool graphics, new features or cutting edge game play. Sometimes fun is just what it is all about. I’m so glad I had a ‘reason’ to pick this game up despite what the reviewers thought. This was a fun game.

You should buy products made by Old Spice! I personally don’t, but right now I’m pretty happy with their marketing department … so you should. Old spice is the first corporation to sponsor an Xbox 360 gamer contest. The Old Spice Experience Challenge started on February 12th and will run through April 22nd. During this time, you are challenged to raise your gamerscore on Xbox Live by 1500 points.

I got a bit of a late start on the contests myself. I and Brian Thornbery decided to register for the contest on February 19th, 2007. Since then we have been plotting, planning and competing to make sure we were making enough progress on the contest to make sure we would make it. I am happy to report that after only 20 days I have completed the contest.

So, what does 1500 points really mean? Well, each game has 1000 possible achievement points so technically it’s only a game and a half. However, things in life are rarely that clear. Many games do not have 1000 points that are reasonable. Not being an online gamer, many of the points available I just simply do not try for because I’m not interested in the online aspect. That leaves maybe 300 to 400 points per game if I’m willing to slog through the whole thing. So, now we are talking about 4 games in two months. Between my job and family four games is really quite a challenge.

Cars
The first game I knocked out was Cars. It is a video game based on the movie by the same name. This game had a few nice aspects. First of all, it was interesting to Emily. This allowed me to play while Emily was awake because she was interested in the game too. The other nice aspect was that there was no online aspect to the game so the full 1000 points were available to me. Last, this game was not only fun but easy too. This game really helped me front load my attack on this contest.

Xbox Live Arcade Games (Uno, Crystal Quest, and Geometry Wars)
I attacked a few arcade games as well. Xbox Live Arcade is a bunch of very small cheap games that you can quickly pickup and play when you don’t have a full hour to kill. While these shorter games only have 250 achievements each, they are still fun to play. I used these games to fill in some time while dinner was cooking. I was able to squeeze out an extra 170 points using the Arcade Games. I’m particularly proud of my 20 points worth of achievements I got out of Geometry Wars. This game is like asteroids on speed, crank and steroids all at the same time. I’m fascinated by this game and I can honestly say that I’m terrible at it. I’m very happy that I have finally started making progress on this game.

Lost Planet
This was the big hitter for the contest. I bought this game new just for the contest and basically zapped out of it a total of 450 points. This was a pretty good game. It was a first person shooter where you were on this snow planet. You had to slog your way through snow pirates and super huge monsters called the Akrid (Super giant bug like creatures). It had a good enough science fiction story to go along with it and I just loved battling monsters that were so huge that they took up the whole screen. It was like a wonderful throw back to the glory days of gaming that I really appreciated.

Oblivion
All that was left when I was done was about 35 points. I dusted off my copy of Oblivion which is an immense RPG (Roll Playing Game) that I still have not finished after an easy 200 hours of play. I finished up the Arena quest and became the “Grand Champion” of city to finish off my challenge.

So, what did I get for all this trouble? Well, I got lots of gaming in which is what it is all about in the end. The contest officially ends on the 22nd of April and at that time I will be awarded my prises on a first come first serve basis. For sure I got an Xbox Live Arcade game called Contra. If I was one of the first 6000 people to finish, which I might be, I will get 100 Microsoft Game credits I can spend as cash online for other Xbox Live Arcade games. I also got a nifty little badge I can display on my gamer card to show the world that I finished the contest. Oh, and I also have bragging rights every day at work with Thornbery until he completes the challenge!

I love to play video games. Back around July of this year I managed to finally land myself a shiny new Xbox 360 game console. One of the new features the console offered was the concept of a gaming card. As you play the 360 the games you have played, when you played them and how well you did gets recorded and shared via your gaming card. All game developers are required to provide 1000 collectable points in every game release. These points, or achievements as they are called, allow you to grow your overall gamer score. My gamer card can be seen above. My gamer tag is ’sutibo42′ and it’s sporting an avatar that is as close to an alien as I could find. At the time of this writing my score is 3669. The bottom row on my card shows you the last five games I have been playing. You can click on the card to get more information if you would like.

What Microsoft has done with this concept is to build a community of gamers. When I play online, I can quickly look at another players card, see how high their score is and what games they have been playing. Another side effect is that I can compare my card to my friends cards. This was used for a while as a badge of how cool of a gamer I was among my friends. However, now that my friends have all gotten tired of my gloating, they have been trying to retaliate.

Sometime last week, while I was unavailable, my friends Matt (BladnMan) and Brian (localflake) got together and decided that the three of us should be in a competition to see who was the best gamer. It was ironic that they would decide this because after my 4892 mile month my score was way on the bottom of the three of us. The contest goes like this. Microsoft has different “Zones” that a gamer can join. A zone will tell other gamers what type of gamer they think they are. The three zones in question for this contest is ‘Professional’, ‘Recreational’ and ‘Family’. The deal is, everyone will adjust their zone based on their rank between the three of us. If you are in first place you will be respected in the community with the zone of “Pro”. If you are in second place, you will be allowed to have the zone of “Recreation” for all to see. If you are in last place, you must have the zone of “Family”. I wrote this quick little application that will help us keep track of our current score.

Needless to say, this past week has been about gaming for me. I have been spending my free time playing Prey and Condemned when the kids are sleeping. I have been playing Open Season with Emily when she has been in a gaming mood as well. It has been a long time since I have allowed myself to be a true gamer and just play and play. It has been really fun and relaxing. This is just what I needed after this past month of intense work.