Achievements and trophies are like the doors of a Christmas advent calendar. You
open them up as you progress towards your ultimate goal, the end of the game,
that double door on the 24th with the big chocolate behind it.
Here, for your viewing pleasure, is a visual journey through the trophies and achievements for the games that I’ve completed
thus far. These are what have been behind the double doors in my own year-long
advent calendar:
1: Bulletstorm
2: Rage
3: Battlefield 3
4: Metal Gear Solid
As Metal Gear Solid has no trophy support here's a reminder of my terrible rating.
5: Assassin’s Creed: Revelations
6: Little Big Planet
7: Aliens Vs Predator
8: LA Noire
9: Driver: San Francisco
10: Dead Space 2
11: FIFA 12
As I didn't 'finish' the game, just played a season, there was of course no trophy stating that the game had been completed. So here's a picture of the virtual me that I created to use in the game.
12: Mass Effect 3
13:Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty
14: God of War
15: Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater
16: SOCOM 4
17: Medal of Honor
Unfortunately I've been a bit too busy enjoying Christmas to get on with the task at hand, so nothing's been completed lately. Hopefully I'll get back on track once the silly season is over.
Many people moaned about the ending of Mass Effect 3, enough people that
I don’t feel the need to chime in with my take on whether it’s good, bad, or
the worst thing to happen to gaming since whatever it was those people were
moaning about the week before Mass Effect 3 came out.
I didn’t really care. I knew that the game wasn’t going to have a
complex branching system that contained dozens of possible endings, like in
Heavy Rain. It seemed obvious that there’d be slight variations in the endings
based upon who lived, who died, and what colour jumper you had Commander
Shepherd wearing when you started the last mission. I cared about whether I had
fun playing the game itself. So I jumped in and thoroughly enjoyed immersing
myself in the game, soaking up the fantastic worlds, characters, music, and
atmosphere. It was truly about the journey and not the destination for me.
What I loved most about Mass Effect 3 was that it felt like the video
game version of the last few seasons of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine when the entire
Alpha Quadrant was at war with the invading Dominion. The first two Mass Effect
games had set the scene, introduced us to the species and shady organisations
that populated the universe, outlined threats, and shaped alliances. The third
game then threw the galaxy into all out war and the work done in the first
couple of games meant that I was fully invested in this rich and detailed
experience.
As a Londoner I also loved that the last big fight to save the galaxy
took place in my home town. I was even amused to see the famous red phone boxes
amongst the ruined remains of my old stomping ground, which is normally that
sort of thing really annoys me no end. Yes, that’s right Americans, red phone
boxes are on every corner, we all drive minis with union jacks on the roof, we
all have butlers, and eat nothing but fish and chips and crumpets. It’s like a
Hugh Grant movie come to life!
Still, all wanky stereotyping aside, I was glad that the major Earth city
being destroyed wasn’t New York, the go-to destination in movies and games for
famous landmark destruction and devastation. It made for a nice change.
I was also pleasantly surprised to see one of my favourite London
landmarks pop up in the racing game Dirt3 that I've been making a dent in. Dirt3 has a practice/stunt section at Battersea Power
Station, a location made world-famous in that made-for-TV MacGyver movie in the mid-90s, where it doubled as a defunct Soviet Nuclear power plant. It’s
a fantastic, iconic building that was designed by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott, who was
also responsible for the famous red phone boxes coincidentally enough.
Last time I was back in London I bought a mug that has Battersea Power
station on it. Look, here’s a picture:
Anyway, when I purchased Dirt3 it was on a whim. I was looking for a
rally game that would capture the great times I had playing games like V-Rally
back in the late 90s and early 2000s.
Unfortunately this is not what I got. Dirt3 has several big problems.
The first is that for every one minute you spend playing the game, you spend
another three in loading screens. You do a 90 second rally section, then
there’s a three-minute loading screen. You then pick your next activity to
race, and once again there’s two or three minutes of menus, loading, and
general thumb twiddling. To make things worse the loading screens are
accompanied by some terrible music, a whole heap of autotune, chart
music drivel, the sort you used to see featured on those mobile phone ringtone
ads on TV.
Then, to add insult to injury they have decided to assault your ears
some more by having three complete dickheads ‘narrate’ your rise to racing
stardom, giving you tips and updates over the lengthy loading screens for the entire game with no way to turn them
off! But at least they’ve got a nice mix of nationalities to piss off everyone
and keep shitty international stereotypes chugging along nicely.
First off you have the posh English girl, a typical Sloane Ranger who
has an undercurrent to her voice that says, “I’m prim and proper, but I’d love
a good rogering.” She updates you on the various racing teams’ interest in your
particular skills, but her lame congratulations seem forced and oddly
condescending.
Next up there’s a nasal Aussie who is supposed to give you car and
course advice, and who can only be described as being a totally useless turd.
Honestly, the guy once told me before a race that ‘being the fastest driver is a
good strategy for success’, without even a hint of irony. I’m just shocked he
hasn’t said ‘Crikey!’ yet. Well, give it time, I suppose.
Then comes the biggest twat of them all, the Yank college jock arsehole
who spouts utter nonsense about how everything is ‘Sick, Broseph!’ ‘Rad to the
max!’ and so on, before chugging another shit American lite beer, chanting
‘show your tits’ to a bunch of underage spring break girls, and then stumbling
off to dabble in some date rape.
If your ears can stand this unholy triumvirate of fucktards and their
awful background music, and if you have the patience to partake in more loading
screens than actual gaming, then surprisingly enough there’s actually a fun
little racer to be found here. It’s just a shame you have to wait at the endless
traffic light loading screens, put your brain into reverse, and then navigate
the chicanes of ear-bleeding douchebaggery to find out what it actually has
under the hood.
Oh, I almost forgot, this game even has a ‘Cheat Button’. If you crash you
can actually press a button that rewinds the action five seconds, and then you
can try not to smash into that house at the side of the road this time. Not
only that, but you can do this five times in each event! Seeing as most events
are only 60-90 seconds long you pretty much can’t fail.
So if you like your games to feature annoying Lady Gaga style music over
loading screens that never end, obnoxious dickheads gabbing at you the whole
time, and consequence free racing, then this is the game for you.
I’ve done about a third of it so far, and I can tell you I’m pretty sure
it might not be for me.
Since I embarked upon this endeavour I’ve only
completed games that I had previously started, and it was a good way to begin,
as I needed to make a sizeable dent in that monstrous pile. That strategy has
paid off as I’m now well into the pile without feeling too overwhelmed about
what’s ahead.
When I came to tackle the sci-fi horror Dead Space 2 I
was looking at starting a game completely fresh, right from the beginning. I
wanted to play through it in a really short space of time, and so I attacked it
with the intention of blasting through it within a week. It was the complete
opposite to the way I’ve been playing my games over the last few years. If you
can call leaving them to fester on the shelf ‘playing them’, that is.
It was fantastic to play a game that I hadn’t started
months or even years ago. I hadn’t forgotten important characters or major plot
points. I wasn’t struggling to remember the controls. I was able to fully digest
the game in several big chunks in a short space of time, and it was a refreshing
experience.
Of course, it helped that Dead Space 2 is a fun, exciting game with
locations and set pieces inspired by Aliens, Event Horizon, and Return of the
Jedi. I tore through it and had a blast.
When I’d finished it I looked at Alan Wake, the next game I’d set for my "Horror Month", but I just couldn’t bring myself to play it. I’ve developed some
sort of mental block against it. It’s not a bad game, I just can’t be arsed to
trudge through it all again after completing so much of it and then losing all
the save data in the ‘Great 360 Hard Drive Disaster of 2011’. Not yet anyway.
I needed a change, something I could jump in and out of, so I opted for
Driver: San Francisco. It was great to play a racing game that tried something
so completely different. The premise that your character is in a coma and driving
around a dream world San Francisco in his mind, while possessing the ability to
float above the city, jumping into any vehicle he chooses, must have raised a
few eyebrows when first pitched, but I’m glad someone had the balls to go with
it as I thoroughly enjoyed it from beginning to end. I finished the story
elements yesterday, and I find myself struggling not to put the disc back in
right now and complete all the race, stunt, and dare challenges that I’ve yet
to do.
But I must soldier on, and I decided to start a game I’ve been aching to
play, a franchise that I love that was also a victim of the ‘G3HDDof2011’, Mass
Effect 3. It was heartbreaking to lose my Mass Effect saves that I’d carried
over since starting the trilogy in 2007. All my choices, hard made decisions,
sacrifices and victories, gone.
Oh well, whatever, nevermind, within half an hour of starting it up I
could see that it never really mattered anyway, and I was so swept up in the
thrill and majesty of the Mass Effect universe that I didn’t care. Good God, I
love this game.
So with the completion of Dead Space 2 And Driver: San Francisco that
brings the number of completed games to 10. I’m 20% of the way through. I’ll be
very happy to keep up this pace, but I’m more than aware that there are a lot
of games left that I haven’t even started, and there are also a lot of long,
time consuming games in there too.
