New Goal

  So, I figured out what my next achievement goal is gonna be.  23,000.  Why?  Because that's how old I am!  Not 23,000...I'm 23.  Didn't really make that clear...  Anyways, I figure it's a decent jump, that's like completing three whole retail games so it will take some time.  But it also won't take me like a year to complete.  So it should take some time and effort but not be too challenging.  Well, I'm off to borrow some games so I can get to work on my achieving.

Upcoming Awesomes

  As some of you may know, I am dating hot gamer girl, blogger, and unique plants and gifts shop owner, Ashley Rae. You should check out her blog (click her name to get there) if you wanna know about the things she sells in her store or wanna learn how to do some pretty interesting stuff.  Such as making homemade vanilla extract!
  Both Ashley and I have many interests and want to do so many things its hard to have time to do most of them.  For example, I wanna play video games all the time, watch movies/tv shows, read, I want to play live music with my band, write a novel/novels, and write/film/act in a movie.  That's just the stuff  I want to do right now.  It seems like every couple of years I get a new interest.  It's hard to find time to do all that stuff.
  One of the things that has recently become an interest of mine is creating regularly released online videos.  Kind of like the guys (and girls) at Roosterteeth do.  They produce shorts, comics, achievement hunter videos, and, of course, the popular Halo-based web series: Red vs Blue.  Luckily, Ashley is also interested in producing online content of this caliber.  We've done some light planning recently and I think we have enough ideas to start some pre-production on some videos.
  Some of our ideas are: Gamer Girl: From Casual to Hardcore! and Real Life Achievements.  Gamer Girl is gonna be a series about Ashley's gaming.  She is a casual gamer and I plan on showing her what it's like to be a hardcore gamer and possibly training her to become one.  Real Life Achievements is not necessarily a new concept.  I have seen numerous videos spoofing the xbox 360 achievements.  However, our videos aren't going to be a spoof.  We are actually going to be achieving things in real life.  We will decide achievements for each other and film us doing them.  The achievements will range from things what will be hard to do to things we really don't want to do.
  So, hopefully within the next few months we will have some interesting videos being released.  I will keep you updated as we make progress towards this goal.  Make sure to check back regularly!

Fighting Games: Story?

  I have always loved fighting games.  Some of my earliest gaming memories are playing Mortal Kombat on Sega with my brother.  One of the great things about a fighting game is the wealth of characters.  Most fighting games do a great job of keeping these characters very different with very different stories.  There's so much possibility for rich narrative.  Unfortunately, the "story" is most fighting games barely exists.  Normally a short scene at the start of the game or a blurb in the manual tell the basic story which barely explains anything at all.  Then after fighting through, usually, a very hard arcade mode you get a couple of lines of text related to the character you just worked so hard to beat it with.  And sometimes we get a very short video that last just long enough to almost tell you something.  I will never understand why game developers put so much time and effort into the appearance of the characters and what seems like very little time on the stories of each character.
  However, it seems Ed Boon has noticed this.  The new Mortal Kombat actually has a story mode.  Like a real story mode.  It's just wandering from fight to fight as it goes through an alternate story of, I believe, the first three MK games.  But it has cinematics and an actual story putting it far ahead other fighting games on the market right now.  I hope other developers take notice of this and try to include similar features in their games.  I would love to see Mortal Kombat take this even further in the future, like being able to choose the character you play or even which side you are on.  It would be great to play as Liu Kang or Johnny Cage helping Earthrelm, or Reptile assassinating for Shang Tsung, or even Scorpion, being lead by Quan Chi in his own schemes.  As much as I want to save Earthrelm, it would be awesome to see the other sides of the story.
  I'm sure story isn't the biggest worry for fighting game developers.  They gotta worry about playability and for some reason, new characters.  I would rather have the story develop more for the characters that have been around than learning to care about a bunch of new people with each game.  But I'm crossing my fingers that more fighting games will follow Mortal Kombat in this new territory.  Soul Calibur V is on its way and Project Soul seems like they are trying to bring some new things to their formula.  Hopefully in the near future we will have some fighting games with stories!

No Turning Back!

  I did it!  I finally hit 20,000 gamerscore!  I was trying to hit it right on the button but I accidentally got an achievement while playing Soul Calibur IV that put me at 5 over.
  So where do I go from here?  Well, I'm still addicted to the sound it makes whenever I get an achievement, so maybe setting a new goal?  Unfortunately, I don't have the time or money to go for a high gamerscore like 50k or even the impressive 100k.  I guess for now I will keep trying to get achievements for the games I do have and see how high I can get my gamerscore.  Maybe try to 100% percent some games.

Gamerscore

  Lately I've been on a gamerscore kick.  Gamerscore was something I never really cared about and it drove me crazy when people would talk about the size of their gamerscore like it meant anything more than they had a lot of games.  Thanks to my addiction to anything Roosterteeth, I've been listening to all the Achievement Hunter videos simply to hear more from Jack and Geoff.  Over time it made me wanna play games and scour the hidden areas and collectables to get the achievements connected to them.  After hearing the pleasant tone associated with earning a new achievement repeatedly, I began to crave it.  In my gamerscore frenzy I've returned old games from their dusty homes to the warmth of my 360 disctray to search out all the achievements I've missed.  I've even been trying to 100% Kung Fu Panda.  If that doesn't scream intervention...  Well, I am now on the verge of 20,000 gamerscore.  150 points away to be exact.  Once I hit 20k, I become one of "those" guys.  A hardcore gamer.  I guess there's nothing I can do but embrace it.  See you on the other side.